Social whirl

Herman



Well, well -- we actually went out for supper last night! To a new place. That was pretty good.

So what's stopping you?

The Globe writes:

Ms. George ... insists her story has yet to be fully told

Well, what's stopping her? I can't feel sorry for Barbara George, just like I can't feel sorry for Brian Mulroney. Don't whine about how misunderstood you are -- if you have a story to tell, then tell it.

Colour me surprised

Here's just one of the headlines we could have predicted six months ago: SUN, Saskatchewan Party relationship sours.
The other ones I'll be expecting to see are: "Downturn in US housing market means Prince Albert mill cannot reopen without government investment" and "Sask government would have won constitutional battle, says Supreme Court" and "Government pours millions into Mosaic Stadium, refuses Station 20 West"
Think of a few yourself.

Shorter

Shorter Harper:

You want us to fight an election over how we have mismanaged parliamentary committees, Jay? Are you out of your mind?

Who are you going to believe -- the RNC or your lying eyes?

Of course McCain actually did say that the United States military should stay in Iraq for the next ceutnry.
And of course he now wishes he hadn't said it, because the American people hate the Iraq War and hate any politician who doesn't want to get out.
So it follows, as the night the day, that now the Republican National Committee is pretending that McCain never said this at all. They're trotting out their Big Lie technique again, trying to convince the media that the "100 years" remark was actually just a Democratic trick.
The Democrats should just laugh and tell the Republicans to quit lying.
And by the way, McCain really is a warmonger, too!

Ouch!

Via Digby comes this historian's assessment of the Bush presidency:

Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large . . . When future historians look back to identify the moment at which the United States began to lose its position of world leadership, they will point —rightly— to the Bush presidency. Thanks to his policies, it is now easy to see America losing out to its competitors in any number of area: China is rapidly becoming the manufacturing powerhouse of the next century, India the high tech and services leader, and Europe the region with the best quality of life.

Of the 109 historians surveyed by the History News Network, 107 of them rated the Bush presidency as a failure.

Shorter

Recommendations on the inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair:

I know we said there would be a full public inquiry, but we didn't really mean it.

Great post of the day, from DBK

DBK says that Hillary coulda been a contendah!:

If I were Senator Clinton's strategist . . . I'd have had her get on the universal single payer health care hobbyhorse and she would have ridden that to victory . . . We need a leader who is prepared to take drastic measures to get the economy on the right track and solve some of the most pressing economic worries of the middle class. That takes vision and courage, because there are entrenched interests that hate the whole idea of an economy that is successful for any but a few. Had Senator Clinton been that person, she would have trounced Senator Obama and been a shoo-in.

Yes, I think he is absolutely right about that. And he continues

Senator Obama has not shown that vision or courage at all, either, and I am left hoping it is there, but keeping silent for the duration of the primary. I think I'll be disappointed, but a slim hope is all I have left.

Yes, he is right about that, too.
The thing I hope for is this -- if Obama can work out a deal with the Clintons, to involve Hillary in his campaign in some meaningful way like a Vice-Presidency, then the full weight of the Clinton juggernaught comes on side with the Obama campaign. Love her or hate her, she has survived 30 years of the most vicious political games ever played and she knows how to fight back.
Obama does not. He still thinks that the Republican leadership can be reasoned with. He thinks he can "explain". He thinks a great speech is all it will take. He is wrong, and Hillary Clinton knows it.
The Clintons understand the enemy. They can teach Obama a lot, if he is prepared to listen to them and to harness their considerable energy, charisma, fundraising, and framing prowess. It will take every bit of both Obama and Hillary to defeat the Mugabe Republicans now entrenched in the US government.

The new Olympic image

Betsy at I Am TRex provides us with the powerful image of the Reporters Without Borders Beijing poster:



The Olympic Torch route has now become just one long protest about Tibet. Unless China smartens up and stops trying to crush the Tibet people, this poster may well become the image of these Olympic games.

They know a lame duck when they see one

Maybe this:

is explained by this. As Dave writes:

Somebody needs to bring the clown home, strap him into a chair and unplug his telephone until the end of November.

The poor baby was so mad at the press coverage of his NATO trip that he wouldn't speak to reporters on the way home.

Thoughts on a scandal

They're trying really hard, but it's getting increasingly difficult for conservative commentators in Saskatchewan to avoid blasting the stupidities of the provincial Sask Party and the federal Conservative Party -- how much kinder gentler thousand points of light spin can they construct?
In today's Star Phoenix column, John Gormley did manage to insert a gratuitous swipe against the NDP for "allegedly" finding the tape and while he ended with a Limbaugh-esk flourish against Pat Atkinson's so-called "drive-by smear" of Brad Wall aka Chester -- as though the scandal was the fault of the people who revealed the tape rather than the people who made it -- really, I didn't think his heart was in it.
Someday soon, he's just not going to be able to stand it anymore -- someday soon, I'm going to tune into his radio show and hear him thundering "What were they thinking? How dare they? Are they ignorant or arrogant or both?" and he's going to be talking about the federal Conservatives or the provincial Sask Party, and I will just have to pull over and call.
When it comes to Tom Lukiwski's homophobic slur, I agree with Michelle Hugli's commentary. To imply it was all just youthful immaturity doesn't cut it, considering he was 41 years old at the time:

Lukiwski has a lot more to do to get beyond this. Like answer the question: WHY do these comments not reflect who you are today? What's changed? And if he can't answer those questions, then that's an answer in itself.

