Watch the news for these guys

By the way, good catch for Canadian Cynic to report that Focus on the Family is now setting up shop in Ottawa -- hoping to be just the first in a long line of anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-feminist, anti-union wingnuts who can now begin spewing forth lots of bogus "studies" showing the awfulness of gay marriage, feminism, etc.
Watch for an uptick in editorial-page "opinion" pieces authored by these people or their fellow travellers.
And watch for newspapers to send their reporters dutifully trotting over to interview these guys and get some pithy quotes about the issue du jour -- maybe we'll find that Marge Barlow and the gang at Rabble will no longer be the "go-to" guys for social issue quotes.
Here Focus on the Family is calling themselves the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada so this is the name that will begin to pop up in editorial-page bylines and 'fair-and-balanced reaction' quotations.

Heading the think-tank is executive director Dave Quist, who has worked on the Hill for seven years—six years as executive assistant to former B.C. Conservative MP Reed Elley and one year in the office of the Leader of the Opposition. “I know how busy an MP’s office is, and quite honestly, there simply isn’t time in the day sometimes to do all the necessary research it takes to debate an issue,” he says. Joining Quist are two researchers, a communications director and a secretary. He also recently published the inaugural issue of IMFC Review, a twice-yearly magazine . . . Reinforcing that desire to be heard, Quist believes, is “a general awakening by the social conservative community across Canada…people asking, ‘How did we get here and what can we do to strengthen family in the years ahead through policy?" [Focus senior VP Derek] Rogusky insists, however, that the paramount goal of the IMFC is to help Parliament craft family-friendly laws, regardless of who forms the government.
“It is very much non-partisan,” he says. “We’re not about grassroots lobbying. We’re not about trying to vote certain people out of office. We’re not behind one particular party or one particular candidate—never have been and never will be.”
“We’re not going to be organizing the petitions and letters to the MPs. There are other groups that will do that,” Quist adds. “We want to say [to them], ‘Here’s the impact on children, here’s the impact on moms or dads or couples, if you go down this road.’”
At the same time, Rogusky does not rule out temporary partnerships with secular groups and individuals to achieve mutually desirable results. “We’d be eager to work with anyone and everyone, but it would be on a case-by-case basis, obviously….That includes other think-tanks, academics, people in the media, civil servants and even elected officials,” he says.
Rogusky concedes “it’s going to take some work” for the IMFC to overcome the perception fostered by critics of Focus on the Family that it is merely a front for the “religious right.” But he is confident that will happen. “We’re not going to be bullied or intimidated by anyone,” says Rogusky. “And over time, with a real emphasis on consistently putting out good quality research and defending that research, you may not always agree with us, but eventually you’re going to have to respect us.”

Er, NOT!

Great line of the day

In Scandal Fatique, Catnip & the "Angry" Left, Peter Daou reports:

. . . It's no accident that the scandals get more and more outrageous - after all, the whole point is to have the opposition frantically racing around, chasing stories, distracted and exhausted, wearing itself out like a kitten in a catnip-doused, mouse-filled room. The amazing thing is that so many of Bush's opponents continue to play along. The sheer inability to put on blinders and drive one scandal home, to take it to its ultimate conclusion, is a failing of magnificent proportions. The warrantless spying fiasco is a perfect example. The day the NSA story broke, it should have been the only issue discussed by Democrats and progressive activists, the only one. Day in, day out. No matter if thirty other scandals intervened. Bush and his team count on the opposition's lack of focus, joyfully handing them more catnip. Perhaps that explains the ubiquitous and infamous administration smirk, most recently gracing Alberto Gonzales' face as he humored the Senate Judiciary Committee about breaking the law.

Emphasis mine. And who does that smirk remind you of?

Why we all love computers

Here's a great example of garbage in, garbage out:

A house erroneously valued at $400 million US is being blamed for budget shortfalls and possible layoffs in municipalities and school districts in northwestern Indiana . . . The house had been valued at $121,900 before the glitch. . . the home usually carried about $1,500 in property taxes; this year, it was billed $8 million. . . the $400-million value ended up on documents that were used to calculate tax rates. Most local officials did not learn about the mistake until Tuesday, when 18 government taxing units were asked to return a total of $3.1 million of tax money. The city of Valparaiso and the Valparaiso Community School Corp. were asked to return $2.7 million. As a result, the school system has a $200,000 budget shortfall and the city loses $900,000.. . . the user probably tried to use a real estate record display by pressing R-E-D but accidentally typed R-E-R, which brought up an assessment program written in 1995. The program is no longer in use and technology officials did not know it could be used. The county treasurer said his office spotted the $400-million error after it caused an improper billing but apparently it wasn't corrected elsewhere.

