And the funniest dog video

Again, so far...

Funniest cat video ever made

So far, at least.

Which way will it go?

By happenstance, Juan Cole and James Wolcott are one after the other on my blogroll. So I click on Woldott and read this:

. . . despite all of the Cheneyesque bluster, the Bush administration is pursuing the diplomatic route with Iran. To the dismay of the hard nosers, Bush is also reeling back his use of "Islamic fascists", which will be interpreted as a capitulation to political correctness. You even have Rumself whining that his recent appeasement slur was taken "out of context," and calling for "constructive" dialogue regarding the situation in Iraq. And then there's the happy novelty of Rudy Giuliani blowing the whistle and calling a foul on "partisan bickering", which will not endear him to the more strident dickheads in his party.
There has been a major shift in the mood climate, one which the War Party and its bloggers are resisting at the top of their lungs. But resistance is futile. As John Robb writes in an important post at Global Guerrillas, "Playing at War", we're not going to the get the grand, conclusive World War III (or IV) that same neocon ideologues crave. Conflict is being ratcheted down, dispersed . . . What we're hearing from pundits, bloggers, and likeminded belligerents this August is a baying to a false God, a nostalgic need for motivational clarity and a macho yearning for deliverance that the facts on the ground will deny them. Their commando belts tied up in knots, their umbrellas unfolded, they can turn on Bush, or on Condi Rice (as Richard Perle has done), but who can they turn to? Nobody. That's why they're egging each other on, flexing their biceps, and clinging to Mark Steyn for warmth. It's the only way to hold on to their fading relevance.

Whew! Well, that's a relief. But then I click to Juan Cole and read this:

The Times of London details Israeli planning for a war with Syria and Iran. Richard Perle, who sold the American people the fantasy that the US could march into Iraq, install corrupt businessman Ahmad Chalabi in power, and would be greeted with garlands of flowers, is disappointed that Israel did not attack Syria during its recent war on Lebanon. Hey, Perle, in case you didn't notice, the Israeli military did not do so great against 5,000 Hizbullah militiamen. So you wanted them to compound the failure by widening the war? The man never met a war he didn't love and never let reality interfere with his power fantasies. If there were no arms industry, people like that would never get to be on television.Note especially the ending grafs of the article:

Advocates of political engagement believe a war with Syria could unleash Islamic fundamentalist terror in what has hitherto been a stable dictatorship. Some voices in the Pentagon are not impressed by that argument.“If Syria spirals into chaos, at least they’ll be taking on each other rather than heading for Jerusalem,” said one insider.

Why assume that the Syrians would stay busy with each other? If the Muslim Brotherhood managed to come to power, backed by the vast Sunni majority in the country, it could fairly quickly establish order and begin concentrating on getting back the Golan Heights and "liberating" "Palestine". The Syrian MB would be even closer to Hamas than the Syrian Baath. It would also be closer to the Salafi Jihadis fighting in Iraq. And it might well angle to overthrow the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Israel might end up facing a massive, militant, fundamentalist Sunni state, aiming to unify all the Sunni Arabs in the neighborhood for a final drive against Israel, using Hizbullah guerrilla tactics and rockets and missiles. Sunni fundamentalists increasingly see themselves as caught in a pincers between Israel/the US on the one side, and Iran/the Shiites on the other, and would have lots of incentive to create a united front.You wonder if that phrase, “If Syria spirals into chaos, at least they’ll be taking on each other rather than heading for Jerusalem,” is how the Neoconservatives in the Pentagon feel about what has happened in Iraq. It is an astonishingly shortsighted perspective. And when did the US Pentagon begin caring who rules Jerusalem?

I wonder which will turn out to be right? As much as I hope it is Wolcott, I'm more afraid it will be Cole.

