Health Care Hold 'Em!

Tories announce cancer plan
Well, I'll see your cancer plan, and raise you a diabetes strategy on the flop!
Take THAT for your diabetes strategy! We've got a public clinics initiative.
Fie on your public clinic initiative! I've got a Wait Times Action Plan and you'll see it as soon as the river card gets turned.
So looks like its pocket jokers now against a full house...

Who's sorry now?

So the American perception at the beginning of the week was that Condoleezza Rice was going to Europe to kick ass and take names -- as of Tuesday, "US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was set to tell Washington's allies to fall into line as she began a four-nation tour . . . "
But by Friday, it was clear that it was Rice who was being kicked around. A State department spokesperson re-defined 'success' for the trip by saying "at least we stopped the cycle of self-referenced speculation" -- wow, what an achievement, guys! -- and Rice had been forced to announce a new US "torture" policy which "explicitly banned its interrogators around the world from 'cruel, inhumane or degrading' treatment of detainees" to try to get the Europeans to stop their investigations.
It didn't work.
AP reports today that "More than a half-dozen investigations are under way into whether European countries may have hosted secret U.S.-run prisons in which al-Qaida suspects were allegedly tortured, and whether European airports and airspace were used for alleged CIA flights transporting prisoners to countries where torture is practiced." And today an AP analysis noted that "Condoleezza Rice is now the public face of the Bush administration's promise to play by the world's rules when it comes to fighting terrorism. So if they're broken, her credibility abroad, and perhaps at home, could be at stake."
The world doesn't believe anything the US says anymore.

The day the music died

I know Don McLean was writing about Buddy Holly, but for me the day the music died was Dec. 8, 1980, when John Lennon was shot.
He wrote the music by which I have lived my life. Here's the best one
"There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed. Some forever, not for better, some have gone and some remain. All these places had their moments with lovers and friends I still can recall.
Some are dead and some are living. In my life I've loved them all. But of all these friends and lovers, there is no one compares with you, and these memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new. Though I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before, I know I'll often stop and think about them, in my life I'll love you more."

Great lines of the day

Driftglass writes 'Oh God, how I miss the Commies' and provides this description of Republican talking points. Watch for them:

In the Battle of 2006 - the Year of 'Who Lost Iraq?' -- the talking points congealing on the Right are becoming familiar:
1. Even discussing how we found ourselves stranded in the Fecal Malebole of Iraq is Off Limits.
2. Hide behind Bill Clinton and the French when possible, and . . . Joe Lieberman when necessary.
3. Anyone who criticizes the Dear Leader is a traitor.
4. Anyone who asks any hard questions of Dear Leader's henchmen is a traitor.
5. Anyone who persists in remembering inconvenient facts is a traitor.
6. As the gangrenous reality of the Bush Lies, Bush War, Bush Coverups, Bush post-War Clusterfuck continue the seep through the Coulter- and O'Reilly-appliqu'd-bandages with the stink of failure and death, Turn Rush Up Louder!

Kyoto statistics

Well, you know what they say about statistics.
The CBC story 'Opposition leaders attack Martin's environmental record' says without attribution or reference: "The Kyoto Protocol calls for a six per cent cut in emissions from 1990 levels by 2012, but Canada's have so far actually risen 24.4 per cent, while U.S. levels have grown by barely half that amount. "
This is the type of statement newspeople make when they are talking about pure, proven, accepted facts, like that the sun rises in the east. But these statistics didn't make sense to me, so I looked further.
Well -- it turns out that the percentage statistics come from the press backgrounder . But when you look at the complete report, this is what you find, on pages 14 and 17:
Canada:
1990 greenhouse gas emissions: 595.86 (3.24 per cent of the world total)
2003 emissions: 740.21 (4.28 per cent of the world total)
Percentage increase 24.2 per cent
United States:
1990 emissions: 6,082.51 (33 per cent of the world's total)
2003 emissions: 6,893.81 (39 per cent of the world's total)
Percentage increase 13.3 per cent
As I suspected, there is a ten-fold difference in magnitude between the US and Canada. The US increase over the last 13 years is actually greater than Canada's total emissions.
In trolling through all this data, I also noted that because Russia only signed onto the Accord in February of this year, that is technically when Kyoto actually became official. The period targetted for emissions reductions doesn't actually start until 2008. As the press release at the beginning of the the Montreal conference stated "Under the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force 16 February 2005, more than 30 industrialized countries are bound by specific and legally binding emission reduction targets. As a first step, these cover the period 2008-2012." Remembering this is a world-wide effort, the release also notes that developed countries like Canada can earn carbon allowances by investing in other developed countries, "in particular central and eastern European transition economies", and also invest in sustainable development projects in developing countries.
So I think its a little premature, and a little misleading too, for the US or the media to be hauling Canada over the coals for missing any Kyoto targets. At least, not yet.