And as more and more computer programs are partly overwritten and abandoned, chances are this type of thing will happen more often.

Stick it in their ear

Don Cherry said it for everyone --

All I got to say to you Wayne, is go over there, win the gold and stick it in their ear.

Right on, Don!

"Uh, Mohammed?" "Yes, Mohammed?"

Maybe its just me, but this Hullabaloo report on the 'Literary Terrorism' plot NSA intercept just struck me as hysterically funny. So, in all its glory, here it is:

Al Quaeda terrorist #1: Have you received our target yet?
AQ#2: Yes. The Literary tower in Los Angeles.
#1: The Literary Tower?
#2: Yes. You know, the really tall one.
#1: Fool, you mean the LIBERTY Tower, not the...
#2: No no no, the Literary Tower, I remember specifically. That's the big one. With all their books.
#1: Their books?? Who cares about the infidel's books? The plan is to strike down their liberty. That makes our target the Liberty Tower, not the Literary tower. Are you sure we're talking about the same tower? Do you have a map? We are talking about Los Angeles, aren't we?[paper shuffling]
#2: Um... uh... I can't figure this out. Oh, who cares what it's called. It's the tallest one. How many tallest buildings can there be in Los Angeles, anyway?
#1: Three? Four?
#2: ...Well, it doesn't matter. Any one of them will do. Do you have the information on our weapons?
#1: Yes, I am told we will hide high explosives in our shoes, and then...
#2: Uh, say that again? It sounded like you said "high explosives" and "shoes."
#1: Yes. Explosives. In our shoes. We'll use them to gain access to the cockpit...
#2: Uh, Mohammed?
#1: Yes Mohammed?
#2: Something, um, doesn't sound right. Are you quite sure...
#1: Of course I'm sure. It says right here [sounds of more paper shuffling] that we are to use high explosives to gain access to the cockpit, where we then threaten to blow up the rest of plane if they don't fly it into the Liberty...
#2: Literary...
#1: Liberty, Literary... I don't... [sighs] Look, just tell the pilot "The tall one." I'm quite sure they'll know which building you're talking about. Just tell them that if they don't immediately fly the plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles, you'll blow them up with your Sneakers of Mass Destruction. They won't want that, I can assure you.
#2: Uh... there's something I don't understand.
#1: Yes?
#2: How do we explode our way into the cockpit and still threaten to blow up the plane?
#1: Fool, that's why we hide the explosives in our shoes. Just use one shoe on the cockpit door. That way we still have the other shoe to threaten to blow up the rest of the plane with.
#2: Ooooh. That makes sense. Sort of. [long pause] We get to take them off first, right?
#1: I assume. Let me check [paper shuffling]. Well, I don't see where it says we can't. So I suppose it should be okay. [pause] Wait. Did you hear that?
#2: Yes, I did. Is there somebody else on the line? You don't have a party line, do you? Please tell me you paid for a private line...
#1: Yes, of course this is a private line. Now shut your hookah-hole, I'm trying to listen. ["if you'd like to continue this wiretap for another --ten-- minutes, please insert an additional --75-- cents"] ACK! I think this line is being tapped!
#2: Do Americans have such technologies?
#1: Damn. I once read where they did, but I completely forgot about that.
[click]

Prize-winning photos

Yahoo Photos has the winners of the World Press Photos of the Year competition.
Here is the top prize:

It was taken by Reuters photographer Canadian Finbarr O'Reilly in Tahoua, northwestern Niger, on August 1 2005, showing the emaciated fingers of a one-year old child pressed against the lips of his mother.

Sports Features Singles first prize:

'Bullfighter, Medellin', Henry Agudelo, El Colombiano, Reuters

Arts and Entertainment Stories first prize:

Asa Sjostrom, Sweden, Reuters

Contemporary Issues Singles first prize:

A Sierra Leone boy helps his father to dress, by Greek photographer Yannis Kontos, Polaris Images.

