"Criminal" rates of interest

Considering the profits being made by Canadian banks, they should be helping out in our low-income neighbourhoods instead of just abandoning poor Canadians to companies like this:

A B.C. Supreme Court judge says a B.C. payday loan company was charging 'criminal' rates of interest to clients borrowing to make it through to their next paycheque . . . 21 per cent interest rate and a processing fee of $9.50 for every $50 borrowed . . . $75 fee if a cheque is returned and if the borrower wants put off a loan payment, [a fee of] $25 for every $100 deferred.

I'm not surprised that the judge said this was criminal. I know companies are not in business for their health, but this is abuse, because these customers don't have any other options.

"The average Canadian has only one testicle"

It's an example of how misleading it is to average polling answers -- half of Canadians (the men) have two testicles, while the other half of Canadians (the women) have none. So when you average them, you get the ridiculous "answer" that the average Canadian has one testicle.
This news story uses this example to describe a critique of recent polling results about Canadian attitude toward the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Here's the dispute:

. . . the Strategic Counsel firm is standing by a recent survey that suggested only one-third of Canadians shared Harper's staunch pro-Israel stand. In the other corner, the head of the Compas firm says the prime minister enjoys twice that much support and accused his rivals Monday of conducting a "misleading anti-Harper poll.". . . . . . Compas said its rival invited an anti-Harper response by asking about "Israeli actions" - a term it decried as a hostile-sounding statement that swayed respondents.
. . . But the Strategic Counsel defended its two-week-old findings, and several other industry observers agreed the company had conducted a solid survey.

You be the judge:

Compas arrived at its conclusion that Canadians supported Harper after asking the following four questions:
-Does Israel have a right to defend itself? (82 per cent responded in the affirmative)
-Was Iran wrong to arm Hezbollah and call for the destruction of Israel? (69 per cent agreed)
-Was Syria wrong to arm Hezbollah and disobey the United Nations resolution requiring Syria to keep guns out of Lebanon? (68 per cent agreed)
-Did Hezbollah in Lebanon start the war? (Just 38 per cent agreed)
Compas then took those four responses, averaged them out, and concluded that 64 per cent of Canadians supported Harper's policy.
One industry insider sneered at that methodology. "That's certainly stacking the deck," he said. "Those four policies can't be (averaged). That's like saying the average Canadian has only one testicle." . . .
The Strategic Counsel concluded that only 19 per cent of Canadians believed Harper's position was a principled one, while 53 thought it was designed to mimic the U.S. stand.
Compas came to a very different conclusion. The firm asked respondents whether they believed the government's policy was designed because:
-It wanted to earn U.S. goodwill and protect Canada's economic interests. (21 per cent agreed)
-President Bush is a role model (12 per cent)
-Israel has a right to defend itself (19 per cent)
-Arab extremism is a problem (12 per cent)
-Hezbollah is terrorist (12 per cent)
-Syria and Iran are problems (4 per cent)
Compas then proceeded to add up the final three of those responses and come up with the figure 28 per cent - while leaving separate the President Bush/U.S. responses, which would have reached 33 per cent had they been lumped together.
Butler concurred with the industry insider's view that such methodology was unorthodox: "I agree with that remark entirely," he said.

The other problem is that the Compas poll didn't survey as many people:

The Compas poll of 500 respondents is deemed accurate to within 4.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The Strategic Counsel polled 1,000 Canadians between July 27 and 30, and its findings are considered accurate to within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

I wonder which firm will be hired by the Conservatives to do their next survey?

Canada in the 2007 Rugby World Cup

Hooray!

Canada earned a berth in the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France with an all-encompassing, 56-7, win over the USA Eagles in St. John’s Newfoundland on Saturday in front of 5000 passionate fans.
Canada took command of the game from the opening kick-off and never let the foot off the pedal until it had recorded its biggest win ever over the Eagles in this, the 41st meeting between the two.

Great line of the day

The Green Knight has a list of things I've learned on the internet(s). Here's one I liked:

Andy Warhol was wrong: everyone is not famous for fifteen minutes. Rather, everyone is Hitler for fifteen minutes.

Great line of the day

Cliff at AMERICAblog notes that the Republicans, Washington blowhards and pearl-clutching media pundits are quick to rail against the incivility of the public discourse . . .

. . . except when they’re smearing Ned Lamont, his father, ideas offered by people who’ve actually won an election, Daily Kos, those who were right all along about Iraq, Michael Moore, African Americans, George McGovern, George Soros, Moveon.org, Howard Dean, liberals, Connecticut voters, 60% of the country who oppose the war in Iraq and those of us who don’t need to project our middle-aged “issues” into support for firing rock-hard projectiles at people to prove we've still got it . . .

What a jerk!

That's our Steve!:

. . . on a recent trip, the Prime Minister was asked by a flight attendant to turn off his cellphone and BlackBerry. Mr. Harper declined. The pilot then made a request, saying it was for safety purposes. The PM relented. But, at the end of the journey, one of his staffers gave the pilot some news: His services would no longer be required on prime ministerial trips.