One week

Its the end of the first week, and the polls show a bit of movement:


From Politics Canada

After the 2004 election, I thought Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc would prop up the Liberals as long as they could, with Duceppe realizing that only Quebec anger over the sponsorship scandal had enabled them to elect 54 Bloc members to Parliament. However, I wonder if the recent Parti Quebecoise leadership race went to his head. Inspired by the leadership convention hoopla -- the exciting speeches, the cheering and flag-waving, the whole streamers-and-balloons atmosphere -- its easy to get carried away and start thinking your pary is on a roll. But sponsorship scandal aside, I don't think separatism is building steam in Quebec.
My prediction in 2004 was that the Bloc would be back down to 25 seats this election, and I haven't seen anything yet that would make me change my mind -- particularly if Duceppe continues to make the mistake of turning this into a pseudo-sovreignty referendum. Scott of Montreal notes that the Harper Conservatives aren't generating any traction in Quebec, and apparently aren't interested in doing so. About the Liberals, Scott says "we'll just have to see if Quebeckers' feelings are still as hurt next month as they were in 2004." I would doubt it, particularly when the Liberals will be making the case that a vote for the Bloc is a vote for separation. Quebecers may well join with Ontario on the one thing that both provinces usually agree on -- voting Liberal.

Wolcott

In Scenes from the War on Christmas, Wolcott writes: "Today this nice saleslady handed me the blue Tiffany box she had tied with a ribbon just so and, with a twinkle in her smile, wished me a Merry Christmas. So I socked her. "

Teach your children well

A child in Iraq signals V for 'victory' while watching a US tank burn.


A child in America shows off her dad's "Club G'itmo" tshirt.

Teach your children well
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell
did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picks,
the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why,
if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them
and sigh
and know they love you.

Circular files

Read this, its funny. In "None dare call it Schizophrenia" World O'Crap describes the tragic tale of a Massachusetts Church Lady being persecuted by the Militant Homosexual Activists. When she tries to get the state Attorney General to investigate how the MHAs are going through her garbage and moving her stuff around, the AG isn't returning the phone calls. World O'Crap just speculates wildly here: "Her case probably got misfiled under 'nut job.'" Emphasis mine.

Marching against global warming

From bears:


to buttons:

In Montreal today, thousands of demonstrators marched at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which is updating the Kyoto Protocol on lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
All photos from CP photographer Ian Barrett unless noted.

Here are some more photos:

Jacques Boissinot







We Canadians often chuckle about global warming -- "bring it on!" -- and for my part of the country, a longer growing season would be great. But, first, I'm not sure whether global warming would actually result in this change here on the prairies anyway. And second, any benefit we might get would of course be mitigated by the hurricanes, ice storms, tornadoes, blizzards, rising sea levels, etc which would inflict the rest of the continent . . . so, no thanks, don't want any global warming here.

Palestinians demonstrate for the Peacemakers

I hadn't heard of this ever happening before for people kidnapped in Iraq -- a demonstration by Palestinians calling for the release of the four Christian Peacemakers:


AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
Also, sign the petition here -- 4000 people have already, including Cindy Sheehan -- and keep up with the latest news about the Peacemakers here.

Bush cartoons and jokes

First, the cartoons:


Cam Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen

RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch


Mike Keefe, The Denver Post

And a couple about Cheney:

RJ Matson, The New York Observer


RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch

And one more:

