Place Yer Bets

So what are the chances that the border will REALLY reopen?
Personally, I think the odds are maybe 1 out of 3.
First, how likely is it that the 9th circut appeal court will want to be labelled as causing quintessential irreparable harm to Americans by allowing Canadian cattle across the border?
And second, even if the appeal court overturns this injunction, R-CALF isn't going to go away. The documents posted on their website appear to be preparing the ground to argue for a new injunction based on Canada's supposed non-compliance with some new BSE guidelines from the World Organization for Animal Health.
This Washington Post article explains the USDA's official position: Snow Expects U.S. to Allow Canadian Beef: "Both governments agree that enough safeguards are in place to resume trade. U.S. government officials expect to overturn a lower court ruling that has delayed its plans to reopen the U.S.-Canadian border to live Canadian cattle. Snow said the four-month-old court injunction preventing the border from reopening was 'ill considered' and not based on scientific facts."
But even with the recent BSE case in Texas, R-CALF argues to maintain the border closure. Their press release says: “The BSE safeguards already in place here in the U.S. are more stringent than measures any other country has ever implemented prior to having a case of BSE, including Canada,” said McDonnell. “Yet, USDA continues to seek to lower our import standards by writing a Final Rule that would allow cattle and additional beef products into the U.S. from Canada, a country that doesn’t meet the minimum internationally accepted standards for BSE prevention and control.” And R-CALF is lining up a batch of scientists to bolster their case for requiring that Canada meet an impossible standard -- to demonstrate that the future risk of BSE in our cattle is essentially zero -- before our cattle ever be allowed across the border again.
UPDATE -- And indeed, this Globe article reports that in addition to the appeal court hearing next week, R-CALF has schedule another Montana hearing for July 27 with the same Judge Cebull (a 2001 Bush appointee, by the way) who gave the last injunction.
Goodale is quoted in the Globe article as saying “We believe that with the most recent developments in the United States, the rationale behind the judgment of Judge Cebull has absolutely evaporated — there is no justification for that position.” That's gonna piss him off real good!
And the Conservative Party has been granted amicus standing and will submit a brief to this hearing, though the Canadian government was apparently refused intervenor status by Cebull. Do a good job, guys!

This will be the way that I die

Via Windmills on the Hillcomes this useful How Will You Die? quiz -- not exactly fun, but interesting all the same.
Here are my results:

You scored as Bomb. Your death will be by bombing. You will probably be an innocent bystander, not doing anything wrong and not a person who was targeted at, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bomb 80% Natural Causes 80% Disease 73% Posion 67% Stabbed 53% Gunshot 47% Suicide 40% Accident 33% Eaten 33% Suffocated 33% Disappear 20% Cut Throat 7% Drowning 0% How Will You Die?? created with QuizFarm.com

And check out the other quizzes on the site.

Commando porn

Gilliard and Wolcott and Atrios and Kevin and Digby all notice how some media and blogger chickenhawks are gleefully indulging themselves in another round of macho terrorism tough talk.
Gilliard refers to all the TV shots of machine-gun-toting security guards in American subways as "Security Theatre", while Wolcott writes about "this scare talk complemented with commando porn images of security patrols packing enough firepower to retake Stalingrad. What are those weapons for? It's not as if terrorists engage in running gun battles in the West. They plant explosives, and once those explosives go off, guys standing around with machine guns . . . don't make a whole lot of difference."
And as usual, Digby gets to the heart of it.
He describes how people were seduced by the drama of 911:

9/11 was a very dramatic act of terrorism, a made for TV spectacle that horrifed and riveted the world for days. Many of these people threw themselves into the fantasy that this "war on terrorism" was the gravest threat the world has ever known (MAD be damned) and that they were somehow at the center of this conflict, destined to be heroes of the age. There were even those who said overtly that the greatest generation were a bunch of free-loading socialists compared to the freedom fighting liberators of today . . . I can understand the excitement of the twenty somethings like Pat Tilman who joined up after 9/11, driven by a strong desire to test his mettle and physical courage. (Hell, that was the reason Oliver Stone joined up in Vietnam, Kerry too --- it has little to do with politics.) Young men being excited about war is nothing new . . .

But the chickenhawk problem is that they were and are too cowardly to actually fight. And this makes it impossible to ever win.