I'm sure the pilot was just as happy not to be flying with him anymore. So the pilot and crew are supposed to risk losing their nagivation instruments during landing, just so Steve can check his next appointment? Does he think the laws of physics will suspend themselves at his whim?
What a jerk!
H/T to The Galloping Beaver

They're here, they're there, they're everywhere, so beware

It's "snakes bombs on a plane" season again.
So first we are told:

Anti-terrorist authorities in Britain and the United States declined to describe the bomb design in the foiled plot — whether it was primarily liquid or, more likely, contained liquids in a more complex ingredient list.

But as Peggy Noonan said in a different context, "Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to!"
So how many scary but incredible, unlikely and speculative bomb scenarios can AP pack into one little news story? Let's see:

...Even a battery-operated watch would provide enough power for a detonator. All you need is one shock ...
baby formula ...in powdered form, it can provide a good vehicle for masking crystallized explosives . . .
an Algerian man was convicted of possessing 25 computer disks detailing how to bring down an aircraft using, among other things, crystallized explosives hidden in a container of talcum powder.
During that trial, FBI explosives expert Donald Sachtleben testified he built and detonated three bombs based on the instructions found in the Algerian's home . . .
a likely terrorist scenario would involve a two- or three-member team boarding the same flight, each carrying a different part of the planned bomb . . .
Critical to conventional bombs is a power source to trigger a detonator. Clonan said cell phones could provide an ideal power-timer unit for a bomb . . .
to puncture an aircraft's fuselage would require an explosive charge "half the size of a cigarette packet," . . .
"liquid bombs" were not the most likely explosive. He said it was far more likely a terror cell would try to smuggle on an explosive in crystalline or powder form and to combine it with an acid-based compound . . .
terrorists might also construct an on-board incendiary bomb based on paraffin or gasoline, which if ignited in mid-Atlantic could destroy an aircraft before it could land . . .
Hands-on inspection is the only way to tell if a dark-plastic medicine vial really contains what it says on the label. "You'll have to carry your prescription and prove to security that the medicine really is what it is. But for 20 million people a year going through Heathrow? How do you do that?" Hatcher said, foreseeing a future airport arrivals hall with five-hour security checks.
Even that scenario, he said, could lead to terror attacks — detonating bombs in an airport terminal, not on a plane. "You can carry a bag into the center of an airport with thousands of people around you before you are ever screened. That, too, must change," he said.

Well, I guess we'll all just have to take the bus from now on. Er, maybe not ...

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore"

Here's something I just couldn't write about before on this blog because I felt it was just too negative -- though my slogan at the top hints at it.
I'm talking about "the dying of the light."
After the 2004 election, in my heart of hearts I believed that the United States was dying, that the light from the shining city on the hill was extinguished.
Now, I didn't feel this same despair about Harper becoming Prime Minister last winter, because even though I disagree with the Conservative party's policies, I do not feel they are aiming to destroy the Canadian parliamentary system and justice system and electoral system. Though Harper is stubborn and judgmental, he actually does mean well (I think) and he does listen (eventually).
But the Bush administration does not. They pride themselves on not paying any attention to people who disagree with them. And Bush himself is a mental case, not to mention Cheney...
So since 2004 I have believed that the re-election of Bush, even though by hook and by crook, showed that just too many Americans had drunk the neocon Koolaid.
And with another four years to consolidate the lies and ruin the civil service and start more wars and promote more divisiveness and hatred, I believed the Bush administration would by 2008 have such a stranglehold on the American psyche that ordinary Americans would, in a spasm of hopelessness and fear, willingly abandon two of the greatest and most inspirational documents ever written, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, without a backward glance in a pellmell rush toward the illusory safety of dictatorship.
And maybe this could still happen.
But beginning last summer, just one year ago, one grieving mother showed up Bush for a fool. Then a drowned city showed up the heartlessness of the whole Bush administration, the guys who had talked so big about being the grown-ups. Americans became increasingly uncomfortable about being spied on by incompetent religious zealots. After a century of thinking of themselves as the good guys, Americans also became increasingly uncomfortable about finding themselves on the bad guy side of torture and secret prisons and Guantanamo and judicial toadying and planted news stories. The Bush administration still hasn't found Bin Laden, and they still haven't won in Afghanistan. Finally -- and unforgiveably as far as Americans are concerned -- the Bush administration has blustered and talked big but has proven itself incapable of actually controlling or even influencing North Korea, or Venezuela , or Hezbollah, or Hamas, or Iran, or Israel. And the one country that America has tried to take control of directly, Iraq, has disintegrated into a grotesque horror show which is apparently only successful in turning American soldiers into inhuman monsters.
Today, 144,000 people in Connecticut said NO! "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take this anymore!"
It's not the end, or the beginning of the end. But perhaps it is the end of the beginning.

Great line of the day

From Billmon

Bye-Bye, mein Lieber Herr.
Farewell, mein Lieber Herr.
It was a fine affair,
But now it's over.
And though I used to care,
I need the open air.
You're better off without me,
Mein Herr.