Great line of the day

Patrick at Firedoglake writesLessons from a kitchen garden. One paragraph struck me as true of Canada, too:

Pat Buchanan has said very little in his life with which I agree, but one thing he said that has resonated with me: America was a great country before it was a rich country. My grandparents scratched a living out of the earth and lived humbly. They were able to save their pennies and buy building materials over the years, and they never had a mortgage payment, a car payment or a credit card payment. To paraphrase Loretta Lynn, they were poor but they were proud. There was a time when it was not illegal to be poor, nor was it considered a moral failing. Men who took advantage of honest people to enrich themselves were not thought of as honorable men.

Emphasis mine. When we were in the Maritimes this summer, it struck us both how proud the Maritimes people are, in a way that has nothing to do with money -- perhaps it was just this kind of old-fashioned pride that we saw there.

The story of the paper clip that turned into a house

The paper clip


The house


The blogger


The party


The t-shirt


Kipling, Sask., throws party to celebrate paper clip that turned into house

A small piece of office stationery, an old house in need of an owner and a web-savvy Montrealer on a mission have come together to thrust a small Saskatchewan farming town into the international spotlight this Labour Day weekend.
Residents in Kipling where getting ready Friday for a weekend-long house-warming party for Kyle MacDonald, the now-famous blogger who managed to trade a red paper clip for a house over the course of the last year.
"The buzz right now is crazy," MacDonald said in an interview from outside his new home at the east end of Main Street.
"I think it's because no one knows what to expect. We just know that a lot of people are potentially going to arrive and there is a bit of a thrill to it. There is sort of that wild-card effect, you know."
Not knowing what to expect is nothing new for MacDonald, who was born and raised in British Columbia.
His adventures began last July when he put a red paper clip up for trade on the Internet - a cyber version of a swap game he played as a child.
Someone in Vancouver offered him a fish pen which promptly went on the trading block.
The pen was swapped for a doorknob, then a Coleman stove, a power generator, a keg of beer, a snowmobile, a trip to Yahk, B.C., a cube van, a recording contract, a year's free lodging in a Phoenix bungalow, an afternoon with rock icon Alice Cooper and a KISS snow globe.
That's when actor Corbin Bernsen from the one-time television series "L.A. Law" got involved. He offered a role in his new movie "Donna On Demand" for the KISS keepsake.
By this time, all the trading had caught the attention of the town of Kipling. Figuring it would be good for economic development, town council purchased a vacant house on Main Street.
Mayor Patricia Jackson said the 1920s home, built from an Eaton's catalogue kit, needed a little paint and some new drywall, but was generally in good shape.
Council offered it up and MacDonald accepted. He and his girlfriend moved from Montreal earlier this summer.
"I sort of see it as a place where I would like to base my life out of," MacDonald said. "Everyone is good here."
He plans to write a book about his experience and said there is a movie deal in the works.
He has also been welcomed with open arms by people in Kipling.
Since making the deal, Bernsen has been to town to hold auditions for the movie role and the town has been in headlines around the world.
There have been inquiries from people looking to move to Kipling and from businesses looking to set up shop, Jackson said.
"There's no way that all the businesses in the community, with all of their advertising budgets for probably 10 years, could have got together and bought this kind of publicity."
Bands were scheduled to play throughout the weekend and Bernsen was to return for a second set of auditions.
MacDonald invited the world through his blog and, as of Friday afternoon, there were already people from California, Ontario, Quebec and B.C. stopping by the house. Each of the people who made a trade were also expected to be there.
Garrett Johnson came all the way from Kansas City for the festivities. He offered up some lake-front property for the movie role, but MacDonald ended up taking the Kipling house.
"It's a beautiful town," Johnson said. "The people are all very welcoming and kind and everyone waves. They just make you feel right at home."

Kipling is about 150 km east of Regina.

Looking on the bright side

Its a good thing the extra border fees happened when the Conservatives were in power. See, if the Liberals were in power, the Conservatives would have blamed the fees on Liberal anti-Americanism and Martin's poor relationship with the Bush administration. But now, the blame for the fees can be placed where it belongs, on the greedy, short-sighted, incompetent Bush administration itself . . .

