Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who

There's a new 'high-profile' report just been published by an unnamed and unelected group of 13 'academics and former diplomats' from 'both sides' who want Canada to turn the Arctic over to the United States.
Oops, sorry, not at all -- how could I be so paranoid?
They want Canada and the United States to "jointly manage Arctic waters".
Of course, us Canadians are just so paranoid. As Rob Huebert of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary describes it:

"The problem for the Canadian leader is: how do you actually start talking to the Americans without immediately having accusations that you're selling out on Canadian sovereignty?"

How indeed? Because, of course, that is exactly what you are doing, however glibly you might fling around phrases like "maximizing burden-sharing opportunities".
It sounds like the report features all the usual suspects:

The group has sent a list of nine recommendations to the two governments. They include a suggestion that the U.S. and Canada jointly develop rules on stopping ships in northern waters and on environmental, navigation and safety standards. They also call on the two countries to co-operate on immigration, search and rescue, and surveillance.

Immigration? Surveillance? How many people are crossing the North Pole illegally these days?
Oh, yeah. Them!

I love the internets

Try this one -- its the first one of a six part "drama" based on Photoshop: You Suck at Photoshop #1 Watch all six.

Alternate universes

Neil Kitson presents a vision of an alternate universe:

...let's imagine it the other way around. The Gigantic Islamic Republic of Asia (population one billion) decides that Canada is a failed state. The government of Canada is replaced by Shariah law, and 2,500 Afghan troops are dispatched . . . to oversee the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Sudbury. You can see how this would work. None of the Afghans speak English, so some local "terps" are hired to deal with the natives. The whole of the Afghan detachment would fit comfortably into the Sudbury Arena for a hockey game. Do these guys play hockey?
Various forward operational bases are established at North Bay and Sault St. Marie, but casualties are incurred during routine transport, and only helicopters are deemed safe. German tanks worth one billion euros are parked in Sudbury and forgotten. Unrest begins at home, but people are told "we might be in North America for 100 years," and "Muslims don't cut and run."

Meanwhile, Eric Margolis describes what is happening in the real world -- the one where Europeans "regard the Afghan conflict as a. wrong and immoral; b. America’s war; c. all about oil; and d. probably lost." So another side-effect of the Afghanistan war will be the breaking of NATO:

Europeans increasingly ask why they need the US-dominated military alliance, a Cold War relic, in which they continue to play foot soldiers to America’s atomic knights . . . Why does the rich, powerful European Union even need NATO any more? The Soviet threat is gone – at least for now. Nuclear-armed France and Britain are quite capable of defending Europe against outside threats. Why cannot the new European Defense Force take over NATO’s role of defending Europe and protecting EU interests? United Europe will inevitably field its own integrated military force. Arm-twisting Europe to fight a highly unpopular war in Afghanistan will only hasten this development . . .
By pushing NATO towards a bridge too far, the Bush Administration may end up fatally undermining NATO and encouraging anti-American forces in Europe.

You know, if Bin Laden has written a script, this would have been it...

The next ten months

Allison refers us to The Rev's description of the next ten months in American politics:

. . . we will see Antoin Rezko, a dodgy property developer, inflated into a criminal mastermind on par with Al Capone and be told that because he gave Obama a sweetheart deal on some property, the senator is his amoral meat puppet. We will hear endlessly all about how William Ayers, a domestic terrorist and member of the sinister hippy-communist-veteran hating Weather Underground -- the largest domestic terrorist group EVER ! They bombed the Pentagon before Al-Quaida!-- who has become a sissified America-hating academic "intellectual" (just like Ward Churchill) is practically Obama's foster father. And we will heard how Obama didn't grow up in America and is probably a secret muslim, has fangs, a third eye, eats babies and HAS THE SAME NAMES AS AMERICA'S ENEMIES!!!!

The genuis of the Swiftboat attack is that it isn't just another accusation; rather, it aims squarely at undermining an opponent's greatest strength. Kerry's strength was his demonstrated courage under fire; the swiftboat attacks negated that strength, and made it appear that his military record was actually a liability for him.
Obama's greatest strength is his charisma, his inspirational persona as a different kind of politician with a different approach. So the attack will be that he is just another unethical corrupt politician.
Kerry made the mistake of taking seriously the lies about his military record. Imagine if he had just said "Oh, them. The Republicans have been paying them to lie about me for years. They're nothing but a bunch of ridiculous, jealous old men."
Hillary gets it right -- she just laughs at all the smear attempts.
I hope Obama does the same.

But I've been sick!

