Great line of the day

Juan Cole posts Joke of the Day: "They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and we're not using it anymore."

'They forfeit. Cool.'

"That sound you hear is the 'pop' of several billion Chinese and Indian economic planners getting simultaneous erections . . . " begins Kung-Fu Monkey's brilliant blog post 'The President and Intelligent Design'.
He continues

Here you are, Tsui or Sanjay, looking at a new cenury . . . In which only the most intellectually nimble countries, best able to master new information technologies and couple them with manufacturing bases with high levels of technical training, will survive. And you're looking at that big bastard across the ocean, the US of A. First to build the Bomb. First to master the secrets of the atom. First to build the semiconductor. First and only tribe of humans who actually put men on the GODDAM MOON, to have stepped on another rock in space. Decoders of the human genome, the VERY BOOK OF LIFE !!! How will we ever stop -- Wow, they forfeit. Cool. . . .
[The radical rightists] strip away the idea that there is indeed a rigorous scientific process through which certain non-negotiable physical truths can be ascertained. They have suffused the county with an intellectual laziness and a terrifying narcissism. Opinion has been enshrined as superior to fact. No longer need a person take into account the way the world works when forming their worldview -- they can instead hunt down "facts" and "theories" which support their own comfort zone . . . You wouldn't trust your children to an airplane pilot who did that, or a Scoutmaster. If your doctor said "You know what, we're going to blow off all the currently available research and treat your child's cancer with a completely untested, never scientifically proven bit of guesswork which, however, reinforces my world-view. Because what does science really know?" you'd be pulling out of the parking lot before he finished the sentence. But when it's public policy, it's OKAY? . . . this is bigger than budgets, or how to fight wars, or how to manage our environment or resources, because where we stand on facts, reason, science, that informs every other decision we make in all those fields and every other. This is what determines whether societies live or die. Again, our motto at Kung Fu Monkey: "Everybody who wants to live in the 21st century over here. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800's over there. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that."

Thanks to James Wollcot for the link.
UPDATE: A commenter on the Kung Fu Monkey blog said about this post "Creationism is God's way of ensuring that somebody other than the US will be running the world by the end of this century."

Vancouver Three: political martyrs

So the Vancouver Three prosecution isn't political, eh?
The prosecution's own words prove it is.
Here, as quoted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly is why the DEA went after Marc Emery. And it has nothing at all to do with a few seeds. It's aimed at taking Emery DOWN. It's personal and it's political. And pathetic. DEA boss Karen Tandy said:

Today's arrest of Mark (sic) Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture magazine and the founder of a marijuana legalization group, is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement . . . Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery's illicit profits are known to have been channeled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.

And here is how Connelly describes the impact of that statement

In their search for proof that Bigfoot exists, researchers ought to take hair samples from the Washington, D.C., offices of Drug Enforcement Administration boss Karen Tandy. Tandy has left giant footprints on the drug prosecution of Vancouver, B.C., mail-order pot entrepreneur, and B.C. Marijuana Party founder, Marc Emery. With an ill-advised statement politicizing the case that also misspelled Emery's first name, the DEA boss may help transform a publicity seeker into a Canadian martyr. Seeking to stop his extradition to the United States -- where he faces charges of trafficking in marijuana seeds -- Emery's legal team could use Tandy's words to telling effect: Their client is being prosecuted for his beliefs.

Well, yes, he is. And that's exactly what Canadians are beginning to realize.

Watch your mouth!

Don't say it! Don't, for the love of humanity . . . oh . . . too late . . . she said it: Rice: Insurgency Losing Political Steam
Every time some American political or military leader announces the insurgency is getting weaker, last throes, whatever -- there immediately follows an uptick in suicide bombs, police executions, random shootings, and attacks on US military.

No more mocking 'honouring' Aboriginals

Steve Gilliard points to this Driftglass post which discusses the Illinois reaction to a recent NCAA ruling barring the use of Aboriginal stereotypes in mascots and team nicknames at NCAA championship events.
It is the best reply I have ever read to all the whining we hear whenever anyone suggests that an Aboriginal team name or mascot should be changed -- and just about every Canadian city has at least one.