Is anyone else having trouble with Gilliard's site?

Yesterday and again today, I click on Gilliard's site and my browser crashes. Is this happening to everyone?

Great line of the day

Over at Firedoglake, Jane Hamsher has a great comment on the shameful Washington Post editorial which basically said Joe Wilson shouldn't have blown the whistle on the "mushroom cloud" fantasy and has only himself to blame for his wife's trouble:

... to argue that somehow [the Armitage] leak — which played no part in the concerted Administration effort to bully, intimidate and punish Joe Wilson — should somehow excuse Scooter Libby and Karl’s Rove’s subsequent actions is a true marvel of wingnut logic. Incredibly it is somehow okay to rob the liquor store, shoot the owner, rape the cashier and spatter the walls with blood because someone else was caught shoplifting there the week before.

And how far has the Washington Post fallen, to condemn a whistleblower when whistleblowing itself is the lifeblood of journalism? That whirring sound you hear is Katharine Graham spinning in her grave.

Great lines of the day

Dave at Galloping Beaver writes a powerful post about war and Afghanistan -- You want support? Earn it

. . . I've got a chestful of useless gongs and some permanent shrapnel wounds to remind me of days which I would rather have missed in my life.
I've experienced the exhilaration of close-quarters battle and the years of remorse that follow because I had no choice but to kill the teenage soldiers in the fire-pit to my front.
I've been beside a good man, a highly competent marine, who suddenly dropped like a bag of shit while I got splattered with flesh and blood. The movies make it look so much more dramatic and heroic than it really is. The truth is just a bloody, fucking mess.
I've been on the right flank of a patrol when the man on point stepped on a landmine. And all we could do was watch as he lay there screaming, his viscera splayed over the ground, the lower half of his body gone. He lived for over five minutes while the medic did a drill on him - with morphine auto-injectors. It ended with a colour sergeant screaming, "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!" because he had been unable to protect a good man.
I've watched kids die. It ends everything. Their personalities cease to be a part of the team; their humour stops; their dreams end; and, their death affects a hundred other people - permanently.
I've had to call fire down on my own position while I watched my men nod. They knew, as I did, that there was little chance we would get out of it alive, much less unscathed. It was necessary at the time and the cost of that act is paid for in year after year of nightmares.
I have a direct and long-service association with both British and Canadian militaries. I have an affinity for the people who serve in those militaries and I have an interest in how they are committed. My interest is in their welfare, how they're led and how safe they are. Whether anyone likes to admit it or not, they are kids on an adventure. They won't come home that way.
I'm not "anti-war". I am, however, highly skeptical whenever troops are committed to combat. I expect that the real reasons for going to war will be clearly enunciated by the politicians who continue to live in comfort and convenience while others suffer and die.
To provide unreserved support for the Afghanistan mission is not only stupid, it is irresponsible. And, it is not contingent upon me to provide alternatives to the decisions of the self-styled warrior class, those who are prepared to waste lives while not risking theirs, be they prime ministers, presidents or keyboard commandos.
I will question everything about the Afghanistan mission. My support comes only when I receive rational, truthful answers . . .
most Canadians, after reading of another soldier killed in Afghanistan, ponder whether to return their empty beer bottles or shine up the motorcycle. Almost no one considers that there are 27 Canadians who can never entertain such mundane thoughts because they were blown away in a mission that appears to lack long-term definition and has gone on longer than the US involvement in World War II.

Emphasis mine. And my agreement, too.

Where were you?

A new ad campaign to raise money for a memorial asks "where were you?" on 9/11.

A national ad campaign being launched on Thursday features the stories of people who remember where they were when they heard of the 2001 terrorist attacks . . . A historian says the event will be remembered for life by the people who experienced it, in the same way that people recall the assassinations of President Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr . . . The foundation has compiled about 250 "where were you" oral histories . . .

