Snakes in a .....

Dawg's Blawg has progressive politics, Cherniak covers the latest from the Liberal party HQ, Galloping Beaver covers all things Canadian military, and I rely on TBogg for when I need some bassett blogging.
Nice to see that Shakesville has also found its niche.

Oil? Perish the thought!

We in the global so-called West can talk all we like about how our wars of choice in the Middle East are not about oil, but we cannot possibly be surprised when the people of the Middle East do not believe us.

Great line of the day

From Rev Paperboy:

The creationists sometimes try to pin the massacres, holocausts and pogroms of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot on atheism and their own misinterpretation of Darwin's theories as a justification of "survival of the fittest" -- when the real cause of these horrible events, and indeed most of the evil that men do, is the "true believerism" the notion that one is righteous that brooks no doubt, no reconsideration in the face of evidence that one's thesis is not airtight. It is that sort of inability to admit errors or tolerate dissent that leads to everything from the Iraq war to religiously driven fatal child abuse and deadly neglect.

I'm baaack!

So what did I miss?
Oh, just the destruction of the American Constitution -- no biggie.
I think MoveOn had better think twice before it dismantles its political outreach mechanism -- they may find that, even with an Obama adminstration, they still have something to say.

Away til Sunday

And I am having computer trouble so its hard to post -- I'll try, though.
I'm going to a conference in Windsor -- looking forward to seeing that city.

Great line of the day

Glenn Greenwald:

Threatening Americans with obliteration unless they support authoritarian and war-making hysteria ought to be the most discredited idea there is. But there is Newt Gingrich, invited on Face the Nation to opine, because he's a very Serious and important Ideas Man. As but one example, here's Time's Liberal Pundit Joe Klein, chatting with Hugh Hewitt about Gingrich:

I've always really respected Newt, because he's a man of honor, and he is a
real policy wonk, and he really cares about stuff.

That's how most media stars talk about Gingrich, as he wallows in his never-ending dreams about American cities being vaporized and how the only way we can prevent that is if we relinquish our Constitution -- or at least just small parts of it such as the First Amendment and habeas corpus -- and start more wars. That's squarely within mainstream American political discourse.

Why does anyone listen to Newt ("Cry-baby") Gingrich? Well, I suppose he makes as much sense as John McCain -- which isn't saying much because the Republican level is pretty low now, isn't it.

Great line of the day

NYT columnist Frank Rich writes about myth and reality in the American election campaign:

The ludicrous idea that votes from Clinton supporters would somehow make up for McCain defectors is merely the latest fairy tale brought to you by those same Washington soothsayers who said Fred Thompson was the man to beat and that young people don’t turn up to vote.

And remember how we kept hearing about how sexy Fred was, and now everybody just loved Mitt's shoulders, and how everything was good news for Rudy Guiliani? And remember how Bloomberg was going to announce any day now and this would cut the Democrats off at the knees? In reality, I think Bob Barr is going to be cutting McCain off at the knees.

This will be a problem

Glenn Greenwald writes about the increasing level of hysterical right wing fascism-- talk show host Laura Ingraham saying that the Bush administration should just ignore US Supreme Court rulings, while talk show host Michael Reagan says anybody who believes that the Bush Administration was responsible for 911 should just be shot outright :

... people like Laura Ingraham and Michael Reagan are crazed and absurd figures, but they have large audiences. There is a sizable portion of this country's population that has been fed a steady diet of ideas of this sort for years, a view of Government and political power that prevails in the worst tyrannies on the planet. The Leader has the right to break our laws. He should defy court rulings that enforce constitutional guarantees. The Government has the right to put people in cages for life with no process. People should be imprisoned or shot by virtue of the views they express.
As the Right comes to accept that their political movement lies in ruins -- as evidence of their rejection by the country becomes too compelling to ignore -- the desperation and frustration level increases and much of this rhetoric will become more extreme (note that Ingraham cited the President's low popularity ratings as a reason why he should ignore the Supreme Court's ruling; National Review's Andy McCarthy on Thursday suggested that in response to the Court's ruling, we should take all of the Guantanamo detainees and just slaughter them en masse). Having millions of citizens inculcated over many years with truly deranged, extremist tripe of this sort -- and Fox just announced that Ingraham would have her own show beginning next week -- obviously has consequences. We've seen just some of those over the last seven years, and the reaction is likely to intensify as that movement grows more impotent and marginalized.

Sometimes I think the US is heading toward some sort of cataclysm.
Politics in a democracy has a normal range, an ebb and flow -- we see this in Canada where the Liberals give way to the Conservatives who give way to the Liberals -- but where individuals including politicians still have a respect for government and where government has a respect for its own standards and traditions. Thus, however much I dislike Harper for his policies and his budgets, for example, I can give him the credit he deserves for actions like the residential school apology; however much Harper disagrees with the NDP he can still meet with Jack Layton to talk about issues like this. I think this is the kind of respect for each other and for the common good which Barak Obama is trying to achieve when he talks about making Washington less partisan.
But I wonder if this can still be done in the States or have they already moved too far away from civilized politics. Greenwald says their movement is in ruins, but millions of people in the States are still apparently so far down the rabbit hole that their only moral arbiter is whether the Bush administration is for something or agin it. These people want Bush to have a third term, and will happily vote for John McCain to provide it.
There is nothing more important to these people than their own personal safety, and they think they have made a bargain with Bush that he can do whatever he wants as long as he keeps them safe.
It's called a Faustian bargain, and generally it doesn't work out very well.

