He's baaaak!

Look who's getting lots of publicity lately -- a prize from the Fraser Institute for NAFTA, plus he just published a catty memoir.
But I wonder why he thinks that Canadians, or even Harper's Conservatives, want him to be visible in politics again? We had enough trouble getting rid of him 14 years ago.
Personally, I never had that big a problem with Mulroney, but the rest of the country hated him so much that he singlehandedly destroyed the Progressive Conservatives as a legitimate political party in Canada -- they never recovered from 1993.
But he's still entertaining, isn't he -- let's not forget this:

One out of three kittens vote for Harper

Poor Harper -- it must be driving him to drink.
He makes nice with the press, he plays to his base with a drug "crack-down" while also burnishing his national security cred, he even has photos of homeless kittens on his website...and he STILL can't get support from more than one out of three Canadians:

Despite a hellish month, a new poll suggests the federal Liberals remain in a statistical dead heat with the Conservatives in public support nationally and are actually leading in most provinces.
Although they've been bombarded with negative news coverage, suffered disastrous byelection results and are feuding publicly, they're only two percentage points behind the Tories nationally.
The Conservatives' 33-31 per cent lead in the latest Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey falls within the margin of error, while the NDP is at 16 per cent and the Green party is at 10.
The Liberals actually lead the Tories in the three largest provinces, throughout Atlantic Canada, and among women and younger voters.

Imagine what could happen if Dion actually started to run the Liberal Party!
Anyway, getting back to Harper, I can't believe he has really changed any spots. He just cannot stop wagging his finger at us about saying the course in Afghanistan, playing the humanitarian card this time:

"We took that responsibility as a country and I think we should see that responsibility through to the best of our ability," he said . . . the mission is a moral responsibility to not only the families of the 71 Canadians who've lost their lives in the conflict, but to the people of Kandahar and NATO allies.

Once again, the argument seems to be, basically, nothing more than the We're Here song (sung to the tune of Old Lang Syne)-- "We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here..."

"People's lives have been brutally affected"

Well, I don't know the facts of the case.
But I think the defendants' lawyers should just shut up for a while about how awful the legal case has been for their clients.
It will take some time before we will feel sympathetic toward the people who supervised the blood transfusion service that gave Canadians AIDS and hepatitis.
The defendants, however much they have suffered, are at least all still alive.

I know you are but what am I

Just guess who said this with a straight face:

. . . reports about very innocent people being thrown into detention, where they could be held for years without any representation or charges, is distressing . . .

Gee, I think the hundreds still in Guantanamo just might agree, don't ya think? (via Digby)

September in Iraq

I was glad to read today that September was better in Iraq -- though the Iraq Body Count website says 1,280 Iraqis were killed in September, not the 988 AP reported.
Better is a relative term. At Faces of Grief, as well as Yahoo news, I found photos showing what September looked like inside Iraq:


Sept. 1. An Iraqi Muslim Sunni woman shows a picture of her son who was reported missing in Baghdad in March. There are over 1 million people who have gone missing since 2003.


Sept. 2. Cholera victim in Sulaimaniyah being treated. There are now 100 new cholera cases a day. (via Iraq Today)


SSept. 3. A car bomb in Baghdad, which killed two people and wounded two others.


Sept. 8. A son weeps during his father's burial in Najaf.


Sept. 11. An Iraqi woman holds her daughter as US soldiers ... search her home during a patrol into southern Baghdad,


Sept. 18. A young boy cries as his mother consoles him after U.S soldiers detained a family member during operation Saber Hammer 3 on the outskirts of Muqdadiyah


Sept. 22. A man sifts through the rubble of a destroyed house after a U.S. raid in Mussayab.


Sept. 23. Displaced Iraqi Shiites carry aid on a donkey cart as they leave a relief center in Karbala.


Sept. 25. A girl stands near a partially burnt vehicle after two car bomb attacks in Baghdad, which killed two people and wounded four.

But I did find one photo where people looked happy:

Sept. 25. An American soldier celebrates with some of the 800 new Iraqi police graduates during their graduation ceremony.

