Publicity hounds

As I read this column -- Gretzky undaunted -- I remembered the one thing about American jurisprudence which should never be forgotten: never underestimate the desire of US prosecutors for publicity.
Their dinky little gambling case against a state trooper and an assistant coach hit the big time just because they were able to drag Janet and Wayne Gretzky into it.

Al Gore takes one for the team

So, Al Gore has apologized to Muslims for how the US has treated them since 9/11. And the wingnuts are raking him over the coals for it.
But what they don't realize is that this isn't Al Gore's apology -- it is Condi Rice's apology. It may even be George Bush's apology.
There is no way that Al Gore would have ever gone to Saudi Arabia to say these things unless Rice had approved the trip, and maybe even instigated it. Condi herself could never have apologized for the racist brutality of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense -- but Al Gore is the one US politician who might be listened to by Muslim leaders. Now the Muslim leadership has the apology they needed, to help them cool down their own hotheads.

Accident update 3

Well, well, here's sone news. I saw my doctor again today and had more chest xrays -- this time, they found three or maybe four broken ribs, and I may also have a bruised lung -- so no wonder it seemed to be taking a long time to feel better. Anyway, my doctor said I should stay home and rest for the rest of the week. The radiologist will be reading the xrays in a day or two, so I will have some more precise information after that.
And I guess they don't tape broken ribs anymore, so at least I escaped that.

Deja vu all over again

I didn't watch the show but when I read Adrianna Hurrington's account of today's Meet the Press with Democrats Tom Daschle and Jane Harman, and Republicans Pat Roberts and Peter Hoekstra I had a strange sense of deja vu.
The way Huffington described it, Daschle and Harmon apparently spent most of the program wringing their hands -- not about how Bush's domestic wiretap program contravenes the US constitution, but rather about how Democrats have to prove their patriotism by supporting the program:

Senators Rockefeller and Daschle were not given the power to sign away our civil liberties. A Get Out of Jail Free card for Bush to break the law isn't theirs to give . . . I don't particularly care what the reaction by Rockefeller or Harman or Daschle was to the program. Their silence doesn't make it legal. The question is: what do we do about a President who's breaking the law? And, sadly, the answer, at least from Daschle and Harman, was this: instead of making him conform his actions to the law, we fix the law so that it conforms to whatever actions he wants to take.

And then I remembered why this seemed so familiar -- it is EXACTLY what Peter Daou said would happen, six weeks ago when he described how the wiretap scandal would likely follow the typical Bush scandal pattern:

1. POTUS circumvents the law - an impeachable offense.
2. The story breaks . . .
3. The Bush crew floats a number of pushback strategies, settling on one that becomes the mantra of virtually every Republican surrogate. These Republicans face down poorly prepped Dem surrogates and shred them on cable news shows.
4. Rightwing attack dogs on talk radio, blogs, cable nets, and conservative editorial pages maul Bush's critics as traitors for questioning the CIC.
5. The Republican leadership plays defense for Bush, no matter how flagrant the Bush over-reach, no matter how damaging the administration's actions to America's reputation and to the Constitution . . .
6. Left-leaning bloggers and online activists go ballistic . . . Several newspaper editorials echo these sentiments but quickly move on to other issues.
7. A few reliable Dems, Conyers, Boxer, et al, take a stand on principle, giving momentary hope to the progressive grassroots/netroots community. The rest of the Dem leadership is temporarily outraged (adding to that hope), but is chronically incapable of maintaining the sense of high indignation and focus required to reach critical mass and create a wholesale shift in public opinion.. . .
8. Reporters and media outlets obfuscate and equivocate, pretending to ask tough questions but essentially pushing the same narratives they've developed and perfected over the past five years, namely, some variation of "Bush firm, Dems soft." A range of Bush-protecting tactics are put into play, one being to ask ridiculously misleading questions such as "Should Bush have the right to protect Americans or should he cave in to Democratic political pressure?" All the while, the right assaults the "liberal" media for daring to tell anything resembling the truth.
9. Polls will emerge with 'proof' that half the public agrees that Bush should have the right to "protect Americans against terrorists." Again, the issue will be framed to mask the true nature of the malfeasance. The media will use these polls to create a self-fulfilling loop and convince the public that it isn't that bad after all. The president breaks the law. Life goes on.
10. The story starts blending into a long string of administration scandals, and through skillful use of scandal fatigue, Bush weathers the storm and moves on, further demoralizing his opponents and cementing the press narrative about his 'resolve' and toughness. Congressional hearings might revive the issue momentarily, and bloggers will hammer away at it, but the initial hype is all the Democratic leadership and the media can muster, and anyway, it's never as juicy the second time around...