Here's their ad:


John at Americablog says:

What the hell is our obsession with remembering September 11? We remember it, ok. I don't need a TV commercial to remind me of that day or how I felt. I was there. It took me a long time to get over it. And I most certainly don't need my politicians, or anyone else, trying to drag me back to that day kicking and screaming several times a year . . . Unfortunately we live in a country and a society where the dead aren't just eulogized, they're propagandized. You want an ad campaign? Here's an ad campaign:

And here is the picture I think Bush really should use:


If I could add a photoshop slogan, it would read: "Where was the President? Frozen at the switch...".
I wonder if the project has recorded Bush's own history of that day:

The President was seated in a classroom when,at 9:05,Andrew Card whispered to him: “A second plane hit the second tower.America is under attack.”The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis.The press was standing behind the children; he saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening. The President remained in the classroom for another five to seven minutes, while the children continued reading.

Pathetic

Steve Gilliard sums it up:

. . . the White House wants to call on the spirit and unity of the Second World War without any of it's sacrifices, no rationing, no draft, no restriction on travel, even a refusal to mention the war in any serious way, much less having their families participate in it.
Osama Bin Laden doesn't have Grossdeutschland and 2nd SS Panzer in some cave. He isn't enslaving a continent, he's not sinking the US fleet at Pearl Harbor.
He is not a threat to the stability of the United States. He cannot conquer the US. He is, at most, a threat to US interests. Yet, to beat Osama, the microchip militia and friends want to toss out the consitution and call anyone who questions them appeasers. It isn't us who is hosting Central Asian dictators who boil their opposition alive, or turn our back on repressive regimes or who has built a network of secret prisons.
If this was WWII, Barbara Bush would be in a uniform and not conducting tours of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. Bush's bodyman would be training at Quantico or Benning for deployment overseas, not going to Harvard B School without the benefit of a BA. Jenna's boyfriends would be in uniform and not drunken louts working for daddy.
It's a pathetic comparison to the national sacrifice of World War II, and the only one which can be made by people who's knowledge of history doesn't go beyond a textbook.

Great line of the day

Arianna Huffington, in her post called What Keeps Don Rumsfeld Up at Night? Hint: It's Not the Body Count in Iraq, writes:

Forget the escalating sectarian violence. Forget the rising influence of Iran. Forget the 100-Iraqi-deaths-per-day. Forget the 2,638 American dead. For Don Rumsfeld the problem isn't that we are not winning the war in Iraq, the problem is that we are not properly spinning the war in Iraq.

Emphasis mine.

Mr. Foot-in-Mouth

This CP story lists a large number of Ignatieff gaffes while describing him as the "front-runner" in the Liberal leadership race.
Really? Could it really be true that a majority of Liberals think an arrogant expatriate who has never run anything except an academic think-tank will generate more respect from Canadians voters than Harper and Layton and May and Duceppe?
Well, I think I know four people who will be just thrilled if Ignatieff wins...

Don't Panic

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy had "Don't Panic" written in large, friendly letters on its cover. Its a phrase we can apply now to Iran: Don't Panic!
Think Progress summarizes the hype and hysteria that Fox News viewers are seeing about how Bush is intending to start a war with Iran.
And if you can stomach it, check out the cheerleading at the National Review (h/t Wolcott) -- "Negotiation? We don't need no stinkin' negotiation. We want war! We want war! We want war!"
Over at Talking Points Memo, guest poster Matthew Yglesias has two excellent posts about the Iran panic, one about the hysteria and the other about the fear-mongering.
First, kibosh the hysteria:

. . .Iran [is]outgunned by its two leading religio-ideological antagonists, Israel and Saudi Arabia, in the region. One immediate neighbor is Pakistan, with a larger population base and a nuclear arsenal. Another immediate neighbor, Afghanistan, is occupied by soldiers under the command of an American president who has spurned peace offers and threatened to overthrow the Iranian government. A second immediate neighbor, Iraq, is occupied by a larger number of soldiers from the same country. The Iranian military's equipment is outdated and essentially incapable of mounting offensive operations. So Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. Under the circumstances, wouldn't you? . . . somebody needs to call bull$#*t on the prevailing elite consensus about Iran. Of course it would be better to find a way to persuade, cajole, whatever Iran out of going nuclear -- the spread of nuclear weapons is, as such, bad for the USA. But there's no need -- absolutely no need -- for this atmosphere of panic and paranoia.