Great post of the day

TRex says Thank You, Rudy Giuliani for taking that call from his wife during a speech to the NRA:

By crossing this new frontier in boundary-free living, by once again raising the personal narcissism bar to new heights of impolitesse, Rudy has finally given me, an American liberal, a way that 9/11 can personally benefit me on a daily basis. And it’s about damn time.
. . . I can justify even the most petty acts of selfishness simply by invoking the fall of the Twin Towers. I will never, ever, ever have to turn off my cell phone again.
Tomorrow morning, when the groggy solemnity of the Monday staff meeting is shattered by my cell phone . . . all I have to do is chuckle sheepishly and say, “9/11!” and take the call and everyone will automatically just sit there and wait ten minutes for me to finish talking to my brother about whether he should order another pair of Red Wing boots or get some Dingos like mine.
Because, you know, 9/11? It changed everything.

With friends like these, Dion doesn't need enemies

So an MP who bills himself as a Dion supporter wants to avoid a fall election by a parliamentary manoeuver -- Dion would vote against the Throne Speech while the rest of the Liberal caucus abstains, so that Dion can talk about how he is against the Harper government without actually having to fight an election against them.
Great optics, Byron! Just what Canadians need from the Liberal Party, more trickery and sleight-of-hand tactics...

Just when you thought it was safe...

Just when you thought it was safe to go swimming -- Brain-eating amoeba kills 6
Just when you thought it was safe to go on vacation -- Dengue fever surges in Latin America
Just when you thought it was safe to get a CT scan -- Woman left in CT scanner for hours
Just when you thought it was safe to drink beer -- Oktoberfest reveler stuck in chimney for 12 hours
Some weird news lately, isn't there?

Stupid is as stupid does

So Tony Clements, the Health Minister, announces a new war-lite on drugs:

"The fact of the matter is they're unhealthy," Mr. Clement said. "They create poor health outcomes."

But I just have to point out that going to jail creates a really poor 'health outcome'.
As somebody once said, the only thing prisons demonstrably cure is hetrosexuality.

And we'll have fun, fun, fun...

Well, in the end nothing will happen.
We can always hope, of course, but I don't think Bill O'Reilly's racist remarks about a restaurant will get him fired (nor will Rush Limbaugh's remarks about "phoney soldiers" get him turfed)
Remember, Don Imus smeared a hard-working group of serious and dedicated young women as "knappy-headed ho's" and it was the culminating incident of a long history of racist remarks and Imus STILL almost kept his job. It wasn't until the MSNBC staff threatened to quit that the network finally realized that Imus had to go.
Fox employees aren't going to go toe-to-toe with O'Reilly -- he makes too much money for the network. If they didn't fire him because of the falafel lawsuit, they won't fire him over this.
But that said, let's everybody make the O'Reilly "scandal" last as long as we can...

Great line of the day

Slate did a Sex Issue today and Jessica registered her objections to the sexist photo essay on butts because it featured only female bun shots. Then "lbacker" said in the comments:

. . . You know, if they really wanted a great slideshow of asses, why not just post pictures of the Slate editorial team?

Sounds like a plan to me.

It's the New Angst, you jackass!

Wolcott quotes Katha Pollitt on what I am calling the New Angst -- that Chicken Little feeling that the World of Tomorrow just isn't working out; that looking-over-the-shoulder belief that the centre isn't holding; that fearful philosophy that every day in every way things are getting just a tiny bit worse. Pollitt writes:

...I know what you're thinking: I must be depressed or disappointed or just a curmudgeon, a crab, one of those middle-aged purists who stopped listening to music when the Beatles broke up.. . .
Still, I wasn't always like this. For a long time I thought things were getting better--uglier, yes, but more just and equal. I thought that little by little people were becoming less cruel, less stupid, less ignorant, less unfair. And they are, too--think of how much less racist white people are, how far women have come. And what about gay marriage? Ten years ago nobody'd heard of it and now half the country has already moved on to gay divorce. And yet, you don't hear people looking forward to the future in the rapturous way they did back when they believed in some big triumphant idea like science or reason or socialism or art, or even a small, cozy hope like everyone having a place to live and nobody having to eat cat food. People might be excited about their own personal future... But when they think about the future in general, they're scared.. . .
It's not as if I like being like this. People who despair after a certain age are just depressing. We don't have the looks for it, and besides, we make others uncomfortable: what if we're on to something. Sure, we're boring, always rambling on about how much better everything was in our childhoods, when there was snow, but we might just be right. Nobody wants to believe that. Once you get over your youthful intensities you're supposed to look on the bright side, like parents. You're supposed to say, There, there.

