Today's great read

Here's a blog post which I think qualifies as today's "great read" -- at Somena Media, Meaghan Walker-Williams writes some great stuff about Coming Home to Canada:

I felt trememendous relief to be back home in Canada, when I got off that airplane and reached Vancouver. I was among my own. And I don't believe a word of this nonsense about how Canadian and American culture is becoming homogonized. I've lived in both worlds. I've seen the difference. To be sure, certain aspects of our culture that are less important to us are withering away or atrophing. But on the whole, Canadians talk differently, dress differently, value things differently and are generally just most "with it" (as far as I can tell) Americans are (and this is not really their fault) for the most part insulated and isolated in this huge bubble where beyond the US, the world exists, but it doesn't seem entirely real to them.

Why John McCain should never be president

Two reasons actually. This one:

And this one:

Basically, John McCain is a pathetic man, who long since sacraficed any principles he may have had to pander for power. He is a person of great charm, so he can go on the Daily Show and chuckle with Jon Stewart, but here's what he was saying at a Republican meeting this weekend:

. . . Mr. McCain went so far as to condemn the collapse of the port deal, saying that Congress had served Mr. Bush poorly by not permitting a 45-day review of security concerns, though he did not mention that the deal was sunk by fellow Republicans. "The president deserved better," Mr. McCain said. Mr. McCain praised the president for his failed effort to rewrite the Social Security system, said he supported the decision to go into Iraq and blistered at critics who suggested the White House had fabricated evidence of unconventional weapons in Iraq to justify the invasion. "Anybody who says the president of the United States is lying about weapons of mass destruction is lying," Mr. McCain said.

Reality is biting

Things have changed and here's the proof -- in this story on Rice talking to Congress about the Iraq war, reporter Robert Burns also mentions the anti-war protestor:

Rice's opening statement to the committee was interrupted by a man in the audience who stood and shouted, 'How many of you have children in this illegal and immoral war? The blood is on your hands and you cannot wash it away.' As he was escorted from the room by security officers, the man also shouted, 'Fire Rumsfeld.'

Three years ago, before the war began, the millions who marched against it got barely a mention. Now, we have a reporter quoting what a protestor said. Better late than never.

Which is it?

So either Harper is so immature and self-indulgent that he cannot control his temper long enough to even talk to Shapiro for an hour or two.
Or he actually does have something to hide about the Emerson floor-crossing deal.
Which is it?
Goggle News now lists 127 news stories with a headline questioning Harper's ethics.
Not exactly the coverage the Conservatives wanted, with several weeks still to go before the goodies in the speech from the throne will distract everyone.

Iraq end game

Joint Chiefs of Staff head Peter Pace said this weekend that Iraq was going "very, very well". Well, dream on.
Reminds me of a saying: I've been down so long it looks like up to me.
Today, the Washington Post has a major story about how Iraq morgues are now hiding the numbers of Sunni men being executed by Shiite militias and death squads.

Execution-style killings of the kind frequently blamed on police or Shiite militias allied with the government appear to be killing more Iraqis than bombings of government and civilian targets by Sunni Arab insurgents.

Steve Gilliard writes:

Americans have been awfully naive in dealing with the kind of violence in Iraq now exploding. It isn't just the resistance any longer, but the militias we tolerated to help keep order and failed.
None of Saddam's strategic challenges have disappeared, just the means for resolving them.
When the Iranians talk about inflicting pain on the US, people think oil. Well, that may be part of it, but so is a full throated Shia uprising. And that's a lot cheaper to start and hide than slowing oil production. Toss in a few kidnappings and the recipe for anarchy is right there.
The problem for US forces is the day the Iraqi Army goes home and chooses sides, leaving them totally exposed. Saddam's former UN ambassador was on CNN last night. He was chortling at being right and predicted many of the exiles would soon be leaving with the US. But he was right and there is little to say about him being right.
The end game is coming.