Sorry for the lack of posts -- I've had the flu since Friday -- or maybe since even Thursday night since all day Friday I felt pretty out of it at work too.
And don't you just love it when people come to work sick?
So I was looking up quotations on illness and didn't find any I liked except this one, from Rita Mae Brown. It's about mental illness, not the flu, but its funny anyway:

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

Great post of the day

Duncan Cameron at Rabble writes about Harper's attempt to make Afghanistan an election issue:

Conservatives are road testing their election strategy: while Stephen Harper is a real leader, Stéphane Dion is not . . .
The laughable part of the strategy is the idea that splitting the country over the war constitutes leadership. In Canada, leaders unite a large number of Canadians, bringing citizens from far flung regions together around a vision, a project, a story, a common purpose, something with meaning that resonates with citizens. The tragic part of the strategy is playing politics with the war, using a failing military mission to win an election . . .
Manley, helped along by his continentalist colleagues Derek Burney, and Paul Tellier, played the fool perfectly. Instead of asking the obvious question: what Canadian interests are at stake in Afghanistan? And giving the obvious answer: none; Manley bravely called for the prime minister to step up, take control of the "file," and convince some NATO allies to commit 1,000 combat troops in support of the Canadian forces.
Nobody can be expected to believe that another 1,000 troops are going to make a difference. After all, the Soviet Union had six times the troops in Afghanistan that NATO does today, and it still lost.
Harper must now deliver. If he wants a never-ending war role for Canada in Aghanistan, he can consult with his pollsters and party advisors as long as he wants. He still must convince Canadians to vote for him, if he wants to continue to send our soldiers into battle.
While Harper can force an election if he wants, the public, not the prime minister will decide who passes the leadership test, and on what grounds. If the Conservative leader thinks he is smart enough to win an election on the war, he may find out a great many Canadians have decided he is not smart enough to deserve their vote.

They've lost their minds

Glenn Greenwald wrote about it but you have to see it for yourself.
The Heritage Foundation has a clock on their front page which measures, in milliseconds, the time since the Protect America act expired -- you know, the act which the United States passed just six months ago which somehow prevented 911 or something...oh, no wait, I guess it prevented Jose Padilla from setting off a bomb...no, wait, it stopped Jack Bauer's bomb from blowing up Los Angeles...no, wait.... well, it did SOMETHING really, really important, without which America won't ever be safe, I guess...

Great line of the day

Glenn Greenwald, in an article about the FISA extension issue and Republican fear-mongering:

Americans are worried and even angry about many things. Whether Osama bin Laden is throwing a party because AT&T and Verizon might have to defend themselves in court isn't one of them.

Who's the Queen?

Aretha says I am when Beyonce says its Tina.
You decide:

Lapdogs and jawdroppers

From Crooks and Liars via I am TRex.

Does this actually make any sense?

Excuse me, please, but as I heard the news today about how awful it was that Roger Clemens -- A MAJOR LEAGUE PITCHER -- might have lied -- LIED -- to a Congressional committee, I thought... first, why is anything that Roger Clemens does or says of any concern whatsoever to the US Congress, don't they have more important things to think about, and second, why would anyone get outraged about Clemens if they haven't been equally outraged about Bush and Cheney and Rice and Mulcasey and ...
oh, well, never mind. Forget I asked...

Releasing the inner Jack Bauer

It has become apparent that police aren't using Tasers instead of guns; they're using Tasers instead of yelling at people.
Naomi Klein writes about Toronto police buying 3,000 Tasers:

Few would argue with an officer's right to use an electroshock weapon when lives are in danger and the only alternative is a gun. Many Toronto police officers, particularly those on the Emergency Task Force, clearly use them with restraint.
Yet there is also plenty of evidence that some officers get hooked on shock. In Edmonton, in 2001, reports of taserings averaged less than once a week. Three years later, they were coming in daily. In another part of the country, a mother in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia called police when she and her 17-year-old daughter were having an argument. Three officers showed up and tasered the teen in her own bed. In a recent court ruling, the judge called these actions 'very disturbing and disconcerting.'

Control is the name of the game. Not officer safety.
But there's something deeper going on here, too. Something darker. By causing pain without physical contact, Tasers provide an unique way for the weak to control the strong and for the strong to bully the weak. By causing pain without wounds, the Taser appear defensive when they are actually aggressive. And for the first time, the Taser offers the average person the opportunity to release their inner Jack Bauer without apparent personal risk. They're coming soon to a neighbourhood near you:

It may well be possible to prevent shock-happy policing with tighter controls. Yet, despite repeated calls for stricter regulations for police, Taser International is racing to get its devices in the hands of civilians, marketing the product as not just safe but fun. In the United States the company has been aggressively pushing its line of C2 "personal protectors" — available in pink, leopard print, and in holsters with built-in MP3 players. (The weapon is nicknamed the "iTaser.") Tupperware-style taser parties are springing up in the suburbs of Arizona.
Taser International is a company whose executives present themselves as serious experts in public safety. Yet it has launched this foray into fashion at the very moment when the safety of its devices is being questioned on multiple fronts. Valentine's Day is coming and Taser's website is busily hawking the C2 in flaming red. "Love her? Protect her," goes the slogan.
This is what corporations do: whatever they can get away with to sell more product.

And next we'll hear about teenagers dying on the streets because they've been tased by their enemies . . . or by their friends.

High diving

Globe columnist Adam Radwanski notes the absolute cynicism of the Harper Conservatives who talk about how much they support the mission in Afghanistan while they themselves endanger it by using it as an election ploy:

Rather than baiting the Liberals into bringing down Parliament and dispatching the reliably embarrassing Peter Van Loan to call them Taliban-lovers, the government should be doing everything it can to broker some kind of compromise. Only if that fails should they consign the mission to likely doom by putting it to voters.

