Great line of the day

Digby writes:

I have said it before many times and I'll say it again: the neocons have always been wrong about everything. This is just the latest in a decades long series of delusional miscalculations . . . The megalomaniacal belief that if only the Israelis are allowed to "get tough" or the Americans "take it to the Iranians" or whatever other simplistic schoolyard impulses they have been operating under have led us to the point at which the US is taking on the character of a rogue superpower, not a global leader.
. . . it's still hard to wrap your mind around the fact that the most powerful country in the world is being led so incompetently that it simply cannot rise to the occasion when the stakes are so high. I confess that I'm still shocked by that myself, although less so each time we are confronted with a challenge and these neocon magical thinkers automatically default to bellicose trash talk they are unable to back up. This is a very dangerous moment for the world. The US is showing over and over again that it is immmoral and incompetent. That is the kind of thing that leads ambitious, crazy or stupid people to miscalculate and set disasterous events in motion . . .

Words to live by -- the neocons are wrong about everything.

For its early in the morning that I'm far, far away

So farewell, farewell
To my Nova Scotia home
For it's early in the morning
That I'm far, far away *

I just heard the 6 am plane flying overhead, and realized it was three weeks ago today that my husband and I were on that very plane, as we began our trip to the Maritimes.
We had a terrific time, too -- what a beautiful part of Canada.
I'm not sure if our 10-day Maritimes trip quite make up for the three weeks in England that we missed in March because of my car accident, but it was pretty close, really.
If we had known then what we know now, we would have booked more time in Prince Edward Island - four days was not enought. Because we had lived on the west coast for several years, we found the geography of Nova Scotia very similar but we thought PEI was unique.
One very notable thing we noticed about the Maritimes that I must comment on -- how very proud the people there are of their home and their place in Canada.
Though Nova Scotia and PEI have both had tough times economically, just like the Prairies have, no one there is apologizing -- I don't think it would ever occur to them to be apologetic about where they come from. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and they love their home.
In the Maritimes, they appear to accept that of course many of their young people will go off to take jobs elsewhere, for a few years at least -- there are direct flights now between St. Johns, NFLD, and Fort McMurray, Alta -- but everyone also seems to agree that the Maritimes are the best place in Canada and therefore no one would ever want to leave if they didn't have to.
Such a contrast to the Saskatchewan attitude -- maybe its partly because we live next door to the Alberta economic powerhouse, but here in Saskatchewan we too often feel slightly apologetic, as though just because the Saskatchewan economy isn't as large as Alberta's, it means that Saskatchewan doesn't really quite measure up in some way.
We don't show our pride in our province often enough, I think, maybe because we take our province for granted and we don't realize how much we have here to be proud of.
Being in the Maritimes, even for just a short time, made me realize how we need to wear our Saskatchewan hearts on our sleeves, too.

Unfriendly fire

Reuters reports that the UN post where four UN observers were killed, including a Canadian soldier, was deliberately targeted by the Israelis:

. . . Kofi Annan [said] "I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a U.N. Observer post in southern Lebanon" . . . "This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire," . . . The U.N. force commander in southern Lebanon, General Alain Pelligrini had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day, stressing the need to protect that particular U.N. position from attack, he said . . . There had been 14 incidents of firing close to the outpost from Israeli forces in the afternoon before it was hit, U.N. officials said, adding that the firing continued even as rescue operations were under way.

The Vancouver Sun is reporting that the Canadian was a soldier from the Princess Pats. The Sun story also notes that Kofi Annan's statement was mocked by Israel's UN ambassador:

Israel's UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, expressed his "deep regret" for the deaths and denied Israel hit the post intentionally. "I am shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post," he said, calling the assertions "premature and erroneous."

Billmon says:

If you really are looking to encourage NATO peacekeepers to plunk their behinds down in southern Lebanon, this ain't the right way to do it . . .

Shrub: Shit. A Canadian? Tell Laura to send Harper a crate of maple syrup or something.

Shorter Rush

Rush Limbaugh riffs about William Buckley and ends with this priceless bit of military analysis:

. . . It was easier in the old days when nobody saw this stuff. Nobody saw 92,000 battle fatalities in the Pacific theater in World War II, and nobody saw the million and a half Japanese deaths so it was easier to do. It's a different set of circumstances today, and it results in the United States and its allies not using the full force of the power that we are able to project in order to appease. You get caught up and worried about what other people think of you and world opinion and so forth and you're going to get hamstrung, and we're hamstrung, precisely where we are.