Second, quit with the Scary Hitler analogy:

I hope I won't rob anyone of their innocence by making this observation, but politicians lie. In particular, along with telling the truth about his strategic ambitions, Hitler lied about his strategic ambitions. One reason people underestimated their scope was that Hitler put some time into trying to deceive people. He said different things at different times . . . So the "lesson" people want to draw from the 1930s isn't that we should take people's statements more seriously. Rather, the "lesson" they've learned is that we should always adopt the most alarmist possible interpretation of every given situation. But, of course, they never put it that way. Why don't they? Well, because when you put it that way it sounds like a stupid lesson. Which, obviously, it is. If you want to draw lessons from history, you need to really look at history as a whole. Have countries, as a general matter, been well served by adopting maximally alarmist interpretations of events abroad? I don't think that's a remotely justifiable view. If anything, history teaches the reverse lesson.

Emphasis mine.

$450 million slush fund?

Alison alerts us to the flap going on at Daily Kos over this diary: Canada Forks Over $450 Million Donation to Repugs. The diary reports that the softwood deal "negotiated by Bush and his Canadian lackey, Harper will see $450 million funnelled straight past Congress and the US treasury, and will go instead, directly to the Bush Whitehouse".
Not surprisingly, some of the commenters were pretty skeptical about this.
So, I looked into it.
First, I found out that the accusation about the $450 million slush fund was made by Washington trade lawyer Elliot Feldman, who is one of the most highly respected trade lawyers in Washington -- "Elliot Feldman, of Baker & Hostetler. . . has a Ph.D from MIT, a J.D. from Harvard, has taught at four universities including Tufts and Brandeis, and knows NAFTA law thoroughly."
Not a nutcase, then.
Second, the claim was made in Feldman's testimony to the Standing Committee on International Trade last Monday (Aug 21).
Here's what he said (emphasis mine):

I want to talk for a few minutes about the genesis of this agreement, and one of its most important and least-discussed elements. There is a bit of Watergate in this story, and as in Watergate, it is essential to follow the money . . . First, on April 7, the United States Court of International Trade ruled that the U.S. industry was entitled legally to no money--none of it. It was not surprising, then, that 20 days later the U.S. coalition said it would take $500 million. . . Third, it was not quite as obvious in the two-and-a-half-page term sheet of April 27 that Canada would give away everything that the previous government had been defending in order to complete a deal, because political priorities had changed so radically. Fourth, the term sheet promised a major joint initiative to improve North American competitiveness. The "remainder” . . . would go to so-called "meritorious initiatives" in the United States.
Industry was troubled by this last development. It wondered why it was providing foreign aid to the United States, but it was also reassured that the sum would be small. More impressively, Minister Emerson told CEOs that as long as they were getting back 80% of their money, it was none of their business what would happen to the rest. He was, by all accounts, very blunt on this subject.
Meanwhile, we were advised by negotiators that the White House had taken a direct and active interest in this money but that Canadian industry ought to focus on other things; as the minister had said, it was not really their concern. The "remainder", then, became $450 million out of $500 million. That, honourable members, is a colossal sum of money. It's certainly got the U.S. government, as well as the coalition, getting the other $500 million committed to the deal. It's astonishing how little--nothing, really--the government got in exchange for it . . . So here we have the Government of Canada requiring that Canadian private parties sign over $450 million to an escrow fund slated to be conveyed to the White House. The agreement does not mention Congress, and the Bush administration says Congress will not be involved in any way with this agreement. The Government of Canada is thus making a gift of $450 million to be spent by the President. That was more than a belt buckle, even more than a stetson, on July 6.
There is only one date certain in the deal: the planned expenditure of the $450 million must be determined by September 1. . . . The entire Republican campaign war chest has less than $300 million. Canada will add to it by 150% in funds to be expended for meritorious initiatives. It does not require much imagination to foresee the strategic places where this money will be spent. . . .