An extraordinary event

The apology will be seen as a very significant achievement of Harper and the whole government.

Bishop Mark MacDonald, the national indigenous bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada, said he was pleased with the government’s apology. "I’m going to be processing it for a long time," he told the Journal. “It was an extraordinary event and I was very happy with what I heard and
moved by what I heard and I’m filled with all kinds of emotions. So it will take me a while to process it but I thought it was an
extraordinary day and one of the best days of my life."


It is amazing what a difference a sincere and humble apology can make.
Canada is being noticed around the world for doing this -- from the Sydney Morning Hrald to China Daily

Wasn't that Mulroney?

Spokesblob update:

Jason Kenney, Conservative secretary of state for multiculturalism, shot back the Liberals have a "secret" plan to impose a "multi-billion-dollar tax on just about everything for Canadians."

Yeah, and I hear Dion is going call it the GST.
Oh, wait...

One success for the Bush administration

They have raised bullshit to an art form.

Does anybody know how to play this game? Part 2

Chet writes about why the Liberals are not succeeding:

When I was a kid, a friend tried to teach me chess. I was awful. The reason was that, although I considered myself intelligent, I really had no idea what I was doing. As a result, I would concoct these elaborate, twenty-move plans that had nothing to do with how to win the actual game in front of me, and which I was utterly unable to adapt as the board changed. That's more or less the game Dion is playing. It depends on a whole series of things going his way which are not going his way. Worst of all, it depends on his opponents not actually wanting or knowing how to beat him, and on the voters being incredibly naive and gullible. He's cruising for a disaster, and he doesn't seem to have any idea of it.

I keep hoping Dion will have some kind of epiphany and realize that he will never be Prime Minister unless he figures out a way to put the ball in play.
He reminds me of a kid who stands in the batters circle huffing and stomping and swinging his heart out, but when he gets to the plate and sees the pitcher glaring at him, he freezes.

Great line of the day

Over at Inkless Wells, Paul Wells takes on the racist ignorance of the anti-apology crowd:

“My husband went to elementary school in small-town Eastern Ontario in the 1940s. He tells me that there were many occasions when his teachers gave him ‘the strap.’ Lots of kids were punished or disciplined that way, in those days…
“By modern standards, my husband and his classmates were physically abused. Should they now be getting an apology from the government, and perhaps some compensation?”

Gee, Karen, that’s an excellent question. I can certainly understand your concern, and I can tell you’re a really smart, thoughtful person. I’ve given this matter a little thought myself.
Here’s a handy checklist to ascertain whether your husband’s treatment rises to the level of what the Prime Minister will be addressing this week. Ready?
• Was your husband systematically raped by authority figures at school for years on end?
• If he spoke the language he had learned from the cradle did he get beaten?
• Were his classmates dropping like flies from tuberculosis due to appalling hygiene and incompetent health care?
• Here’s an excerpt from a transcript of an interview with Bernadene Harper, who attended one of the residential schools: “In the evenings what I remember is, when all the girls were put to bed, we had night watchmen that would take care of the building. I always had the fear of having a night watchman coming in and shining the flashlight around, because I knew that’s when things were happening with the little girls. I guess that’s where the abuse had started.” Does that sort of institutionalized nightly horror ring a bell for your husband?
If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, then your husband had a horrible time indeed and I think he’s owed an apology. If not, I think we’ll get around to your husband a little later. ‘Kay thanx.

Emphasis mine.

Does anybody know how to play this game?

Bottom of the 10th and the Jays need one run to tie, two to win. They're managed to load the bases, with nobody out.
So why oh why didn't they bunt?

Talking grease spot = Harper's Conservatives

I wonder if a talking grease spot * is really the image the Conservatives want to have in Ontario? Dion says

"... What do the Conservatives offer Canadians? They offer a cartoon, a talking grease spot,” he said. “When are the Conservatives going to stop insulting Canadians and offer a real plan to tackle climate change instead of cartoons and a campaign of lies?”"

I'm getting the impression, too, that Harper's iron fist is starting to rust.
This attack ad campaign is getting sillier and sillier, when the Young Conservatives start acting like Hare Krishnas in their yellow t-shirts handing out their little prayer cards while refusing to tell a reporter their names -- proud of their work, aren't they -- and now the gas pump ads aren't going to run and the gas companies aren't about to be bullied by 26-year-old Ryan Sparrow screeching about a contract.
Yeah, that Ryan Sparrow.
Classy, boys, real classy.

*Kady O'Malley from Macleans calls it Oily the Splot and Oily, the virtual spokesblob.