We are dealing with a group of right wing glory seekers who chose long ago to eschew putting themselves on the line in favor of tough talk and empty posturing --- the Vietnam chickenhawks and their recently hatched offspring of the new Global War On Terrorism. These are men (mostly) driven by the desire to prove their manhood but who refuse to actually test their physical courage. Neither are they able to prove their virility as they are held hostage by prudish theocrats and their own shortcomings. So they adopt the pose of warrior but never actually place themselves under fire. This is a psychologically difficult position to uphold. Bullshitting yourself is never without a cost . . . Playing laptop Pattons at full volume, supporting the president and the entire power structure of the government is their only way of proving to themselves that they are warriors. They are damaged by their own contradictory past and as a result they cannot see their way through the haze of emotional turmoil to seek out and find real solutions to the problem of terrorism. They lash out with trash talk and threats and constant references to their own resolve because they are afraid. They've always been afraid.

And what scares me is how many of these people are now talking on some of the right-wing websites about how much they want to just nuke all Muslims and the whole middle east.
Do they think war is a videogame?

Declaring victory and leaving

Reuters AlertNet - UK memo says US, UK readying Iraqi withdrawal-report
Well well. The Iraqis will be standing up and the US will be standing down JUST BEFORE the US midterm elections next year.
Who woulda thunk it?

Cartoon of the week

Steve Benson, United Media
I was looking through this week's batch of editorial cartoons, most of which concerned the London terrorist attack, and found this one that I liked. There was one odd thing I noted about several of the European cartoons and that was how they related the attack to the 2012 Olympics -- I guess there is a perception that the attack and the Olympic announcement were connected, though I hadn't heard anything like that in the news stories.
I liked this cartoon because Churchill tops my list as the most important historical figure of our time. I waited for a decade for William Manchester's third volume of The Last Lion, before finding out it may not ever be completed.

Who does the Catholic Church think it is?

My Blahg gets it exactly right.
He is blogging about this disgusting story Catholic diocese punishes MP over gay rights.
Now, first of all, I am going to go on my own rant here -- just what does the Catholic Church think it is doing? How dare they refuse communion to NDP MPs who have voted for gay marriage, which was the policy of their party. Now certainly there is nothing wrong with Catholic bishops meeting with Jack Layton and other party leaders to express their opposition to the party policy, and to try to persuade the party to change that policy. But now the Catholic Church seems to think that Canada will let them get away with targetting individual Catholic MPs not being 'Catholic' enough, for voting in the way their party wanted them to vote.
Now, I would have thought that the Catholic Church would be upset if anyone started posting election signs saying "Don't vote for X. He's a Catholic". I would have thought the Catholic Church would be shocked if voters start acting like the Klu Klux Klan with their 'papist plot' hate speech.
But I guess not. I guess they want our political parties to start examining the religious affiliation of prospective candidates, refusing to nominate Catholics anymore because of the risk that they will follow a church agenda rather than their party's policy. I guess they want us voters to start making our voting decisions based on the religion of candidates, because when I support a candidate for a political office, I expect them to vote according to their party's policy, not according to their priest's prejudices.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong
Anyway, back to what My Blahg said in The Vindictive Right. His rant deals with the corrupt and twisted moral swamp which those who support the Catholic Church's actions have now waded into -- the same moral swamp which anyone who tries to justify prejudice will also find themselves in:

The right is justifying these actions by saying that these people must be ready to face the consequences of their decisions. Excuse me? First of all, elected officials already do face the consequences of their decisions. It's called an election. If an elected official is making decisions the people are not comfortable with, then they will elect someone more to their liking. Any other form of consequences however, is completely unacceptable. Since when are there consequences attached to people for doing their job? Could you imagine what our society would be like if there were? Police would have to think twice about issuing speeding tickets for fear that they might be kicked out of their church or refused service in the businesses of their communities. Local bureaucrats would have to cave in to every demand of the people because to do otherwise would leave them open to retaliation in their personal lives. Our elected and appointed officials could no longer function without constantly looking over their shoulder to see who is out to exact revenge against them for doing so. Left unchecked, this sort of vindictive retribution would lead to the breakdown of free society as individuals and groups intimidated and terrorized anyone who did not tow the line.

Is this the kind of Canada that the Catholic Church wants? That's not my Canada.
UPDATE: And now they're turning into creationists too. Catholic biology teachers, beware.

Be a leader and shut up

Ahenakew unapologetic after conviction
I think its time for David Ahenakew to demonstrate some of those leadership skills for which he has been so widely and rightly praised in the past, and just shut up.
No, Jews did not start the second world war.
No, they aren't a 'disease'.
No, Hitler was not right to "fry" six million Jews.
I don't care what someone in Germany told you 60 years ago. You are a well-travelled, educated and respected elder now, so why would you still believe the racist tripe that someone told you when you were 20? You've had a whole lifetime to learn better. Its all a racist lie and you were wrong to spread it around.
Given your position of leadership and respect in the Aboriginal community and in Canada as a whole, for you to say such hateful and racist things about Jewish people is hate speech. Quite rightfully, when a community leader says such hateful and racist things, they get charged. It's not the justice system's fault that you said what you said. And its not the media's fault for reporting it -- you knew perfectly well you were talking to a reporter when you said these vile things.
Its time to stop saying vile things. It's time for the circus to stop. It's time to shut up.

