So what's stopping you, Brian?

So Brian Mulroney is trumpeting the old "I just want to clear my name" schtick. Globe columnist Lawrence Martin's on-line chat about the Mulroney public inquiry pinpoints the flaws. First:

If Mr. Mulroney is so innocent, as he claims, why hasn't he come forward and explained himself on the question of the $300,000? Why can't he say how he made a bad error of judgment in accepting cash, in dealing with this man, and that he is sorry for it, but he did nothing illegal. Remaining silent leads to suspicion.

and second:

... It's not just a case of accepting Mr. Schreiber's words. They should be greeted with utmost suspicion. But... stories revealing Mr. Mulroney's failure to pay taxes on time on the $300,000 handout cannot be ignored.

Paul Wells reminds us that Mulroney had another option too:

A judicial inquiry is the "only way" to establish his innocence? Gee, I would have thought a 1,000-page book might have been a good place to try.

And Scott thinks the public is growing suspicious of Harper now too:

. . . the mere fact Mulroney’s name is some how connected to Harper, however tenuous that might or might not be, and the fact that Harper had 3 flip-flops in the past week on what type of inquiry to hold - from a cocky dismissal of it with a vague warning about investigating past Liberal regimes last week, to an independent person to see whether we need an inquiry, to now a full blown inquiry - gives the impression to the public something fishy has been going on.
It has led at least 2 pollsters to either conclude that it’s causing Con poll numbers to drop, or that it has potential to do so.

Finally, in the "if we knew then what we know now" department, Wells also observes:

if the Liberals had voted down the throne speech, Stephen Harper would be fleeing scrums today on the campaign trail, ordering candidates not to talk...

Denial is a river in Egypt

Kos asks why do conservatives deny global warming? Yes, I have wondered about this myself:

Climate science isn’t really partisan in any meaningful way, yet as long as the movementarians think that attacking the science will score a vctory against liberalism they will go on attacking just the same. All the petro lobby needed to do was polarize a scientific matter along political lines and the rightwing movement willingly became what amounts to the private army for a cause almost completely tangential to their individual interests. Retired tobacco execs look on with a mix of humor and deep jealousy.

Profound ignorance

If anyone ever wonders why the image of the United States is declining across the world, along with its economy, just ponder the profound ignorance and parochial egotism of this quote from LA Times columnist Jonah Goldberg:

Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.

What gave him the idea that the United States has the right to act that way?

It's Win-Win

Vancouver dermatologist Neil Kitson has a suggestion for Afghanistan -- send in the Canadian Wheat Board, armed:

So Afghan [poppy] farmers . . . have a cash crop, but they're dependent on distributors and middlemen who make a fortune and might not pay a decent price. The whole thing needs to be taken out of the hands of these cartels, warlords, drug barons, and what have you, then nationalized and professionalized. That's where the Wheat Board comes in . .

Works for me. Now that the Saskatchewan's Gnu Gov is no longer willing to finance the legal battle against barley marketing privatization, the Board needs a new source of funds, too. So it's win-win for both the Board and the Afghan poppy farmers.

Its still fish and it still stinks

As Rosanne Rosannadanna said:

It's still fish and it still stinks.

Digby describes an interview today where a torture apologist AKA military lawyer did the old bob and weave and parse.
Try as he might, he can't change the reality that a civilized nation does not permit the torture of its prisoners. No matter what they might have done.

Great photo of the day

which I found in this good hockey post at First Draft which also has a great photo of a goalie doing a backflip to prevent a goal, though I liked the cat picture better myself.

Remembrance Day

In honour of Remembrance Day, here are a couple of great scenes from The Longest Day:



The fellow cursing the pigeons with "Damned traitors!" was Canadian journalist Charles Lynch, according to Cornelius Ryan's book. But I think Lynch was actually with the Canadians at Juno, rather than with the English at Sword.

And if you have ever wondered about why we have two minutes of silence, listen to Nova Scotia songwriter Terry Kelly:

The Movie Rule

Via Pandagon, I found The Rule for deciding whether a movie is worth watching or not:

1. There must be two or more women in it
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something other than a man

Works for me.

What Digby says

Digby talks about unions and why they are important:

A couple of years ago you may all remember that the Southern California grocery workers went on strike ... Yesterday, I was at one of those stores and overheard a very heartening conversation between a couple of customers and a couple of grocery workers. The customers were members of the striking WGA and they were talking with the grocery guys about the strike. They were very animated, talking tactics and telling of their experiences as Union Men. It brought home to me again why unions are important.
You hear a lot of nasty snark in this town about how these WGA strikers are all millionaires playing at being hardhats, and it totally misses the point. The union movement is about solidarity, which is a fundamental progressive value. I have no idea if those fellows in the store were highly paid TV writers or hopeful freelance screenwriters or what, but it wasn't relevant to the conversation. Those four guys had interests in common in their relationship to the owners of their industries. Unions are one of the vehicles that can make our capitalist society work to the benefit of all and not just the few.

In my own working years, I've been on both sides, in unions and in management. And both sides are better off when there is a union to bargain collectively.