But Harper appears to be incapable of sincerity on any issue except finding homes for orphan kittens.
And I am getting the impression that Stephane Dion has finally had enough of the games. Today, Dion finally seemed to be going on the offensive, telling Harper, OK if you want an election on the budget or on Afghanistan, we'll give you one -- here's our vision for Afghanistan and here's our vision for the budget, let the people decide!
Watching Dion ponder the high dive today, I felt like Yosemite Sam -- bring on Fearless Freep! I paid my four bits to see the high diving act and I'm a-gonna SEE the high-diving act!
I think it's time for Dion to step forward and try to demonstrate to Canadians why they should vote for him. Chantal Hebert wonders if Dion is quite ready for prime time:

In theory, he is best positioned to take advantage of any wind of change blowing into this country as a result of the American presidential contest . . . But while Dion has long been convinced that voters will be pleasantly surprised by his performance, Liberal strategists face an uphill battle in their efforts to turn his inexperience in their favour.
. . . Take Afghanistan, the top file in Parliament these days and one on which the Liberals are presumably on the majority side of public opinion. They also happen to have in Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae and Dion himself a crack intellectual team, on par or superior to that of the government. But so far, that has only added to the Liberal confusion.
If Dion and his party cannot muster clarity and enthusiasm in support of their own case, how can they hope to prevail in an election argument?

Well, maybe it's time we find out whether Dion is a leader or not.
And the Montreal Gazette says Harper should be careful what he wishes for:

The CROP numbers would give the Conservatives only the 11 Quebec seats they have now, the Nanos poll would give them even fewer.
The Conservatives are looking at even worse numbers in Ontario, where the Liberals lead 43 to 31 per cent, with the NDP at 19 per cent. For the Tories, this isn't even 2006 all over again, when their 35 per cent produced 40 Ontario seats; but more like 2004, when their 30 per cent resulted in only 24 seats, with the Tories virtually shut out in Toronto's suburban 905 belt.
Harper still has much stronger leadership numbers than Dion, but not the huge advantage he enjoyed a year ago. For example, on the key attribute of competence, Harper leads Dion 39-16; on trust 30-14, and on vision, 32-17.
Those are still 2-1 margins, but not enough for wise heads to overlook voting intention. On that, the Nanos poll is clear. There is no majority for anyone, and quite possibly a Liberal minority produced by Ontario.
Tactics and brinksmanship are all very well in the House. But if Harper means to go to the country, he needs much better numbers than this in his pocket.

Great line of the day

Glenn Greenwald writes about the Democrats response to John McCain's warmongering:

It is long past time for America to have the debate over whether our willingness to fight one unnecessary war after the next -- more than any other country in the world -- and to see war as a central method for dealing with other countries, is smart or "tough" or conducive to being "safe." The last thing the country needs -- and the last thing Democrats should want -- is a Democratic candidate whose strategy is to accept the GOP foreign policy premises and then make themselves as much as possible like Joe Lieberman, Bill Kristol and John McCain.
The Democrats' greatest failure over the last eight years -- both political and substantive -- has been a refusal to offer any contrast to Republican warmongering and fearmongering in the national security realm. With the Republicans about to nominate one of the country's most unhinged warlovers, that cowardly strategy is more dangerous, and more self-destructive, than ever before.

The other day, I saw someone on one of the talk shows start talking about how, from the Vietnamese point of view, pilots like John McCain were committing war crimes by bombing Vietnamese civilians. The rest of the panel was shocked, but it was actually true, of course. I wonder if the Democrats will be able to confront and neutralize McCain's war record the way the Republicans were able to neutralize John Kerry's record, even turning it into a liability?
As far as I am concerned, there is nothing more frightening about McCain than his war-mongering. This is a man who sang "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran!", who talks blithely about the US staying in Iraq for 100 years -- if Americans confuse grandiosity and ego with leadership again, it means they have chosen war until 2016.
I wonder if Jon Stewart will think McCain is such a great guy when he drafts Stewart's son to fight in the Middle East?

Do they get a secret decoder ring too?

Digby notes this Alternet article about an FBI/business organization called InfraGard:

To join, each person must be sponsored by 'an existing InfraGard member, chapter, or partner organization.' The FBI then vets the applicant. On the application form, prospective members are asked which aspect of the critical infrastructure their organization deals with. . . .
FBI Director Robert Mueller . . . urged InfraGard members to contact the FBI if they 'note suspicious activity or an unusual event.' And he said they could sic the FBI on 'disgruntled employees who will use knowledge gained on the job against their employers.' . . .
InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation -- and what their role might be. He showed me his InfraGard card, with his name and e-mail address on the front, along with the InfraGard logo . . .
[when martial law is declared]"We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we'd be given specific benefits." These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out . . . "We were assured that if we were forced to kill someone to protect our infrastructure, there would be no repercussions," the whistleblower says. "It gave me goose bumps. It chilled me to the bone."

Actually, it sounds sort of like the Masons, with guns.
I gotta get me one of those cards.