Why we are fighting

The Galloping Beaver writes a post entitled Whether you like it or not, our presence in Afghanistan is fully justified which answers many of the questions I had about what our troops are doing in Afghanistan:

. . . It is a stabilization force intended to provide protection for reconstruction teams and assist the new government of Afghanistan in defending against Taliban resistance. ISAF has full combat capability and has robust rules of engagement (ROE). Unlike the horrible ROE that come with UN Chapter 6 peacekeeping operations, one doesn't have to wait until one of his unit members is killed before shooting back. ISAF has full authority to gather intelligence, seek out the enemy and conduct combat patrols. Canada shifted from Kandahar to Kabul and ISAF in August 2003 and have had troop levels of up to 1,900 since then . . . The committment to see the transformation of Afghanistan into a full member of the world community and not a haven for terrorists has never changed.
The latest deployment comes at the request of NATO to have Canada command a brigade of multinational troops. It is a part of the initial committment to rid Afghanistan of the terrorist cadre that has occupied it for so long and to reconstitute that country with a government which is able to survive and provide for its own self-defence. Until they are able to do that, and until the necessary reconstruction is completed, Canada is committed . . .

I do disagree with Dave that a vote in Parliament is unnecessary -- I think it would be worthwhile to have such a vote, to explain to Canadians what we are doing there.
Take me, for example -- I actually thought I was following this stuff, yet there was lots in Dave's post that I hadn't known about what we are doing over there and why. So for all Canadians who haven't been paying much attention, its important that we know what Dave is writing about. Thanks, Dave.

Great line of the day

Canadian Cynic writes: "Apparently, the new approach to American national security is to pray like hell that nothing goes wrong. Yeah, that'll work."

We won!

MSNBC reports that Canadian centre fielder Adam Stern hit an inside-the-park homer, drove in four runs and made two sensational catches in center to help win the game for Canada 8-6 over the United States in the inaugural World Baseball Classic tournament now underway in Phoenix.
We caught part of this game on TV and it looked pretty good. Here are the boys celebrating their win.

CP's Shi Davidi describes the action:

. . . Canada opened the scoring in the first when Clapp tripled and scored on Morneau's RBI groundout.
It looked like the lead would be short-lived when the U.S. loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the first but Loewen made a phenomenal pitch to Chipper Jones for an inning ending double play.
That seemed to inspire the Canadians, who picked up another run in the second on back-to-back triples by Aaron Guiel and Stern, three more in the third on Pete Laforest's RBI single and Stern's two-run single and another pair in the fourth on Matt Stairs' two-run single.
Stern added an inside-the-park-homer leading off the fifth to make it 8-0 before the Americans clawed back against the bullpen.
The U.S. was all over reliever Chris Begg to open the fifth, as Michael Young singled, Ken Griffey Jr., doubled him home and then scored on Derrek Lee's single.
Begg proceeded to load the bases before reliever Eric Cyr came on, and he fell behind Jason Varitek 3-1 before the Red Sox catcher crushed a ball making it 8-6.
Somehow the Canadians held on from there and stormed the field to celebrate after Morneau stepped on first to end things.

There is a chance we will win the pool now, depending on whether we win the Mexico game on Thursday. Keep on cheering for Canada, everyone. (Both AP Photos by Charlie Riedel)

"Men's rights"? Not so much.

This news story is titled Men's Rights Group Eyes Child Support Stay. But how dare they call abandoning a child to be a "man's right"?
This group, which call themselves the National Centre for Men, is promoting a lawsuit which argues that "If a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood."
This group acts like the child is some sort of legal abstraction who will disappear if a man choses to exercise their "men's rights".
As the story also notes, however, "most courts say it's not about what he did or didn't do or what she did or didn't do. It's about the rights of the child." Exactly.

We're there because we're there because we're there...

Shorter Peter MacKay: 'Our troops will stay in Afghanistan because they're already there'.
Hmm...
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay apparently opposes a vote in Parliament about the Afghanistan mission because some MPs would vote against it: "The last thing we want to show is any wavering or any backing away from the commitment of our Canadian troops. We have to be 100 per cent behind them."
I guess he thinks our troops are stupid, and they don't know already that, depending on the poll, somewhere between 50 to 60 per cent of Canadians do not support the Afghanistan mission anymore.
So we aren't "100 percent behind them" even now. And they know it. But personally, I would think its more important to our troops that we make sure their mission in Afghanistan is important and worthwhile. What is it, exactly, we are asking them to die for? We had better make sure that we all know what it is.
I wouldn't say I oppose the Afghanistan mission, not yet anyway -- but I sure would welcome some discussion about what our troops are doing there.
MacKay couldn't actually seem to identify a real goal for our troops, like protecting cities or villages or making sure roads are safe for travel, or running special ops against taliban and warlord areas,for example. Instead, he just talked about how "this is the type of mission demanded in this day and age", that terrorism "has its roots in Afghanistan" and that we are "committed to fight with our allies".
And Stephen Harper is just as bad -- he says "You do not send men and women into harm's way on a dangerous mission with the support of our party and other Canadians, and then decide, once they're over there, that you're not sure you should have sent them."
Well, why not?
If the troops get there and find out they don't have a mission or they're not being used effectively or they're just cannon fodder or bait (which is how Canadian troops actually have been used at other times and in other wars) or the whole Afghanistan war has become a misbegotten, poorly-executed exercise in futility that is not worth anybody dying for, then I would hope we would get our troops out of there and the sooner the better.