Mike Keefe, The Denver Post

Now the jokes:
-President Bush's approval rating now down to 35%. To give you an idea about how unpopular President Bush is right now, he wasn't even invited to the White House Christmas party. --Jay Leno
-President Bush spent the Thanksgiving weekend at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. A lot of anti-war protesters showed up. On the news they said that 12 pro-Bush supporters were also there. Twelve? Really? That's it? That's pretty bad isn't it? Even Scott Peterson had more people than that waiting for him." --Jay Leno
-Bush's overall approval ratings have hit an all-time low ... If Bush's numbers don't improve, he could become the first president held back and forced to repeat his presidency. --Tina Fey
-President Bush was at the Mexican border yesterday. Apparently his poll numbers are so low that he was trying to make a run for it. --Jay Leno
-According to the latest poll, if George W. Bush were to run for president today he would lose to the Democratic candidate. And today George W. Bush said 'Again?' --Jay Leno
-President Bush was called for jury duty in Texas. Whew, finally some good news for Tom DeLay. --Jay Leno
-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says he wants to be president. Well that's good, somebody will have to pardon his brother. --David Letterman
-The big White House Christmas tree arrived in Washington yesterday. This is President's Bush's favorite holiday tradition. Anything that involves cutting down a tree, Bush has a great time. --Jay Leno
-The big story from Washington today is that President Bush may have lied to investigators about the CIA leak. The theory is that President Bush may have been playing dumb. Well good luck getting anyone to believe that one." --Jay Leno
-In his speech President Bush said we need to rebuild Iraq, provide the people with jobs, and give them hope. If it works there maybe we'll try it in New Orleans. --Jay Leno
-For the first time ever, Republicans in Congress -- Republicans! -- are demanding to know the president's exit strategy from Iraq. Yeah, in response the president said I have an exit strategy, I'm leaving office in 2008. --Conan O'Brien
-It seems the Pentagon has been paying Iraqi journalists to promote a proWhite House view in Iraqi newspapers. See, luckily, we don't have that kind of thing here. We have Fox News. --Jay Leno
-Insiders say that if Karl Rove resigns, President Bush will not function effectively. Wait a minute, all this time he's been functioning effectively?" --David Letterman
-A chunk of marble fell off the facade of the Supreme Court building. Just fell off, boom. Engineers believe it may have fallen off because the building was leaning a little too far to the right. ... Here's the sad part, it didn't hit one lawyer. --Jay Leno
-[On freedom's progress): Here in Baghdad, freedom. In outer Baghdad, free-ish, gradually becoming liberatory. The southern regions, somewhat under-oppressed. The city of Umm Qasr, vaguely unshackled. The Western provinces, still a little kidnappy. --"Daily Show" correspondent Rob Corddry

Scum

That piece of inhuman scum named Rush Limbaugh thinks that it serves the Christian Peacemaker Teams right that they got kidnapped -- he thinks it is outrageous that they should evey try to achieve peace through, well, acting peacefully, when Georgie and the US of A is trying to achieve peace through war.
I guess he'd be even happier if they got killed. Boy, that'd really show them how wrong they were, I guess.
From Rush Limbaugh's show of Nov. 29:

LIMBAUGH: "Aljazeera has broadcasted an insurgent video today, shows four peace activists taken hostage in Iraq . . . Yeah, all right. Now, let's take this at face value just for a moment. This could all be BS. I mean, we've never heard of the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. This could all be a stunt, but let's take it -- well, let's take it both ways. We'll take it face value at first, then we'll look at it as a stunt second. I said at the conclusion of previous hours -- part of me that likes this. And some of you might say, "Rush, that's horrible. Peace activists taken hostage." Well, here's why I like it. I like any time a bunch of leftist feel-good hand-wringers are shown reality. So here we have these peace activists over there. I don't care if they're Christian or not. They're over there, and as peace activists, they've got one purpose. They're over there trying to stop the violence. . . . Fine, they get kidnapped. They get kidnapped at gunpoint. If that version of this is true, then -- OK, you've met the bad guys, and you tried your technique on them, and now you're blindfolded in a room with guns pointed at you and knives at your throat. I don't like that. But any time a bunch of people that walk around with the head in the sand practicing a bunch of irresponsible, idiotic theory confront reality, I'm kind of happy about it, because I'm eager for people to see reality, change their minds if necessary, and have things sized up.

Emphasis mine. Yes, as soon as these people get kidnapped, well, they'll turn into the same kind of scum that Limbaugh is himself.
Limbaugh, by the way, has on his website a whole Club G'itmo section, with photos from all his chickenhawk listeners who think they're contributing to the war effort by putting on their Club G'itmo hat and taking a photo standing in front of a Democrat's office. Wow, talk about putting yourself at risk! Why, those Democrats might actually come out and yell at them!
I guess Limbaugh thinks those Christian Peacemaker Teams should be doing stunts like this, instead of actually living their faith and risking their lives in Iraq and other war zones around the world.
And this is the kind of crap that the American military are listening to on their Armed Forces radio.
The Mennonites should demand an apology.
And when did Rush Limbaugh ever do one single charitable thing for any other American, much less for someone in another country? Never. Even his much-promoted "gift" to soldiers is a scam. It consists of getting donations from his listeners so that he will send the soldiers a 'membership' in his website plus a monthly newsletter. He says he's not profiteering because for every $50 donation for each subscription, he himself is "matching" this -- in other words, for each 'subscription' he is actually collecting $25.