People in the News first prize:

Rocky Mountain News photographer Todd Heisler shows the honour accorded to the arrival of Marine 2nd Lt. James Cathey's body at Reno Airport.

Sports Features first prize:

Australian photographers Mark & Jenny Evans show horse racing in Australia (AP Photo).

Spot News third prize:

New York Daily News photographer Michael Appleton captures this image of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath in New Orleans.

Accident update

A friend of ours from out of town was over tonight and said was wondering how I was doing after the car accident a week ago and he kept checking the blog but I hadn't posted anything.
So here is the latest:
- chest - still purple from the seat belt, but I can lie down to sleep now on my right side. My doctor gave me some great news when she said it was the worst brusing from a seatbelt she had ever seen (the reason this is great news is because now I can use what she said to get everyone to feel sorry for me without actually having to be a whiney ass titty baby about it myself!)
- left knee - still swollen but not sore to move anymore, at least for most of the time
- left ankle and right toes - still bruised; now on diueritic to reduce swelling
- head - still a little bruised (I think I concussed on the headrest)
- car - a write-off. When we went down to the insurance agency on Tuesday to clear out the glove compartment and trunk, that's when I realized that the passenger half of the engine compartment is just crushed. The car interior looked intact until I realized that the floor mounting around the gearshift and emergency brake is shattered. I don't know how fast the other driver was going, but it must have been a brisk clip. A nanosecond later and he would have come through my passenger door and right into me. Or, three nanoseconds later and he might well have missed me completely.
Anyway, after seeing the car, my husband started talking for the first time ever about the advantages of an SUV or at least something larger than a Ford Tempo.
But we are going to take a bit of time decide, because I won't be driving for a while anyway.
Thanks, by the way, for everyone's good wishes and kind thoughts.

Great lines of the day

In His Gentle Ears, Steve Gilliard sums up the reaction of American blacks to being told that George Bush may have felt insulted at the King funeral:

. . . Our diffrrences with George Bush are not trivial or based on policy. They are real and substantial. People's children are dying in Iraq, New Orleans is a wasteland, and we're supposed to be upset that he got his feelings hurt at a funeral . . .
If white commentators expect black people to react to their pained words of criticism, they are going to be sadly suprised at the indifference their complaints will meet. Black people bury their leaders how we choose fit. If Jeff Greenfield doesn't like it, well, no one asked his opinion.
Was he ripping into the online racists as they mocked the dead of Katrina?
Of course not.
When you have vermin like Michael Savage and Don Imus complaining, it isn't exactly going to impress most black people with their outrage.
You can't ignore the slights and insults to black people in their greatest crisis since the Civil War, while the right attacked black people without pause, and then act as if you have a claim to regulate their behavior at other times.
George Bush betrayed America, especially black America with his failed response to Katrina, why should he be allowed to sit before black America and go unscolded for his failure?
This is not the Minnesota Dems, we don't care about your Jedi Mind Tricks. Your opinion means less than nothing.

Boy, are they pissed!

I guess I really have been hanging around the Liberals too long. I am surprised at the depth of anger among Conservatives at what Harper has done, and how this anger just isn't going away.
Today's Globe story provides some choice new quotes from Conservatives:

"This looks like expediency, even hypocrisy ...This is shocking. It's just unbelievable. Who was Stephen talking to? We campaigned against this kind of stuff" - veteran Conservative MP from Western Canada
"I'm not sure how I'm going to explain these appointments to my constituents. It's bewildering." -- rookie MP
"brazen display of anti-democratic behaviour" - a radio talk show caller describing Emerson.
"I understand the pragmatism of it, but to be honest, I feel a bit uneasy about it." - MP Maurice Vellacott.

On his post entitled One-day story (Day Three), Andrew Coyne provides some links to more coverage from Reuters, Vancouver Sun, Edmonton Sun, Calgary Sun, CBC News, National Post, and the Toronto Star.
And here are some more editorial reactions:

Don Martin, columnist for the pro-Conservative National Post, attacked the appointment as "flagrant capitulation to political expediency." He added: "A clean government is launched by dirty politics." . . .
"Despite all his lofty election promises to do government differently, Harper has constructed a cabinet more with an eye to political porking that principle," wrote columnist Greg Weston in the right-wing Sun chain of newspapers. Weston noted that the three ministries with the most money to spend -- public works, industry and transport and infrastructure -- had all gone to people from French-speaking Quebec . . .
La Presse, one of Quebec's most influential newspapers, said that for someone who had promised to do things differently Harper had "missed the mark" with his cabinet choices.