Great lines of the day

At Daily Kos, DarkSyde says it loud about Iraq:

GOP Shill posing as reporter: "Many are saying the reason we're not winning is because [insert reference to critics, i.e., liberals, democrats, progressives, defeatists, etc.] have been critical of the war and have eroded supp--" Cut them off right there!
Response: "The Republicans Are Losing the War. This was a Republican War dreamed up by Republicans, packaged by Republicans and marketed like a soft drink by Republicans. It was Republicans who ignored the dangers and warnings from senior combat vets and went in too light and poorly equipped, it was Republicans who smugly assured us we would be greeted as liberators, that the oil would pay for it, and that we had to act immediately before a mushroom cloud bloomed over an American City. It was the Republicans at the most senior levels that absolutely assured us that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction and cleverly floated the implication that there were operational links between Iraq and 9/11. This is a Republican War and it's Republicans who are losing the War. And since it's the Republicans who claim it's the central front in the War on Terror, then by their own definition it follows that The Republicans are Losing that War."
If by now the panicked host or foundering discussion partner hasn't cut you off, s/he will probably try the ole bait and switch "But Democrats also supported the war, what about them?", keep piling on the painful truth:
"It was a Republican controlled Congress who enabled this Republican White House to start this Republican War, who rubber-stamped every stumble and screw-up, from rocky start to looming catastrophic finish. It has been Republican pundits and apologists who have defended it every step of the way. It was Republicans who claimed we were doing great, the whole time things were going to hell in a handbasket. It was Republican companies that hogged every tax dollar they could get and 'misplaced' billions in their greedy zeal. It was the Republicans who lied or bungled or got it dead wrong from the get-go. It was Republicans who fed tens of thousands of other people's brave sons and daughters in our armed forces into a meat grinder, to be killed or maimed for this massive Republican mistake. The only way we well ever stop these Losers is to get them out of office before the Republicans Lose More Wars."
Say it slowly, say it fast. Say it many times. The Republicans are Losing the War.

Emphasis mine. Exactly. This war was and is the fault of the people who wanted to fight it.

Just tell me all the details, darlin'

A South Dakota Senator named Bill Napoli says that under their new anti-abortion legislation, rape MIGHT be a good enough reason for an abortion -- but he would have to know all the delicious details first. And then, of course, I guess it would be HIS decision, not HERS -- why, she might just be a slut who only deserves a shotgun marriage instead!
This wingnut was recently interviewed on a PBS show.
Its the first time we're heard such ridiculous nonsense since the 1970s, but not, I fear, the last. Thanks to Dibgy for alerting the blogosphere to this guy:

BILL NAPOLI: My calls have been running 3-1 in favor of this bill.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls 'convenience.' He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother's life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.
BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.
. . .
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Democratic Representative Elaine Roberts is one of South Dakota's few pro-choice legislators. What's next, she fears, is a host of measures that regulate women's private lives.
ELAINE ROBERTS: We already have a law that says that pharmacists by conscience could refuse to fill my prescription for contraceptives. There is already a move from some groups who have worked on this to say that there should be no contraceptives, that sexual intercourse is for the purpose of reproduction.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Much of what she fears as an assault on basic rights Senator Napoli sees as a return to traditional values.
BILL NAPOLI: When I was growing up here in the wild west, if a young man got a girl pregnant out of wedlock, they got married, and the whole darned neighborhood was involved in that wedding. I mean, you just didn't allow that sort of thing to happen, you know? I mean, they wanted that child to be brought up in a home with two parents, you know, that whole story. And so I happen to believe that can happen again.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: You really do?
BILL NAPOLI: Yes, I do. I don't think we're so far beyond that, that we can't go back to that.