"But we can still mock the Coloreds, right? Sorry, not 'mock'. Didn't mean 'mock'. What's that other word? 'Honor'! Yeah...that's it.
. . . the University of Illinois ' the Fighting Illini ' has a mascot, 'Chief' Illiniwek, who gambols festively around in fake war paint and fake headdress to get the kinder fired up at football games . . . Various members of the alumni and student body cannot understand why anyone would find having a fake Chief offensive. The love their lil' mascot. He dances so damned purdy and delights the children with his funny, Injun antics. Various other members of the human race cannot understand how alumni, students and the Board of Trustees - degree-holders all - can possibly be such fucking, racist morons. Petitions were filed. Protests were staged. Embarrassing local and national stories were written...and it didn't matter one little bit . . .
And there is nothing quite so bile-churning as seeing a fat-assed, pasty-white Archie Bunker with a diploma and an ill-fitting suit lecture Native Americans on what they should and should not find offensive. After all, ordering brown people around, and killing as many of them as necessary to get the job done when they forget their place and start getting uppity...this is the White Man's Burden. We've got a hundred million ungrateful sand niggers to kill or 'democratize' or Manifest Cuisinart or 'globally struggle against' or whateverthefuck brand name we’re using to market our Saint Petro’s Crusade to the rubes this week...so where the Hell do these red devils get off screwing with the White Man’s Privilege of making them dance by proxy for the White Man’s amusement.
. . . I swear, these people are just hopeless. A different and impregnably ignorant species. From flying the American Swastika as a sign of Southern Pride to shit like this, they burn with a bright, white flame for the good, old Antebellum days of Caucasian License to do whatever they damned well please. Like the water empires of a different age – these self-contained racist niche-ecologies, large and small, never ever change without a boot in the ass. As long as bigots are free to keep handing down the reigns to the Sons of Bigots unmolested, simple appeals to conscience and humanity will always fail. Their consciences are damaged – perhaps irreparably -- and in their hierarchy of humanity, they believe that God or Evolution or Daddy (who is a little bit of both) has placed them at the very tippy-top of the apex, and that "good”, “bad” and “hateful” are whatever they decide they are.

Yes, we've seen the same arguments and excuses across Canada when anyone dared to suggest that a team's Aboriginal-based name might be just a bit, well, insulting? demeaning? unacceptable? dare I say, racist? - unless its a team representing a reserve school or an Aboriginal organization or the team is more than half Aboriginal kids.
And don't tell me "well, then we have to change all the names because maybe the Irish are upset about the "fighting Irish" type of names, too." Yes, so go ahead and change these names too, if you want. But that other ethnic groups may also be upset about other derisive nicknames is hardly an argument against changing the Aboriginal names.
And don't tell me "well, the [Aboriginal organization/students] said they didn't mind!" Oh yeah, I'm sure they don't feel any pressure at all when the local radio talk show host or the mayor or the school board chair calls them up and says "Everybody wants to keep the name XXX and it would cost a lot to change it now and people would be really pissed off, so you don't mind us keeping it, do you?"
It takes leadership just to go ahead and change it, just because its the right thing to do.

The Oops! Award

And the winner of this week's Oops! Award goes to: President's Council on Service and Civic Participation.
A link on Eschaton led me to Roger Ailes blog, where I found this little gem: "A spokesman for the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation said that neither the council nor Bush had any way of knowing that the person they were honoring was a condemned multiple murderer."

Answering a scurrilous charge

RossK in 'Defusing The Google Bomb' resents anyone calling Canadians "gutless" (as some mixed-up BC politician apparently did recently). Ross says:

. . . calling us, the Canuckistani People, gutless is a scurrilous charge that cannot go unchallenged. To whit:
Was it gutless when we went to Afghanistan to fight the real terrorists?
Was it gutless when we did not go to Iraq to kill people that were not?
Was it gutless to say no to a thoroughly offensive missile defense program?
Was it gutless when we had the guts to pass a same sex marriage law?
Are we gutless because we still protect our pension funds?
Are we gutless because we can still go to any hospital in the country?
Are we gutless because we still have a social safety net?
Are we gutless because we still have (a few) public institutions that serve the public?

Right on, Ross! And I might add, are we gutless because we have the fearless Gazetteer posting truth to power?

Great line of the day

First it was Global War on Terror (GWOT)
Then it was Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE)
Then it was Global War on Terror (GWOT) again.
But now, Billmon has the best one yet:
"War of Heroic Action against Terrorism for the Future of a United Christian Kulture -- WHATtheFUCK"

Good Better Best

Good


Non Sequitur

Better


Ann Telnaes

Best


Cam Cardow

Is there a trend here?