Shorter Rush:

If we could only get rid of the media, then we could nuke the Middle East back to the Stone Age -- because nobody cares about war crimes if nobody sees it happening.

Another great line

I know I shouldn't post too many "great line" posts, but I just cannot resist this one -- Dave at Galloping Beaver begins his post on Peter MacKay with this great line:

Peter MacKay is either a liar or the stupidest foreign affairs minister Canada has ever had. Anyone who can make Lloyd Axeworthy look good deserves nothing less than a good swat across the back of the head and then immediate dismissal.

Emphasis mine.

Being unpopular has its advantages

Well, the fact that the Afghanistan troop deployment is increasingly unpopular with Canadians may not bring any troops back from Afghanistan, but at least it may prevent Peter MacKay from promising to join the Rice-capades and send any Canadian troops to Lebanon at the Rome summit.

Great line of the day

Billmon writes about how Arab countries in the Middle East are lining up with Hezbollah:

Those who thought it might turn out otherwise . . . probably should have remembered the old Arab proverb: My brother and me against my cousins, my cousins and me against my village, my village and me against my tribe, my tribe and me against the world.
That's not an Arab or a Muslim thing, really -- just basic human psychology. And it appears that in the concentric circles of Middle East loyalties, Sunni versus Shi'a is still trumped by Arab versus Jew, believer versus infidel and (it would appear) tough Islamic fighters versus corrupt pro-U.S. elites.
The "new" Middle East, in other words, still looks a lot like the old one.

Emphasis mine.

Painting the roses red

So Condi is off to paint the roses red for George in the Middle East.
She's not actually going to do anything there to stop the war.
She's just going to talk a lot of Christian Fundamentalist code about birth pangs for a new Middle East -- you know, the one George Bush thinks is rising from the ashes of Iraq -- and chatter about the mytical pan-Arab coalition that George wants her to create:

. . . Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state, who is due to travel to Israel tomorrow and then to Rome on Wednesday for talks with United Nations, European and Arab officials, has said she will not call for an immediate ceasefire.
'She's not going to come home with a ceasefire but stronger ties to the Arab world,' said a senior official. 'It's going to allow us to say that America isn't going to put up with this and we have Arab friends that are against you terrorists. What we want is our Arab allies standing against [Shia] Hezbollah and against Iran, since there is no one who doesn't think Iran is behind this. We're going to say to Hezbollah and the terrorist groups, 'This will not stand.'
'That is the way to bring real change to the Middle East. If you just have a ceasefire then, sooner or later, they go back to fighting.'
The 'Arab umbrella' policy is accompanied by largely uncritical support for Israel. . .

Let a smile be your umbrella, Beruit.
And don't miss Billmon's take on the Orwellian implications of all this.

I read the news today oh boy

Three comments worth reading -- and the emphasis in these quotes is mine.
Digby:

[Quoting from Dowd]

Having inadvertently built up Iran with his failures in Iraq, W. is eager now to send Iran a shock-and-awe message through Israel.

I honestly think that last is part of what's motivating the warmongers. As with their last epic failure, Vietnam, they believe their hands have been tied by a bunch of liberal generals and a pansy-ass populace who refuse to let them fight the way they need to fight. They see the Israelis as their personal Rottweilers and they want to let them off the chain. The Israelis should ask themselves if they really want to do George W. Bush's dirty work for him. I continue to suspect they did not expect that the US would give them the green light on this (it is insane, after all) and now they have no face saving way out. America did not do its job and now things are deteriorating beyond anyone's control.

Steve Gilliard:

The problem is that Israel cannot stay in South Lebanon. They can bomb, but they cannot stay. And as long as Hezbollah stays in the field, they win.
Israel is frustrated, 50 years of war does that. They want peace and the calculation is that if they crush Hezbollah with shock and awe, they can win.
Some people are wondering when Hezbollah strikes at the US. My bet is that CNN and the BBC are doing a far better job of undermining Israel than a bomb would. Lebanon was at peace, this is like bombing and invading Cancun in mid-winter.
One of the things which is immediately apparent is that Israel is losing the media war. . . . Despite it's capacity for violence, Hezbollah is being treated with a level of respect no Arab state fighting Israel has ever gotten. You are hearing normal people testify to the good works of the Hezbollah quasi-state . . .
The Western public is getting a new view of Israel and the Arabs, and if the Israelis had a clue beyond bombing TV towers, they wouldn't drop another bomb in Beirut and stop shooting up convoys and gas stations. Because you have American reporters running from Israel bombs and American citizens trapped there and Hezbollah is getting a hearing. And that has already forced Bush's hand in sending Condi.
Israel and Bush bet they could destroy Hezbollah with shock and awe. That isn't happening. So what do they do next?