London tonight

John on Americablog was in London today on his way back from blogging the G8 meeting. He writes a very moving post about the reaction of Londoners to the attacks: Because a great nation deserves the truth

People were shocked by the attacks, but they really are determined not to let it get them down - I'd say much more so than we were on September 11. Meaning, we were more freaked than they are now. Much of that is due to their experience with the IRA bombings - this isn't exactly new. Still, they were shocked, and saddened. And many businesses closed tonight, though I think of a lot of it was more out of respect than fear. Many however were open, and the restaurants, including outdoor restaurants, were packed. The trains were packed. The buses were packed. People walked through the Kensington Gardens . . . I can imagine it would take me a long time to get back on any public transportion in DC after an attack. Here, they all did right away, and I joined them, and it didn't faze me. I'm not sure why. All I can say is that their calm in the face of all of this calmed me as well . . . I just rode the train in London and didn't really give a second look to who was on the car with me, or about the threat of any further attacks . . . more than one person has expressed a certain amount of sympathy, well, perhaps empathy or understanding is the better word, for why this happened. Again, none of those are the 'right' word, they're not saying 'we deserved it,' but more than a few are saying, between the lines, that Blair's, and Bush's, actions led to the attack, even caused the attack. Perhaps the most surprising was a cop in front of Buckingham Palace who, when asked by my friend why he thought today happened, the cop responded: 'Because some people just want to be free.' Pretty interesting words from a cop guarding Buckingham Palace on the day the flag is at half mast for the second time in history (Lady Di's death being the first time). But in the end, London still stands, strong, and lovely, calm, and resolved, and with dignity. It really is an amazing city.

Iraq through the looking glass

Gilliard has an interesting take here.
He writes that "Ahmed Chalabi has managed to influence the most powerful people in the US government to, essentially, boost Iran's fortunes in the world . . . Chalabi's feat in getting the US to attack Iraq and then help it fail at this task is likely as much espionage as anything else."
In other words, Iran worked through Chalabi to get the US to take out Saddam and then to make sure the US got bogged down fighting a guerilla war.
It just goes to prove the saying "those who live by the sword will die by the sword."
Now, the one thing I am uncertain about is whether anyone could have predicted that the US would get so bogged down in Iraq. It was their stupid decisions in the early days of the war which caused their problems now.
But a large number of those bad decisions can be traced back directly to Chalabi. It was Chalabi who told them they would be greeted with flowers so they didn't send enough troops, and it was Chalabi who said he could run the country right away so they didn't plan for an Iraqi government, and it was Chalabi who wanted the Iraq army disbanded, etc etc.
And there is one image of Iran's calculated, strategic ruthlessness that I cannot get out of my head: Robert X. Cringely's description of Iran sending thousands of its children to be shot to pieces by Iraqi guns during the Iran-Iraq war, just to prove Iran's own moral superiority.

I eventually finished the piece and decided to go see the war since I had been in Beirut and Angola, but had never seen trench warfare, which is what I was told they had going in Iran. So I took a taxi to the front, introduced myself to the local commander, who had gone, as I recall, to Iowa State, and spent a couple days waiting for the impending human wave attack.
That attack was to be conducted primarily with 11-and 12-year-old boys as troops, nearly all of them unarmed. There were several thousand kids and their job was to rise out of the trench, praising Allah, run across No Man's Land, be killed by the Iraqi machine gunners, then go directly to Paradise, do not pass GO, do not collect 200 dinars.
And that's exactly what happened in a battle lasting less than 10 minutes. None of the kids fired a shot or made it all the way to the other side. And when I asked the purpose of this exercise, I was told it was to demoralize the cowardly Iraqi soldiers.
It was the most horrific event I have ever seen, and I once covered a cholera epidemic in Bangladesh that killed 40,000 people.
Waiting those two nights for the attack was surreal. Some kids acted as though nothing was wrong while others cried and puked. But when the time came to praise Allah and enter Paradise, not a single boy tried to stay behind . . . Welcome to the New Morality.

So yes, perhaps it could be all just one big espionage plot -- a Middle Eastern version of The Looking Glass War, with Iran as the Circus and Chalabi as Control, and the entire US military as the bungling, amateurish, egotistical Department, tricked by the Circus into crushing and deadly failure.