Great line of the day

In The Joys of Living in a Fantasyland Glenn Greenwald writes:

But the notion that this was a very bad week for Bush is only true for those who live in the world of facts. Bush followers are lucky. They have an outstanding capacity to create their own fantasy world where any facts which reflect negatively on the Leader are simply discarded and ignored.

Emphasis mine.
I wonder how long they can keep this going -- "No clothes? Why, he's wearing simply beautiful clothes. Just look at all those gorgeous colours. And the fabrics, oh the fabrics..."

Didn't the media know we're in a war?

As much as we criticize the Americans for what they are doing in Iraq, we Canadians think we are still the good guys. And even though a majority of Canadians now want our soldiers out of Afghanistan, we still think our soldiers are the good guys.
So when our soldiers get attacked, the tone of the media coverage is, how surprising! Like, how could they attack our guys? Don't they know we're just trying to help?

. . . Lieut. Trevor Greene was chatting with dozens of elders near his forward base in Gumbad when an Afghan villager pulled an axe with a 60-centimetre handle from inside his clothing. The villager, in his 20s, held the axe high over Greene's head and yelled "Allah Akbar" - God is Great - the signature call of an Islamist suicide attacker.
The man fulfilled his destiny. He delivered his nearly lethal blow and then died where he stood, his body riddled with bullets from Capt. Kevin Schamuhn and two of his fellow soldiers . . . . The notion the act was of a lone maniac quickly disappeared.
While villagers scattered in all directions, enemy small-arms fire broke out from across the river. Canadians and their Afghan allies returned fire. Then, as things calmed slightly, another man moved toward coalition forces and tossed a hand grenade.
The Afghans and Canadians returned fire again as the grenade exploded harmlessly. Schamuhn believes the man was hit but the grenade attacker scurried away in the mayhem.
As things calmed down, a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter whisked Greene away to a Canadian hospital at Kandahar Airfield. He remains there in serious condition, awaiting a plane ride to Germany and home.
The Afghans and Canadians went into the village to find answers. All they found were seven old men and some women and children.
"There were no fighting-age males there," said Schamuhn.
"The leaders we had been speaking to earlier had disappeared and all the young men that we were talking to had disappeared."
No villager would say who the dead attacker was.
The platoon from Company A of the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry brigade in Afghanistan was making a series of stops in small villages Saturday from their forward operating base 70 kilometres north of Kandahar.
Moving into rural areas is a key part of Canada's plan to bring security and reconstruction to Kandahar province.
Villagers in a meeting hours earlier welcomed them with blankets and bread and meats.
The meetings with local leaders are known as shura and are key to getting anything done in rural areas.
The fateful meeting was off to a good start when the
attacker struck, Schamuhn said.
The first hint of trouble could only be seen in the light of hindsight, he said. "About two or three minutes prior to the incident, all the children that were present were escorted away, about 20 to 30 metres away," Schamuhn recalled. "But none of us picked up on this, there was no weird feeling, no gut feeling that something was about to go down."
Schamuhn has grown to trust villagers through dozens of encounters. He and Greene had removed their helmets and set down their arms in a sign of respect and trust. "I'm sure I've shaken hands with some people who have plotted against us," he said.
"You can't tell."
Schamuhn said he had started to believe the oft-repeated Afghan contention that foreigners are causing all the trouble. He doesn't believe it now. "This guy, he was a local villager from this village who was coerced or persuaded by some outside force to do this against us," Schamuhn said. "We were completely vulnerable to them and they took complete advantage of that. There was a lot of people who knew what was about to happen."

Yes.
Well, that would be because there's a war going on over there.
Didn't we already know this?

Have we no shame?

Do the Geneva Conventions and rule of law mean as little to Canada now as they do to the United States? This is just disgusting:

. . . neither the new Conservative government in Ottawa nor its previous Liberal governments seem troubled by [Guantanamo]. . . Not only has there been no Canadian demand for it to close, but Canada's special-forces units in Afghanistan continue to hand terrorism suspects over to U.S. forces who ship at least some of them to Guantanamo. "Canada's silence on Guantanamo is related to the fact that we are complicit in the whole process'" of seizing and holding suspects "in a twilight zone," NDP defence spokesman Bill Blaikie said yesterday. "This is typical of the way both the Liberals and Conservatives have handled the whole issue of Guantanamo," instead of joining with other governments and calling for its closing . . .