It's 8 months into the second term, and the bloom is off the rose:
Denver Post: Nothing is ever the president's fault
Atlanta Constitution: America retreats from leadership in innovation
Pittsburg Post-Gazette: They have not the courage to face the mistake of the Iraq war
Roanoke [Virginia] Times: U.S. strips more freedom from citizens than terrorists ever could
Las Vegas Sun: Bush is no deficit hawk
Baltimore Sun: Hey, Mr. President: War is all about the brutality
Knight Rideer Washington Bureau: Bush's loyalty raises doubts about his political judgment
Associated Press: Opinion of Bush's handling of Iraq, honesty reaches low point in poll

Loyalty, going over the cliff

Over at Digby there's a discussion going on about whether Bush really is stupid, in response to Digby's post titled- 'Uhm no - he's just an idiot'. The discussion is about how come, if Bush is so dumb, that people keep voting for him. Commenter Farang writes something that seems true to me: " . . . the mental midgets, the struggling, never getting anywhere crowd sees [in Bush] a savior, someone that only values loyalty, not merit or ability, as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to advance. Imagine living a life where you always struggled with keeping up, then Bush comes along: You see yourself, and rejoice, all you need to do is join the . . . Republican party . . . "
But as the crowd continues to thunder forward, an feeling of uneasiness is growing. The people who were supposed to be leading this parade don't appear to be anywhere in sight, and there sure seems to be a lot of screaming going on up ahead there. There's so much dust they can't quite see what's happening, but people are yelling about some sort of cliff . . .

We should be opening the front door

The Canadian Council for Refugees has released its report on the "third country" agreement -- Closing the Front Door on Refugees: Report on the Safe Third Country Agreement (pdf) -- and the news is not good.
It was this agreement, I think, which forced Dr. Shazia Khalid to seek assylum in England rather than here -- a story I wrote about a few days ago.
The Council describes a number of problems with the system:

With the Canadian border largely closed, far fewer refugees are able to find protection in Canada: instead, some are detained and deported from the US; some are forced to live without status in the US, in fear of arrest; some turn to smugglers to help them find a way to safety. "It is no exaggeration to describe this Agreement as a silent killer," said Nick Summers, CCR President. "Out of sight of Canadians, asylum seekers are paying the price of Canada's 'Not in My Backyard' approach to refugee protection. The fact is that the US is not safe for all refugees and Canada is failing refugees who need our protection. We call on the Canadian Government to cancel the Agreement immediately." The report shows that the number of people who claimed refuge in Canada in 2005 is lower than at any time since the mid-1980s. The drop in claims made at the border is especially dramatic, with only 50% as many claims as last year. Colombians have been particularly badly affected, with claims down by 70% in 2005. Based on the much lower acceptance rates for Colombians in the US compared to Canada, the report calculates that in the first year of the Agreement alone, 916 Colombians will be left without protection in either country. The report also highlights anecdotal evidence that, as predicted, the Agreement is leading to an increase in smuggling at the US-Canada border.

Folks, Canada NEEDS these people.
As I have often said before, we need lots of young, eager, willing workers to pay the taxes that will cover the costs of mine and my husband's health care and pensions when we get old -- my own children certainly can't do it all by themselves.
But seriously, Canada shouldn't be creating an underground, secret economy, as the US has done, where people are exploited and brutalized because they have no hope of ever legalizing their status. Canada needs immigrants more than the US does. We need their energy and their ideas and their commitment and their heart. We need their willingness to work hard and create a life for themselves and their children. This country was built on the imagination and creativity of immigrants. So I say bring 'em on, the more the merrier.
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me . . .

Fool Me Twice . . .

Juan Cole is one of the commentators* I have read in the last couple of days who is thinking that the US is getting ready to roll out its Lets-Have-A-War-With-Iran Plan.
In 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me--can't get fooled again', Cole writes about an NBC News story quoting the US military as saying Iran is sending bombs to the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
Cole describes at length the obvious stupidity of such a story, but demonstrates its utility in the task of convincing Americans that Iran is actually to blame for all the US army and marine deaths of recent days.
"Be afraid when you begin to see US government agencies themselves handing out this highly suspect sort of information to major news networks. It means that the sting on the American people has moved from the smoke-filled back rooms to some higher operational level. Or maybe trial balloons are being floated to see how gullible we are."
*See also here, and here, and here.