And here are some blogger reactions:

Stephen Harper promised us an end to the democratic deficit - he swore that a Conservative government would be more principled than the previous Liberal regimes. He lied. -- Bound by Gravity
I had hoped a principled Conservative government, unused to the corrupting trappings and temptations of power, might stem the rising tide of cynicism eating away at the political spirit of our great country. That hope is not extinguished, but it wanes. I still support the Conservative govenment on policy. But policy alone is thin gruel indeed for someone hungry for leadership. Babbling Brooks
It still stinks. We were not elected to be better at the Liberals' game. We were elected to change the rules of the game. By leading off with our chins the way we have with the David Emerson cabinet spot and the handling of Michael Fortier's cabinet appointment via the Senate, we not only suckerpunched the Liberals, but we suckerpunched ourselves. We suckerpunched all those Conservative supporters, who spent this Christmas looking their non-partisan friends in the eye and encouraging them to vote for a party they weren't 100% comfortable with, on the grounds that we were going to do things differently, and politics would be a little better at the end. . . . we bought into the message. We really did believe that things were going to be different. There was a great deal of idealism within the Tory party over the last few weeks, and in one fell swoop, it became muted. Hacks and Wonks
Say this for him: if you’re going to break a promise, you might as well rub everyone’s noses in it. Mr. Harper has achieved a great deal with these two appointments. He has demoralized his party’s supporters. He has ruined whatever honeymoon he might have had with the press. He has diverted attention from what was otherwise an impressive piece of cabinet-making. But most of all, he has undermined his own reputation for honesty. A priceless political asset has been devalued, and all for a couple of cabinet seats. Bad politics has driven out good.- Andrew Coyne

Harper's Emerson appointment, though unprincipled, didn't surprise me, really -- I guess I could understand why Harper would want to shore up his minority and give his Cabinet some experience by grabbing Emerson. But the more I think about it, the less explicable the Fortier appointment appears -- it is as blatant and obvious a piece of political pay-back sleaze as Chretien ever tried to pull off, though at least "Big Al" Galiano had been elected before he was given the plum public works appointment.
And Harper is also learning how, once you start buying people off, you just can't stop. The Globe also reports that Ontario Tory MP Helena Guergis was set to issue a press release reaffirming her support for last year's anti-crossing legislation. "However, Mr. Harper made her parliamentary secretary to Mr. Emerson yesterday afternoon, and the press release was not issued."
Cynicism -- I guess it must be contagious.

Great line of the day

Today's Great Line comes from Canadian Cynic, questioning a Reuters story stating that Harper broke his campaign promises in appointing Fortier to cabinet:

. . . is Reuters being a little too pedantic here? Did Harper actually explicitly say those things? Or did he leave himself some wiggle room? I mean, I may think Stephen Harper is an ignorant, hypocritical, lying sack of crap, but I do try to be fair about these things.

ROTFLOL. Emphasis mine.

New species

This is fascinating -- just when we start to think there can be nothing new in the world comes a story like this -- A Lost World in Indonesia Yields Riches for Scientists. Here are some of the photos they took on this expedition, including some of the new species they found.
Smoky honeyeater:


Six-wired bird of paradise (not new, but hasn't been seen for more than a century):


'Giant White' rhododendron:


new species of treefrog;


golden-mantled tree kangaroo (which had been thought to be close to extinction):

Great line of the day

At Daily Kos, Darksyde writes:

In that bloody light of conflicts past and won, as a son of parents who grew up in a Depression and the ensuing World War, and as a child of the Cold War, let me make this crystal clear: If you think you're going to scare me or my nation into reversing two hundred years of history, becoming a Police State, and subjecting ourselves to a tyrannical Overlord in the form of the President of the United States, then you damn well better come up with a significantly greater threat than that posed by a handful of religious maniacs armed with explosive belts and boxcutters.

Old bums exit there . . .