I remember the reaction when Daou wrote that, on Dec. 20 -- so many American progressive bloggers were bound and determined that THIS TIME it wouldn't happen this way.
But if Daschle's craven bootlicking becomes the new Democratic line, then this is exactly what will happen -- the Washington Post already has a story up titled "Spying Necessary, Democrats Say" , which will be in page A3 of tomorrow's paper.
Not only did Meet the Press undermine Democratic outrage about this scandal, it also undermined the few Republicans who have tried to speak out against this program until now.

The not-quite-ready-for-prime-time players

Following the neocon dictate to create your own reality, Harper seems determined to ignore what the country is saying about his cabinet.
Maybe he thinks he can follow in Bush's footsteps and create a different reality, one where Canada will think his cabinet is just loverly. Maybe he thinks they're grow on us. Maybe he thinks Canadians will give his Cabinet time to "grow into the job".
But riddle me this -- how are these people going to be able to run a government when they can't even organize a press conference?
So far, these people seem to be "not quite ready" for prime time in Cabinet. I guess we'd better hope that some of those good Liberal civil servants and senators and judges are still hanging around, like Harper promised us they would be, to save us from this gang that can't shoot straight.
Hundreds rallied in Vancouver yesterday to call Emerson a traitor. Apparently, being merely the people who voted for Emerson two weeks ago, his constituents, they aren't worthy of any consideration from either Harper or Emerson -- as CBC reported in its story about the rally, "Emerson arrived in Vancouver from Ottawa on Friday night but he has yet to speak publicly to his constituents."
Yeah, they've noticed.
He cannot even seem to speak to the Ottawa press gallery. In the Ottawa Sun, Greg Weston describes the bizarre press-conference-that-wasn't on Thursday night:

As most media outlets were beginning to eyeball their Thursday evening deadlines this week, reporters were invited to dial into an unusual conference-call with Trade Minister David Emerson, the elect-and-eject defector from the losing Liberals, and one of the week’s many star public relations disasters for the new Conservative government. It was weird enough that Emerson was holding a press conference by phone with journalists only a few blocks away, not to mention infuriating for the television networks that would get no video. But when an operator came on the line after 30 minutes of elevator music, and announced there would be no press conference because Emerson was “stuck in traffic,” disbelieving journalists were left rolling in the aisles.

To summarize the depth of anger over the Harper cabinet picks, Murdock Davis writes in the Toronto Star - The West is in, and already it feels offended:

. . . In editorials, letters, coffee shops, on talk shows and the streets . . . The adjectives are harsh: corrupt, hypocritical, cynical, disloyal, manipulative, scandalous, deceitful, unprincipled, dishonest, and then some really bad ones. . . . The cynicism runs deep across the country, but especially in the West, where so many felt that in the new Conservative party they were getting politicians who believed what they said about ethics, accountability and democracy. It might be most among Harper's keenest supporters, creating an ugly wound where healing had occurred between the predominantly western Reform/Alliance group and the more eastern Tory group.
Within that western base, matters such as an elected Senate, honour, saying what you mean and meaning what you say, democratic reform and electoral ethics are core beliefs . . .

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.