It's Official

At least, it seems official now.
World O'Crap reports that Canada is Our Latest Enemy according to a Newsmax article. WOC writes

I assume that in a couple of weeks, the President will announce that "The people of the United States will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with socialized medicine, gay marriages, and maple syrup." Condi will say that we'd better invade them now, because we don't want the smoking gun to be a hockey stick. Dick Cheney will remark, 'I think it's not surprising that people make a connection between Mariah Carey Celine Dion and 9/11.'. . .

And isn't that just special?

Great movie moments for unions

I tried to post a brilliant comment to Digby's post about the importance of organized labour Which Side Are You On, Boys? -- but haloscan failed on me. So I thought I might as well make the comment here, at a longer length.
My comment was that it is not surprising that society doesn't appreciate unions as much as we once did, considering declines in union membership.
Its too bad, too, because labour unions and labour-management relations, particularly in Canada, have greatly matured over the last decade -- the hysterical anti-union everything-is-their-fault management attitude has declined, as has the arrogance of unions gleefully seizing every opportunity to screw up people's vacation plans.
Anyway, I can't think of an easier or better way to introduce people to the importance of unions than to show them two movies: first, "Norma Rae" to illustrate not only why industrial unions were life-savers for workers, but also the importance of union principles like the closed shop. And second, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" to illustrate how easy it is to treat people like dirt when they have no organization to defend themselves. It might certainly still be possible for someone to remain anti-union after seeing these two films, but at least they would have an understanding of why other people support the union movement.

Gonzo journalism about Canada's most hated couple

Homolka's interview last night on CBC was self-serving bullsh*t -- we should all appreciate how sorry she feels about what she did, even though it wasn't really her fault of course.
In covering the reaction to its Homolka interview, the CBC quoted a number of people tonight describing her as a monster and a psychopath. Then the reporter made this astounding statement: that "some Canadians are willing to accept that Karla Homolka has a human side."
Bullsh*t. More self-serving bullsh*t.
There is not a single Canadian who accepts her as human.
It was just good old gonzo journalism, pretending that they did the interview just because all those inquiring minds were so eager to see Homolka's "human side".
And now Bernado is getting into the act, too -- Bernardo's lawyer says killer 'agitated' over attention given to Homolka -- now saying that he wanted to let Mahaffy go but Homolka killed her.
More self-serving bullsh*t.
And I don't understand how the media can even report such tripe, once more ripping the hearts out of the Mahaffy family just so that they can use a teaser headline before their commercial break -- stay turned for Bernardo's new accusation!
Have they no shame?

Some American Pie

Buzzing aroung the blogosphere today, I saw a number of posts despairing of the direction which the United States is going. I heard echoes of this song as I read what they were saying:

Oh, and there we were all in one place,
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again.
So come on: jack be nimble, jack be quick!
Jack flash sat on a candlestick
Cause fire is the devil’s only friend.
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage.
No angel born in hell
Could break that satan’s spell.
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite,
I saw satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
He was singing,
Bye-bye, Miss American Pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, this’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die.
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just smiled and turned away.
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before,
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play.
And in the streets: the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
But not a word was spoken;
The church bells all were broken.
And the three men I admire most:
The father, son, and the holy ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.
And they were singing,
Bye-bye, Miss American Pie.
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
And good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’, this’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die.

Religiously correct

We rented Beyond the Sea tonight - what an absolutely terrific movie! [Warning about this link if you are at work -- the music plays automatically.] A labour of love by Kevin Spacey, who looked and sounded and acted and danced remarkably like Bobby Darin. Not only that, but the movie was done in such an original way for a biopic, while showing reverence for all of the movie-musical-biography traditions -- big song-and-dance numbers, the loving ethnic childhood, the excentric family, the troubled yet ultimately loving marriage, the virtually invisible children, the final breakthrough concert followed by the sad death scene. This movie had it all, plus some great music.
The one song I missed hearing was It Ain't Necessarily So. Then I started thinking about the lyrics, and realized that under the new "religious correctness" these days, there is no way a filmmaker would risk picketing by the Christian Right by having a lead character sing lyrics like this:
"It ain't necessarily so.
It ain't necessarily so.
The things that your liable
to read in the bible
ain't necessarily so . . .
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years,
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years,
But who calls that livin'
When no gal will give in
To no man that's nine hundred years? . . . "
Anyway, if you like Bobby Darin's music, rent this DVD.

Chasing the Niger Papers

Billmon says "I long ago accepted the fact that we're all living in a bad sequel to the Bourne Identity."
And when you read the ins and outs of his post on The Niger Papers, The Sting and The Italian Job, its easy to believe him.