The model for our generation is Oscar Leroy, and our motto is "You Jackass!"

What is wrong with these people?

There is no other way to describe it -- the juvenile chest-beating and wild-eyed taunting that passes for American foreign policy these days is just childish beyond belief.
Here are some telling quotes from Juan Cole's most recent Salon article about Iran.
First, there is America's ridiculous demonization of Iranian president Ahmadinejad:

. . . Iran expressed sympathy with the United States in the aftermath of those attacks and Iranians held candlelight vigils for the victims. Iran felt that it and other Shiite populations had also suffered at the hands of al-Qaida, and that there might now be an opportunity for a new opening to the United States.
Instead, the U.S. State Department denounced Ahmadinejad as himself little more than a terrorist. . . . He has been depicted as a Hitler figure intent on killing Israeli Jews, even though he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, has never invaded any other country, denies he is an anti-Semite, has never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed, and allows Iran's 20,000 Jews to have representation in Parliament.
There is, in fact, remarkably little substance to the debates now raging in the United States about Ahmadinejad. His quirky personality, penchant for outrageous one-liners, and combative populism are hardly serious concerns for foreign policy.

Then there is the constant "dumb"-beat of war, war, war from Cheney and his pet neocons, none of whom have ever actually fought in a war themselves:

. . . the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state.
The neoconservatives are even claiming that the United States has been at war with Iran since 1979. As Glenn Greenwald points out, this assertion is absurd.

And some of the military leaders who have spent the last five years screwing up Afghanistan and Iraq are now trying to save their reputations by pretending that they would have "won" in Iraq if only Iran hadn't been in their way:

. . . some elements in the U.S. officer corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency are clearly spoiling for a fight with Iran because the Iranian-supported Shiite nationalists in Iraq are a major obstacle to U.S. dominance in Iraq. Although very few U.S. troops in Iraq are killed by Shiites, military spokesmen have been attempting to give the impression that Tehran is ordering hits on U.S. troops, a clear casus belli. Disinformation campaigns that accuse Iran of trying to destabilize the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government -- a government Iran actually supports -- could lay the groundwork for a war. Likewise, with the U.S. military now beginning patrols on the Iran-Iraq border, the possibility is enhanced of a hostile incident spinning out of control.

See what I mean -- they actually thought that 160,000 soldiers could "dominate" a population of 26 million - er, maybe just 25 million now -- so it must be Iran's fault that they have failed so miserably.
Its like watching a little kid get mad and hold his breath 'til he turns blue.
Unfortunately, this little kid has a lot of guns.
I thought Iran's military parade last week was pretty childish, too, but maybe it takes one to know one:

The threat to target U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the unveiling of the Qadr-1 were not aggressive in intent, but designed to make the point that Iran could also play by Richard M. Nixon's "madman" strategy, whereby you act so wildly as to convince your enemy you are capable of anything.

So now Ahmadinejad has become a folk hero to millions in the Middle East -- just one more addition to the record of incompetence.
Here is a summary from one of Juan Cole's blogging partners, Barnett R. Rubin:

The Bush-Cheney administration has surrendered much of Afghanistan to the Taliban and much of Pakistan to al-Qaida. They have turned most of Iraq over to Iran, creating the very danger over which they now threaten another disastrous war; they have strained the U.S. Armed Forces to the point of exhaustion, turned the Defense Department over to private contractors, the Justice Department over to the Republican National Committee, and the national debt over to foreign creditors, while leading a party whose single most basic belief is supposed to be that individuals must take personal responsibility for their actions. And they dare to lecture us on national security?