Premier Archie

The Saskatchewan Party will be Saskatchewan's new government.
And Brad Wall will be Saskatchewan's new premier. Wall seems like a nice guy, I know, but I have to admit that he reminds me of Archie.
I don't understand this new craze for fixed election dates. Wall has already announced that the next election will be Nov. 7, 2011 -- and so I also don't understand why he thinks he should bother passing a law about it, he's the government so he can set the date whenever he wants to.
But turning immediately to those more serious issues which couldn't be discussed during the campaign, the press is wondering whether Premier Wall will continue fighting for the federal equalization formula that the Harper Conservatives are refusing Saskatchewan.
I think Wall is already preparing the ground for tossing in the towel, if my mixed metaphors make sense -- already, Wall is framing the argument that a few dollars more in annual federal transfer payments will somehow make up for the billion dollars that Saskatchewan will lose over the next several years if the equalization formula continues to include resource revenues:

Wall said the Saskatchewan Party still wants the same equalization deal as other provinces when it comes to resources. . . . He said there are other tactics to pursue, including pushing for increased federal funding in areas such as infrastructure, post-secondary education and First Nations . . ."There are really some opportunities to build a more constructive relationship."
Calvert, beginning his transformation into leader of the Opposition, told reporters he was concerned about Wall's comments.
"Political allegiances should not lead to a sell-out of Saskatchewan's interests, or people," said Calvert, who said legal opinions prepared by the Justice Department on the equalization challenge will stand up to any scrutiny . . .
The top-ranking of Saskatchewan's 12 Tory MPs, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, said he was looking forward to working with the new provincial government and had some favourable words for Wall's approach.
"My grandmother, who was a very wise lady, always said you catch a lot more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, so I'll leave it at that," he said in a phone interview.

MY grandmother used to say, if you've got the money, honey, I've got the time.

It is to laugh

After my day down in the dumps yesterday, today's news is something to laugh at.
First we find out that the FBI in San Francisco thought they could find terrorists by tracking Falafel sales.
Then we find out that the Swiftboat authors are suing their publisher. Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch, could it? As Jane Hamsher says, this is simply awash with irony.
Kevin Drum has finished his Golden Wingnut Award contest and Hinderaker won!
And what IS it with Liberal politicians and golf? Remember this? And this? Well, the Gazetteer has the newest scoop.
And then I found this, too:

Great line of the day

Digby just quoted another Chris Matthews' Teh Stupid, and then in the Comments, Michael Scott says:

Tweety, Pumpkinhead, et al. make Ted Baxter look like Edward R. Murrow.

Ha!

Outrage fatigue

I've reached some sort of nadir of outrage today
First, it looks as though the Saskatchewan [ie Conservative] Party will win big in the provincial election on Wednesday, which will be ballyhooed as a victory for the right wing and which actually will be nothing of the kind. Saskatchewan isn't turning to the right, but too many of us are just tired of a government that can't seem to come up with any exciting or even mildly interesting ideas anymore. The NDP delivered a flyer to our house today showing the disembodied head of Brad Wall floating over the prairie next to the disembodied head of Grant Devine, the Great Pumpkin meets the Wizard of Oz.
Then I read Dave's You are now entering the Reform Agenda, about why we should be outraged at Harper's decision that he can't be bothered going to bat for Canadians he doesn't like:

...the moral relativism now being employed by Harper and Day ... not only violates the rule of Canadian law, but makes Canadians expendable if the circumstances do not fit with the Harper/Day agenda - an agenda which, under a Conservative Party banner, they have been trying to camouflage.

So we'll all be waving bye-bye to Mark Emery, Michelle Rainey, Greg Williams,Omar Khadr, and anybody else of whom our new moral overlords disapprove.
Then I read Glenn Greenwald summing up the most recent Bush Administration outrages:

. . . we're at the point where a belief in due process, press freedoms and basic restraints on government and military power demonstrate a hatred for America and its freedoms. A belief in those principles constitutes "siding with the enemy." Only by joyously affirming the power of the Government to detain people for life with no charges, to break laws enacted by Congress, to spy on Americans with no warrants, to torture detainees, and to arrest war journalists and hold them for years can one prove one's loyalty to the country.

And finally I read a terrible story at Sadly, No! about how a bunch of Free Republic posters stalked a dying voting rights activist -- and turns out this was only one of several stalking incidents of this type.
All I can ask is this: what kind of people are they?
Or perhaps Winston Churchill's question is a better one:

What kind of people do they think we are?

Because Churchill continued:

Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to preserve against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

Remember remember the 5th of November

Scott Horton describes the new view of Guy Fawkes.

Great line of the day

TBogg writes about Blackwater:

. . . it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to foresee a future when Blackwater becomes the go-to company for a government that requires plausible deniability (nudge nudge...say no more) . . . imagine if you will, a Third World country with an "insurgent problem" that can be sufficiently labeled as Communist or this Millennium's flavor of the day: Islamofascist. For a price, Blackwater will be there to train your secret police in counter-intelligence operations, provide logistical support, weaponry, manpower, and yes, that special something that falls short of the level of death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant body function.
Or not.
Blackwater is going to be the Wal-Mart of Death.

Emphasis mine.