And while Brad Wall's Ukrainian farmer bit will tarnish his image, and deservedly so, I thought the more revealing and meaningful part of the tape was its anti-union attitude, for which no elected person has apologized. Says Larry Hubich:

"Clearly this government's labour relations strategy is based in a deeply held, irrational dislike of unions and their leadership."

Yeah, that about sums it up, I think.

Priceless!

A great story from the Rev:

Todd and his father were avid outdoorsmen . . . One weekend he and his father had been out on an early morning duck hunt and had bagged several birds. As the junior partner in the operation, Todd, then about 17, was stuck with the chore of cleaning the ducks. So he dug in, plucking the feathers, lopping off the heads and feet and gutting the half dozen or so birds.
When a knock came at the front door, he went to answer, hunting knife in hand and spattered with gore from the quarry he was preparing for the table. . . . It was a pair of middle aged ladies with the inevitable copies of The Watchtower.
Being a staunch agnostic and always ready for a good argument, Todd flung open the door and barked "What the hell do you want?" . . . Time, Todd told me later, slowed to the pace of molasses dripping uphill in February.
He stared at the Jehovah Witnesses. The Jehovah Witnesses stared back at him, briefly.
Mindful of his bloodspattered shirt and the big, bloody knife in his hand, Todd simply grimaced and the servants of Jehovah decided that it would be a good idea to give their witness elsewhere, immediately, if not sooner, and decamped in considerable haste.
Hilarity ensued. And ten minutes later when the police cruiser arrived, Todd, his sister, his father and his next-door neighbor who had allowed the panicked Witnesses to use his telephone were still sitting on the front porch roaring and holding their sides. When the constabulary were given the full picture, they were hard pressed not to take part in the merriment.
The Witnesses never darkened Todd's door again.

I won't be able to answer the door again without thinking of this.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving blog

Today's Nelson Moment is this one - Blog loses Wall backing over comments:

Premier Brad Wall distanced the Saskatchewan Party from a popular right-wing blog Tuesday over controversial comments posted about inner city Saskatoon.
Wall told reporters that the Saskatchewan Party would remove from its own website an endorsement of Wall from Saskatchewan-based Kate McMillan of smalldeadanimals.com.
Saskatchewan Party MLAs have referenced the website approvingly in the legislature in the past but Wall said that would likely not occur in the future.

Well, I should hope not. But little does he know that the winged monkey hordes have now been let loose. Here's what she said that was so offensive:

Following the government's cancellation of $8 million in funding for the Station 20 West project in Saskatoon's core, McMillan posted on her blog suggesting "economic stimuli" for the area to get a private sector grocery store.
These included "put the cap back on the used needle . . . failing that, share it with your friends. It's a quicker solution to your problem anyway."
She also suggested "cross your legs" and "put down the spray can." McMillan later posted "try not vandalizing every business still standing in your neighbourhood, try not selling your ass up and down the street in front of the doors. Try parenting your sticky-fingered brats."

Now, that's a bit much for somebody who doesn't even live in Saskatoon. So please feel free to never to come into the city again --
Saskatoon doesn't need this kind of attitude. The Star Phoenix story continues:

Wall said the comments were "beyond the pale."
"Those are intolerant and unacceptable remarks," he told reporters, adding that the government has a firm commitment to the province's core urban neighbourhoods despite its reservations about the Station 20 West project.
The comments -- and the Sask. Party's relationship to the blog -- was raised in a member's statement by the Opposition NDP Tuesday.
Saskatoon Massey Place MLA Cam Broten praised Wall for his actions.
"The comments were quite hurtful, quite ugly," he told reporters. "We recognize that people have a right to free speech but comments like that don't need to be given more credibility by having an association with the premier of the province."
McMillan, who is not a member of the Saskatchewan Party, said her comments were "hyperbolic" but she stood by them and believes many provincial residents share her opinions.
She said Wall's condemnation of her comments on Tuesday were "predictable" given "today's politically correct atmosphere."

Well, maybe your friends still think Saskatchewan is just Mississippi North, but everyone else has moved on. Well, except for David Ahenakew, who feels the same way as Kate does, but about different people.

If a protest happens and the media doesn't cover it...

When we were talking the other day about the Dirty Fucking Hippies and the Vietnam War protests, my son asked me why there hadn't been protests against the Iraq War.
I said there had been -- 30 million people, the biggest anti-war protests in history -- but the media in the United States and Britain just mostly ignored them. The media had to ignore them because the protests just didn't fit into the comforting media narrative about the (then) imminent Iraq War, about how absolutely justified the war was and how the leaders had to protect the people from those awful weapons and how the protests really had no legitimacy because they were just a bunch of commies.
And now Media Bloodhound reports that Big Media is STILL ignoring these protests.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is listening, did it make any sound?

Nobody does it better

Flying penguins found by BBC, who also reported on the spaghetti harvest story fifty years ago.