Hope springs eternal

Analysis: Bush Slump May Hobble World Role
Well, we can always hope . . .

Turning your back on Canada

This was an insult to the office of the Governor General and to Canada as a whole: "a small number of veterans chose Friday's Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa to launch their protest against Canada's new Governor General. As Michaelle Jean laid a memorial wreath on the War Memorial, the words 'Turn, turn,' were called out, and about 25 people, led by veterans, turned their backs on the Governor General."
The organizer of this protest, a veteran named Frank Laverty, expected hundreds of people to show -- in the end, only about 25 did. The Royal Canadian Legion wasn't happy about this protest either:

The Legion issued a strongly-worded statement against a Remembrance Day protest, saying: 'Such action would be a disgrace and an offence to Her Majesty as well as to the memory of our fallen veterans.' . . . spokesman Bob Butts said: "We think it's the wrong time and the wrong place."

So I hope these veterans felt stupid as they shuffled around during the wreath-laying ceremony -- because they looked it:

Great line of the day

Brad Blog writes about the Bush speech:

Here was 'the message' [from Bush]: "While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." In other words, after years of questioning the patriotism of those who criticized his decision or the conduct of the war, he'll give up on that battle as long as we all stay away from the one point that is likely to bring the entire house of cards crumbling down, namely; How the war began. Or more aptly, how he began it.

Something like six out of ten Americans now believe Bush lied to get the Iraq War started.

Remembrance Day

From Afghanistan

From Yahoo: "Captain John Cochrane, right, and Captain Darryl Damude, second from right, salute during the playing of the Canadian National Anthem at the Remembrance Day ceremony held at the Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 11, 2005. The ceremony held at Kandahar Airfield was a Canadian-led multi-national ceremony where deployed Canadian, American and British military forces gathered together to pay respects and remember those who served and died for their country. (AP Photo/Canadian Forces Combat, Robert Bottrill, HO)"


"Cpl. Kristie McKay with Task Force Afghanistan, places her poppy in a wreath following the conclusion of the Remembrance Day ceremony held at the Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan, Friday (AP Photo/Canadian Forces, Robert Bottrill, HO)"

From Canada

"Veterans march to the cenotaph during Remembrance Day ceremonies Friday, Nov. 11, 2005 in Quebec City. (AP PHOTO/CP, Jacques Boissinot)"


"Students from John Paul I high school hold up signs during Remembrance Day ceremonies in Montreal, Friday, Nov. 11, 2005. (AP PHOTO/CP, Ryan Remiorz)"


"A poppy is placed alongside other poppies and a thank you sign left on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier following Remembrance Day ceremonies at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, Friday, Nov. 11, 2005. (AP PHOTO/CP, Tom Hanson)"

Does Karl Rove now remind us of Uncle Junior?

This is priceless.
The Federalist Society is a big-time conservative group of lawyers and scholars who claim to have actual principles, like respect for the spirit of the law and stuff like that.
So Karl Rove decides to piggyback on their reputation to try to polish some of the tarnish off his own image. And they let him. He was one of the keynote speakers at the 2005 National Lawyers Convention.
And as a result, the Society itself ends up talking like the Soprano's defense team -- turning its principles inside out and trashing all of its own dearly-held values just to defend the sleazy Rove.
Here's what one member actually said: "Everybody's presumed innocent until convicted and a mere investigation shouldn't hinder anyone's political activities". And here's the conference co-chair speaking: "He's come into the cross-hairs of criticism from the liberal establishment here in Washington [and when the establishment can't defeat the power of one's ideas] they crank up the engine of personal attack in order to distract the leaders."
So I imagine Jack Abramhoff and Tom Delay will be speaking at their next meeting? And then Bill Clinton? How about OJ next? And Blake? And maybe Saddam Hussein at the meeting after that?

Great line of the day

"We must not surrender flag and faith to those who would use both to support a war which honors neither."
This is from a very interesting essay "Confessions of a Repentant Republican" which I found originally on The Smirking Chimp. The whole essay is well written and presents a coherent framework for opposition to the war in Iraq -- a worthwhile read.

When the gales of November come early

I had forgotten that the wreck Of the Edmund Fitzgerald happened on 30 years ago, on November 10:
Music
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called 'Gitche Gumee'
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty.
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early.

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too,
T'was the witch of November come stealin'.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the Gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'.
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.
At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas, it's been good t'know ya
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searches all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
May have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the Gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral.
The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call 'Gitche Gumee'.
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early!

Friday Cat-and-Dog blogging

I love stories like this one:

"A schnauzer-Siberian husky mix named Ginny will be eulogized Nov. 19 at the Westchester Cat Show, where she was named Cat of the Year in 1998 for her uncanny skill and bravery in finding and rescuing endangered tabbies . . . Among the best-known rescues is the time Ginny threw herself against a vertical pipe at a construction site to topple it and reveal the kittens trapped inside. She once ignored the cuts on her paws as she dug through a box full of broken glass to find an injured cat inside." For more about this remarkable dog, see the Ginny Fan Club website.

Prime Minister Chalabi?