Yes. And the rest of the world, too -- except that we're not listening anymore.

Great line of the day

Canadian Cynic flags the contradiction:

. . . Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continued to embarrass his species when he proclaimed adamantly that there were no gays in Iran.
In response, Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback and Tom Tancredo vowed to introduce a Congressional resolution censuring Ahmadinejad for his appalling and breathtaking ignorance, just as soon as they finished telling everyone that they don't believe in biological evolution.
Some days, the straight lines really just write themselves, don't they?

Emphasis mine.

Reality check

Alison has an important post about the Conservative government's funding cut-offs to Status of Women groups.
The argument, apparently, is that women don't need these groups anymore:

At the time of the budget cuts, Gwen Landolt of REAL Women, the traditional-values group which has spent the last 25 years fighting against equal rights for women, explained that groups (like SWAG) are no longer needed because "women are equal now".

Hmmm -- so everything's peachy, eh?
Let's just check out this claim. And here are the facts, from the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women:

There are 2.8 million women in Canada living in poverty. That's one in five women. Fifty-six percent of the poor in Canada are women. ⁽¹⁾ . . . To be poor in Canada means to be surrounded by wealth but have no access to it. It means having to choose between paying your rent, bills, groceries, transportation, doing your laundry and buying necessary medical supplies. It means not having the money for many things other Canadians take for granted: visiting relatives, buying clothes to apply for jobs in, giving birthday or Christmas gifts to your kids. It means living in inadequate housing - often in disrepair and in overcrowded, high-crime neighbourhoods. It means that even five bucks is a big deal. It doesn't necessarily mean being on social assistance. The majority of the poor work for wages, either full- or part-time. ⁽²⁾. . .

And here's a "reality check" on Canadian women's equalityl:

* At every level of education, women in Canada earn less on average than men. For example, in 2003, women who are high school graduates earned 71.0 % of what male high school graduates earned for full-time, full-year work. Women with post-secondary degrees earned 68.9% of what their male counterparts did for full-time, full-year work. Postsecondary education does nothing at all to narrow the wage gap between women and men.
. . .
* In terms of the ratio of male to female earned income (the wage gap), Canada ranks 38th in the world. The following countries are among the many with less of a wage gap between women and men than Canada: Switzerland, Cambodia, Kenya, the Czech Republic and over 30 others.
* Canada ranks 25th in the world in terms of the representation of women in professional and technical occupations, after the United States, Barbados, Lithuania, Argentina and many other countries.
. . .
* Since the cutbacks of the 1990s, fewer women than men qualify for Employment Insurance (EI) regular benefits. . . . Women form the large majority of part-time workers in Canada, accounting for more than a quarter of the female paid labour force. Although they are forced to pay into EI, they find it difficult to qualify for EI maternity and parental leave, as well as sick and unemployment benefits. The majority of minimum wage workers in Canada are women. They find it hard to live on 55% of their salaries, which is what EI offers, when even their full salaries for a full year of work still places them below the Low-Income Cut-Offs (“poverty line”). They are also forced to pay into EI while not being able to afford to take much leave, thus subsidizing the leaves of better-off workers.
. . .
* Do women make “choices” to be economically disadvantaged, particularly by having children? If every woman decided not to have children, the human race would be wiped out in one generation. We need to recognize the value of women’s paid and unpaid work, as some other countries have done through concrete policy supports for women’s economic equality.
. . .
# It is no coincidence that the majority of social assistance recipients are women and children. In Canada half a million children with poor mothers are growing up on inadequate amounts of social assistance that do not cover basic needs. Canada has one of the highest rates of child poverty because we have less supports for women than many industrialized countries. The proportion of lone parent mothers living in poverty in Canada is a social policy choice, not an individual one.
. . .
# Child care is not a “hand out”. It is estimated that the mothers of young children contribute $53 billion of Canada’s GDP, representing 5% of the total GDP. That is taking into account the monetary value of their paid work, not the even greater value of their unpaid work as mothers of the next generation of Canadians.

For more, see the Women and The Economy website and links.