New bums enter here. Its funny to see how simply furious many of the blogging tories are about the Cabinet picks of Emerson and Fortier.
That said, there's nothing wrong with what Harper did today -- a prime minister has to do what he has to do in order to run the country. He may be a little surprised, however, at how quickly his press honeymoon ends now.
And by the way, I don't think there is any such thing as a "temporary Senate seat", though the media kept reporting it that way today. Once Fortier is appointed to the Senate, I don't think he would ever have to resign, even if Harper expects him to do so. Would you?

Embassies burning

If you are seeing photos of burning embassies and wondering what the heck is going on, read Sisyphus Shrugged - shouting fire in a crowded theater, Piss Christ, Der Sturmer and other speech issues. Here's part of her sensible overview:

. . . full-metal hell didn't break loose until various newspapers in Europe, giving reasons ranging from support of free speech . . . to anti-religious principles (France, of course), went ahead and reprinted the cartoons again. One brave soul printed them in Jordan. He's been fired. The boycott, largely a pipe dream before last week, is now severely damaging danish industry. Meanwhile, the original newspaper, which apparently has more sense than the Prime Minister does, acknowledged that although the publication of the cartoons was completely legal, they were offensive, and apologized for causing offense. European leaders (with, of course, the exception of Denmark and Norway) have pointed out that while free speech is a basic human right, the material printed in this case was deeply offensive and to be condemned.
By this time, of course, the culture warriors of the anti-islamic right had succeeded in attracting enough attention to their antics to draw the attention of the violent extremist wing of the muslim world.
So now embassies are burning and (while mainstream islamic leaders condemn the riots) there is lovely juicy footage of islamic mob violence on every station and in every newspaper just as the effort to escalate against Iran ramps up.
Quel coinkydink.
If you want a real educational experience, go look at the Google hits for this, and read what the LGF wing of the blogosphere has to say about it, and how few facts about the situation they give you (among other things, they uniformly suggest that the boycott and the violence have been going on since the original publication of the images in September rather than since late December or mostly in the past week).
If you want another educational experience after that, Google what the same sites had to say last week about free speech in the matter of Cindy Sheehan's tshirt . . . Free speech means that you have the right to express yourself. You even have the right to be protected by law from people you've offended who want to express their offense in illegal ways. It does not mean that if you act like a dumb [fuck] you're really a brave warrior for truth and the rights of man or anything but a really, really dumb [fuck]. Congratulations, o culture warriors of the right. You've gotten the deep offense and the highly-telegenic violence you wanted. You must, although resembling them closely in many other significant ways, be much happier than pigs in shit . . .

Thanks to Steve Gilliard for the reference.

True patriots

The Washington Post reports on the domestic spying program and toward the end of the article I found some interesting stuff.
First, the National Security Agency machines are not selective:

. . . the agency has acknowledged use of automated equipment to analyze the contents and guide analysts to the most important ones. According to one knowledgeable source, the warrantless program also uses those methods. That is significant to the public debate because this kind of filtering intrudes into content, and machines "listen" to more Americans than humans do . . .

Second, in the NSA version of reality, they haven't actually done anything even if their machines listen to every single phone call and email ever sent anywhere:

NSA rules since the late 1970s. . . have said "acquisition" of content does not take place until a conversation is intercepted and processed "into an intelligible form intended for human inspection."

So the conclusion I draw is that all the phone calls that everybody makes could well be available electronically in the NSA database somewhere and NSA would continue to claim they actually had not "acquired" this data.
You see the hole here, don't you?
The data is sitting there, just waiting to be processed. Just because some NSA supervisor or even some judge hasn't approved it, doesn't mean that the data could not still be used.
To make money, for one thing -- imagine being able to listen in on Bill Gate's phone calls to find out when would be a good time to buy or sell Microsoft stock.
But mainly to keep the Bush administration informed about what the Democrats are up to. Remember that in Karl Rove's universe, absolutely everything is political. Democrats are, by definition, traitors. Cheney said a year ago that voting for Kerry was risking the security of the United States. It wasn't just a cynical ploy -- they really believe this.
So it might well be possible to convince some super-loyal, super-patriotic NSA employees that the Democratic congressional leadership, say, or Howard Dean or the DNC are a threat to the repubic -- particularly if the NSA is also hiring 24-year-old presidential campaign workers like NASA is.
They would think that listening in on Teddy Kennedy's phone calls would be the patriotic thing to do.