LiberalOasis notes that Chalabi is "being spun once again as a possible prime minister" for Iraq. Well, I suppose its a possible outcome, if he can figure out a way to steal the Dec. 15 election . . . Hey, do you think THAT'S why he's visiting in Washington this week? To get some election-stealing tips from the masters?

Wanker

What an asshole!: "Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito said Thursday he was 'unduly restrictive' in promising in 1990 to avoid appeals cases involving two investment firms and said he has not made any rulings in which he had a 'legal or ethical obligation' to step aside. "
Yeah, sure, Sam -- so what are you lying about NOW?

Paul Martin's mom didn't raise a stupid kid . . .

...though apparently Jack Layton thinks she did.
Here's Jack's plan -- first, in two weeks tell Martin that he has lost the confidence of the House and so he should set the election date a few days after the final Gomery report comes out, in mid-February, rather than waiting until March to call for an April vote. Second, in four weeks demonstrate your confidence in the Martin government by voting in favour of the Dec 8 spending estimates, so everyone gets their goodies.
Yeah, great plan guys -- Martin's sure to go for it. It will really put him on the spot, knowing how you support him or don't support him or either or neither or both.
Everyone just loves the idea of campaigning in January. And OF COURSE the Liberals would WELCOME the chance to have the vote happen just days after every newspaper in the land runs the expected centre-page spreads about Liberal corruption and millions missing and bag men and all that stuff likely to be in Gomery's final report.
So why would anyone expect the Liberals to take this seriously? Do the opposition parties think they can play some sort of 'principle' card here, pontificating that the Liberals would have "a hard time justifying remaining in power against the clear will of the House of Commons" when they themselves are too afraid of Canadian anger to bring the government down over its spending plans, which is how the Commons is supposed to actually demonstrate "clear will".
The opposition parties have to quit playing games here. They're not very good at it.
Jack, Stephen -- either vote Martin down before Christmas, or just shut up and wait until March.
Oh, and by the way, in the meantime you could be trying to come up with some ideas -- you know, some policies that might make Canadians think you actually have a clue about why we should vote for you . . . whaddaya think of that for a plan?

What part of 'no exceptional circumstances' does Cheney not understand?

Back in the good old days when that highly-moral Bill Clinton was in power, this is what the US told the UN about torture:

Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. U.S. law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a 'state of public emergency') or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension.

Emphasis mine. I don't care how many things "changed" after 911, this statement doesn't permit torture under any circumstances. And there is no allowance for Cheney to argue about a Presidential exemption.
Even the White House appears to be backing off Cheney's campaign, telling reporters that they have to "ask the Vice-President's Office" why he is continuing to lobby the Senate about this. But I'll bet Cheney just will not give it up, because he can't stand to lose.
Laura Rosen writes:

I was in a torture chamber once, in the basement of a police station in Kosovo days after it was abandoned by Serb forces defeated by Nato. It was hideous as you would imagine. The British soldiers who were with me were equally shocked. A lot of the instruments and interrogation drugs I saw there also suggest they were not designed to cause organ failure or death in their victims, just pain and terror . . . Having laid my eyes on what such a scene looks like, I just associate such activities with the forces of not only the pathological and depraved, but those who are headed for defeat. If you've seen it, you realize in a way that's hard to explain, it's the tactics of the losers. If Cheney and his office mates haven't had the experience, perhaps they should. And I really don't think it's inconceivable that the remote possibility of the Hague may lie in some of their futures. Things change fast when they do, as history shows, and they could find their current willing protectors eventually chucked from office, and a whole new climate at home and abroad.

Khadr is a prisoner of war

When considering the Khadr case, Ottawa and everyone else needs to remember this: when the US talks about enemy combatants and how the Geneva Conventions don't apply in Afghanistan, they're wrong. Omar Khadr is actually a prisoner of war. He was captured on the battlefield: "Khadr was just 15 when he allegedly threw a hand grenade that killed an American soldier and wounded another during a firefight with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in July 2002. " I don't know enough about the Geneva Conventions to know whether or not POWs can be put on trial what they did during battle.

Great line of the day

From John at AMERICAblog, in regard to Kansas deciding to teach creationism as science: "But look on the bright side. We no longer have to worry about those pesky Kansas kids competing with our kids to get into Harvard."

Gentlemen, we must avoid a mine-shaft gap

Oh, come on -- lets not get hysterical here. In this Calgary Sun column, Roy Clancy quotes a counter-terrorism expert as saying that international terrorism 'is maybe the biggest threat ever posed to humanity' and going on to say how terrorism is even worse than the Cold War.
What garbage! I guess its not surprising that a counter-terrorism expert would think his own job is the most important job ever, but the media have to have some balance here -- terrorists are an intractable problem, but there is no way that the scale of the terrorist threat is comparable to the danger humanity faced for 50 years of blowing millions and millions of people off the face of the earth and causing an environmental catastrophe for hundreds of years to come.
What worries me is where such ideas lead. If terrorism is "the greatest threat ever" than is it going to be suggested that they be stopped with the worst weapons ever, like small-scale tactical nukes? And suddenly then we find ourselves in Strangelove territory, where fear magnifies to the point of hysteria, and the unthinkable starts to appear logica and sane.