Emphasis mine.
During question period, committee member Peter Julian (NDP Burnaby-New Westminster) returned to this issue:

Mr. Peter Julian: . . . I'd like to come back to what I think is quite a staggering revelation, that the funding—the $450 million—would, as I understand it, be under the control of the White House. Congress would have no say, and Canada would have no say as to the use of that money. In a sense, in a midterm election year we'd be giving $450 million to a massive political fund.
Dr. Elliot Feldman: . . . This is in my view an historic, unprecedented, astounding intrusion into American politics. We've researched all the way back to the revolution and found nothing like it in American history.
The question I came this morning to put was, will the Parliament of Canada accept responsibility for possibly tipping the balance in American politics, in preserving the control of Congress by the President's party? This softwood lumber agreement is an historic moment in part because of that proposition, and it's up to this Parliament to decide whether it'll accept the responsibility. That responsibility cannot be shifted, and indeed that money inevitably will go to shore up the electoral aspirations of the Republican Party through the President. It's not going to be touched by Congress; it's going through an escrow fund . . .
Mr. Peter Julian: So what you're saying is that we are not only providing money to the coalition to fight further legal battles--giving half a billion dollars to them--but we're also providing money that may go to political purposes, for the re-election of Republicans, many of whom have been most adamant against allowing free trade in lumber. It's ridiculous.
Dr. Elliot Feldman: The provision in article 13(A)(2) of the agreement, which lists the meritorious initiatives, contains language that could describe only a slush fund for the President.

Here is article 13(A)(2):

ARTICLE XIII Institutional Arrangements
A. Private Initiatives
. . . 2. By September 1, 2006 the United States, in consultation with Canada, shall identify meritorious initiatives to receive the funds that are to be set aside for that purpose under Annex 2C. The funds shall support meritorious initiatives in the United States related to:
(a) educational and charitable causes in timber-reliant communities;
(b) low-income housing and disaster relief; or
(c) educational and public-interest projects addressing:

(i) forest management issues that affect timber-reliant communities, or
(ii) the sustainability of forests as sources of building materials, wildlife habitat, bio-energy, recreation, and other values.

And here is Annex 2C:

4. At least 30 days before the Effective Date, the United States shall provide Canada or its agent with information identifying three separate escrow accounts whose beneficiaries are respectively:
(a) the members of the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports;
(b) a binational industry council described in Annex 13; and
(c) meritorious initiatives in the United States identified by the United States in consultation with Canada as described in Article XIII(A).
5. Canada or its agent shall distribute $US 1 billion pursuant to the Irrevocable Directions to Pay to the escrow accounts referred to in paragraph 4 in the following amounts: $US 500 million to the members of the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, $US 50 million to the binational industry council, and $US 450 million for the meritorious initiatives account.

Sorta vague, isn't it, about who is going to come up with the list of projects and who will approve them. All it says is they will be "identified by the United States in consultation with Canada" -- so does this mean Karl Rove and David Frum will figure out how they want to spend the money?
So who is outraged?
Well, ThinkProgress noted the slush fund possibility back in June (this story spotted at the time by the eagle-eyed Accidental Deliberations) and Bob Rae talked about the "presidential slush fund" back in July. This week, Bruce Campbell from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives writes about the fund as "an unprecedented campaign gift from the Harper government to the Republican re-election bid, paid for by the Canadian lumber industry."
And who is NOT outraged?
Well, I would suspect that any Republican political consultants who came north last winter to work for the Conservatives during the election campaign would be happy as clams about now.