Logic Deficit Disorder

This article by philosopher Allen Snyder describes Logic Deficit Disorder as epidemic among the regressive right. I think its something we all have to watch out for, left or right, though at this point in time, the righties do seem to be at greater risk.
Diagnosing LDD is straightforward -- if you see one or more of the following symptoms in any news story or opinion piece, you're being exposed to LDD: false dilemmas, straw men, ad hominem attacks, groupthink, or the slippery slope.
First, the false dilemma - ". . . presenting two positions on an issue as though they're the only two, exclusive of all others. It's wildly popular with one-dimensional non-thinkers who parse the world into neat, simple, and easily recognizable bits like 'all good stuff over here' and 'all evil stuff over there'."
Second, creating 'straw men' to make your opponent's position look ridiculous "A straw man is an inaccurate representation of an actual argument that, thanks to its new straw form, is much easier to destroy than the original . . . when Karl Rove says liberals wanted to coddle terrorists post-9/11, he attacks a straw man since he knows no liberal ever said such a thing. When regressives oppose evolution because 'humans didn't come from monkeys', they attack a straw man since no evolutionist has ever said such a ridiculous thing."
Third, the ad hominem attack. "This gem means 'against the man' and occurs when BushCo, instead of defending themselves against someone's accurate portrayal of some war crime or internal scandal they're involved in, smears the accuser instead. This happened with Paul O'Neill, Scott Ritter, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson and many others. BushCo says they're all lunatic liars. Never mind they were right . . . This nonsense is then dressed in patriot garb and trumpeted across the land . . . they succeed in tarnishing the reputations of truly heroic public figures to cover their criminal asses. Why discuss facts and make cogent arguments when it's far easier to get the angry white pinheads out in hate-radio-land to froth at the mouth like Pavlovian dogs by feeding their obsessive hatred for things they don't understand and blaming evil left-wingers, gays, feminists, and anti-war peaceniks for all their troubles? Once that gang of nitwits are good and whipped up, the truth becomes irrelevant."
Fourth, promoting groupthink ". . . the robotic obedience and blind devotion of hoards of wannabe Nazis at those scary old rallies at Nuremburg. It is borne out of ethnocentrism, the universally erroneous notion that ways of life can be ranked on scales of moral superiority, and the belief in the infallibility of one's own nation, government, and all the actions taken in its name . . . the message that we're killing them (whoever 'they' may be) for their own good assuages many a troubled conscience."
Fifth, the smokescreen device, by which "the American public has been kept distracted by such nonsense as the 'runaway bride', Michael Jackson's trial, the second-by-second coverage of the Pope's death, and the latest hurricane or baseball 'scandal' . . . "
Sixth, the slippery slope argument -- "Can't legalize pot. Next thing you know, everyone's a junkie, or worse, hooked on pain pills. Can't legalize physician assisted euthanasia. Next thing you know, we'll be handing out morphine ODs to Grandma, the Crazy Guy on the Corner, and the helmet-wearing lunatic in the institution."
Snyder continues "Then there's the steepest slippery slope the regressive right has - that all progressives policies and all secular government will lead to the downfall and humiliation of the American Way Of Life. This one keeps the gullible and thoughtless nice and fearful so they won't notice what's happening right under their noses. How, by making corporations and the filthy rich pay their taxes, having national health care, feeding and housing the poor and hungry, returning religion to the privacy of homes and churches, butting out of others' affairs, supporting trade unions, and reducing our military spending the world will come to an end and America will cease to be is completely beyond me.
"But, then, I haven't been drinking my Kool-Aid."
As for LDD, I am not sure how contagious it is, but progressive Americans better not take any chances. Move to Canada before its too late!

Let's monitor the stupidity, too

So Peter Kent thinks the Toronto media are biased against the Conservatives -- The Globe and Mail: Former anchorman sees anti-Tory media bias.
Well, I wonder how he could ever have gotten this impression?
It's pretty hard to write bland stories about a federal party whose leader knows so little about Ontario that he has Niagara River flowing in the wrong direction. How could anyone write a 'balanced' story about a provincial party which describes its opponent as an "evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet"?
If journalism schools are supposed to monitor the fairness of media coverage, maybe political science departments should be monitoring the stupidity of what the media is being asked to cover.