From Cabaret

Ogden would have loved this photo

A one-L Lama is a priest.
A two-L Llama is a beast.
And I would bet a pink pajama
There's no such thing as a three-L Lama.

(AP photo)

Great line of the day

When I want military strategy analysis, I go to Galloping Beaver -- Dave sums up Israel's dilemma:

. . . they failed to assess the weaknesses of air power. The greatest of those weaknesses being that air strikes require high-grade intelligence to direct the pilot and the weapon to the proper target. And clearly, the intelligence isn't there, because if it was, the rockets which keep finding their way to northern Israel would have stopped long ago . . . It is now faced with another problem. It's army is much less prepared for a fight than it needs to be to take on Hezbollah . . . it appears the IDF relied less on good intelligence and more on the effect of less than accurate bombing in an attempt to bring Hezbollah to heel. All they have done is incur the wrath of the civilized world and driven large numbers of the Lebanese population into the arms of Hezbollah.

Emphasis mine.

Who's sorry now?

Billmon asks why Hezbollah is apparently ready to keep on fighting while it now appears that the US and Israel want to quit:

Two weeks ago Lebanon's Prime Minister was demanding an immediate cease fire while Shrub and company were insisting that only a "lasting cease fire," leading to a "permanent solution," would do. Now it's the other way around:

Speaking to reporters today at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., where he is on vacation, Mr. Bush said, “Everyone wants the violence to stop.’’
“People understand that there needs to be a cessation of hostilities in order for us to address the root causes of the problem,’’ he said . .
Mr. Siniora said he opposed the cease-fire resolution in its current form, saying it would not effectively halt the violence. “It barely leads to a cease-fire,’’ he said, with tears in his eyes. “We want a permanent and full cease-fire.’’

Obviously, something has changed -- that something being the completely unexpected outcome of the war (unexpected by everyone but Hizbullah I mean) . . .
Whether {turning down the truce agreement] is because Sheikh Nasrallah actually thinks his hand is so strong he can bluff the Israelis back across the border, or whether it's because he believes a long, drawn-out war of attrition with the IDF actually suits his interests even better than a ceasefire (and to hell with the agony and death it will inflict on the Lebanese people) I don't know . . . the spectacle of Israel's political and military establishment dancing anxiously on the diplomatic sidelines, hoping the U.N. Security Council will step in with a timely ceasefire, while their Arab enemy impassively declares his willingness to keep on fighting, is a sight I truly never expected to see.

Whenever anyone talks about who has the greater determination to keep fighting and willingness to die for a cause, I keep remembering of Robert X. Cringely's anecdote:

. . . [while in Teheran in 1986 for another story, Cringely] decided to go see the [Iraq-Iran] war since I had been in Beirut and Angola, but had never seen trench warfare, which is what I was told they had going in Iran. So I took a taxi to the front, introduced myself to the local commander, who had gone, as I recall, to Iowa State, and spent a couple days waiting for the impending human wave attack. That attack was to be conducted primarily with 11-and 12-year-old boys as troops, nearly all of them unarmed. There were several thousand kids and their job was to rise out of the trench, praising Allah, run across No Man's Land, be killed by the Iraqi machine gunners, then go directly to Paradise, do not pass GO, do not collect 200 dinars. And that's exactly what happened in a battle lasting less than 10 minutes. None of the kids fired a shot or made it all the way to the other side. And when I asked the purpose of this exercise, I was told it was to demoralize the cowardly Iraqi soldiers.
It was the most horrific event I have ever seen, and I once covered a cholera epidemic in Bangladesh that killed 40,000 people.
Waiting those two nights for the attack was surreal. Some kids acted as though nothing was wrong while others cried and puked. But when the time came to praise Allah and enter Paradise, not a single boy tried to stay behind.
Now put this in a current context. What effective limit is there to the number of Islamic kids willing to blow themselves to bits? There is no limit, which means that a Bush Doctrine can't really stand in that part of the world.

Yes, I would say there is definitely a willingness to fight and die for a cause.

Great line of the day

This is what makes Duncan Black (Atrios) a great blogger -- short, pointed, vivid and right.
Here he is writing about a NYT editorial which says the Dems shouldn't abandon Iraq but instead should urge Bush to get help from the Europeans and other Arab nations.
[Short pause while my reader stops laughing so hard.]
Black says:

But the choice will never be between Bush's 'pretend everything is okay' plan and the New York Times 'Pony' Plan . . . The choice is between Bush's 'pretend everything ok' plan and the Democrats 'Bush is going to keep fucking this up so it's time to start heading home' plan.

Exactly.

T'was slithy

In his post titled The Portmanteau Resolution, Billmon provides an interesting analysis of the UN resolution which aims to end the Israel-Hezbolla war. It's too complex to summarize here, but this is a part of the world that Billmon has studied for several years, so I think I'll go with what he thinks.

Great line of the day

DemFromCT, writing at Daily Kos:

. . . "muscular" foreign policy has its limits when the muscleheads running the place try to implement subtlety via cruise missle. . .