Hand Ignatieff his hat

If he survives the nomination, I hope the voters of Etobicoke-Lakeshore hand Michael Ignatieff his hat.
This is NOT a fellow who should be sitting in our House of Commons, not at a Liberal at least. His writings may have been insulting to Ukrainians -- I'm not sure of the larger context for a sentence like "Ukrainian independence conjures up images of peasant embroidered shirts, the nasal whine of ethnic instruments, phony Cossacks in cloaks and boots . . ." so perhaps he can actually claim the benefit of the doubt -- but certainly his other writings are offensive to me.
This July, 2005 article "Exporting Democracy, Revising Torture: The Complex Missions of Michael Ignatieff" exposes the moral bankruptcy of this man.
Torture? Well, that's OK really, because its necessary, and its just human nature anyway:

"the issue then becomes not whether torture can be prevented, but whether it can be regulated". [Ignatieff] goes even further, and seems to like the idea that when the police need to torture a suspect they could apply to a judge for a 'torture warrant' that would specify the individual being tortured and set limits to the type and duration of pain allowed . . . "The problem is to . . . maintain the limits, case by case, where reasonable people may disagree as to what constitutes torture, what detentions are illegal, which killings depart from lawful norms, or which pre-emptive actions constitute aggression." . . . we know what torture is. From the Spanish inquisition, from the Nazi era, from Augusto Pinochet in Chile, from the apartheid police in South Africa, from Antonio Salazar in Portugal and Francisco Franco in Spain, from Mobutu Sese-Soko in Zaire and now from those digital snapshots of Abu Ghraib, all 'reasonable people' know what torture is. The United Nations charter and half a century of juridical development inside and outside the UN have showed us in detail what torture is, and the rights that we have and must protect. Ignatieff, apparently speaking from some distant world, tells us that, yes, the repressive instincts of the executive power and the security forces should be counterbalanced by the judicial system . . .

The Bush administration, the neocons, the Republicans in general? Just wonderful folks, really, because their hearts are in the right place:

He attacks Europeans as anti-democratic and selfish. He criticises John Kerry as a “risk-avoiding realist” . . . he enthusiastically praises Ronald Reagan, “who began the realignment of American politics, making the Republicans into internationalist Jeffersonians”. For him, “the emergence of democracy promotion as a central goal of United States foreign policy” started with Reagan. Somehow, the director of the Carr Center fails to mention the effects of the Reagan doctrine in Central America and Africa, the Iran-Contra affair, the illegal attacks on Nicaragua and the promotion of the freedom fighters in Afghanistan – a policy with powerful consequences in today’s terrorism. Ignatieff has no historical context. Fatally attracted by the style of instant journalism, he frivolously mixes history and propaganda. . . . Ignatieff does not even know about the country he lives in. He has “an imagined community” in his mind, a homogenous and coherent American society embodying Jeffersonian ideals. And he dreams of a fair and normal electoral process: “Judging from the results of the election in 2004, a majority of Americans do not want to be told that Jefferson was wrong.” US society, with its deep fragmentations and its millions of immigrants whose hearts and minds are in the Dominican Republic, Russia, Honduras or India, has a diversity that mocks such generalisations as “the American electorate seems to know only too well how high the price was in Iraq, and it still chose the gambler (Bush) over the realist (Kerry). In 2004, the Jefferson dream won decisively over American prudence.” It may be difficult to explain all the reasons behind last year’s presidential vote, but we can be sure of this: not many people voted for democratic ideals in the middle east. . . . Ignatieff chooses to applaud a government that goes to war in defiance of the Security Council, that actively promotes the failure of the United Nations, that refuses to sign international treaties, that opts out of international justice and that ignores human rights in prisons – a government that is violating rather than promoting the Jeffersonian dream. In his militaristic patriotism, Ignatieff is blind and wrong.

Please, Etobicoke-Lakeshore, save us from this guy. Or else we will all have to listen to him pontificate during Question Period day after day.
And he probably expects a cabinet post, too. Gag me with a spoon.

"Those people"

So now that Foxy fellow Bill O'Reilly, who was sued for sexually harassing a coworker, is making a list of "those people" -- you know, the ones who "want an America free from spirituality and judgments about personal behavior."
He doesn't like them.
He wants his millions of listeners not to like them either.
Except, I guess, that no one is supposed to make judgments about O' Reilly's own personal behaviour. Nope, its just the personal behaviour of "those people" that is now supposed to be judged and found wanting.
And I presume, as some point, all "those people" should be rounded up and put into re-education camps or maybe work camps where they will learn how to be spiritual and how to make judgements about other people's personal behaviour, or something like that ...