Juan Cole:

Because of their fetish for states, the Neoconservatives of the Bush administration are unable to see that the Levant and points east are now the province of militia-parties that dominate localities and wield asymmetrical paramilitary force in such a way as to stymie states . . . Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas and other groups in Gaza and the West Bank, al-Qaeda/ radical Bedouins in the Sinai, the Muslim Brotherhood in some Sunni areas of Syria, the tribes and gangs of Maan in Jordan, the Peshmerga of the Kurds, the guerrilla groups of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq, the Mahdi Army, Badr Corps and Marsh Arabs of the Iraqi Shiites, the Basij and Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iran, the party-tribes of Afghanistan--whether the Tajik Jami'at-i Islami or the Pushtun Taliban--and the biradaris and ethnic mafias of Pakistan, are all arguably as significant actors as states, and often more significant. . . . The transition under American auspices of Iraq from a strong if odious central state to equally odious militia rule and chaotic violence is only the most obvious example of this process. More people have been killed in terror attacks in Iraq every month since February than were killed on September 11, 2001 in the US . . . Condi Rice echoes the old Neocon theory of "creative chaos" when she confuses the Lebanon war with "the birth pangs" of a "new" Middle East. The chief outcome of the "war on terror" has been the proliferation of asymmetrical challengers. Israel's assault on the very fabric of the Lebanese state seems likely to weaken or collapse it and further that proliferation. Since asymmetrical challengers often turn to terrorism as a tactic, the "war on terror" has been . . . the most efficient engine for the production of terrorism in history.

Culture of life

What Americans really think about Bush's stem cell veto and all his pious 'culture of life' BS:

Great line of the day

Basketballer Charles Barkley: "I was a Republican until they lost their minds."

Is she out of her mind?

So Rice thinks she can put together a new Coalition of the Shilled to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon?:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she wants a "robust'' international military force to try to oust Hezbollah forces from southern Lebanon, as she prepares to leave on a diplomatic mission to the region next week.

Oh, get real, Condi.
No one is going to follow the US and Israel down that rabbit hole.

Laugh du jour

The Poorman posts three great YouTube videos at I am insane -- the second one is particularly hysterical.

Scared yet?

First, here's the setup, a transcript from the G8 microphone transcript:

The camera is focused elsewhere and it is not clear whom Bush is talking to, but possibly Chinese President Hu Jintao, a guest at the summit.
Bush: "Gotta go home. Got something to do tonight. Go to the airport, get on the airplane and go home. How about you? Where are you going? Home?
Bush: "This is your neighborhood. It doesn't take you long to get home. How long does it take you to get home?"
Reply is inaudible.
Bush: "Eight hours? Me too. Russia's a big country and you're a big country."
At this point, the president seems to bring someone else into the conversation.
Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home."
He turns his attention to a server.
Bush: "No, Diet Coke, Diet Coke."
He turns back to whomever he was talking with.
Bush: "It takes him eight hours to fly home. Eight hours. Russia's big and so is China."

Now, here is what Cenk at The Young Turks has to say about this:

. . . Can anyone now credibly claim that Bush is secretly working on a master plan behind the scenes and that he's just playing cowboy for the cameras? I hope the master plan doesn't involve figuring out how long it takes to get to China . . . In the old empires, there would be a lot of marriages between the royal families. And from time to time, these inter-family marriages would produce a mentally challenged son who would inherit the throne. This would set the empire back for hundreds of years. I'm not saying anything, I'm just saying. Russia is big and so is China . . . We have third grader for a President. And worse yet, the Vice President has him convinced he is the second coming of Winston Churchill. Scared yet?

Oh. Dear. God.
Don't push the red button, Georgie. Mommy won't like it if you push the red button. All your little friends might get hurt . . .

Friday dog blogging

I had some frames left on the roll I took of our trip, so I was able to take some dog photos this week.
Here is Chillou, in a nanosecond when he was sitting like a good dog:


And here is Charlie (blue collar)and Chillou (red collar) playing in the back yard: