Its a win-win

The Democrats are going to be so happy on Tuesday.
After a four-year national nightmare of productive and progressive legislative sessions, they're going to lose control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday. This means they can breathe a sign of relief because they won't be responsible anymore for how bad things are.
And with any luck, the Dems will retain the Senate, so then the Republicans won't have to accept any responsibility either for doing anything whatsoever about how bad things are.
Win-win.
Except, of course, for the American people, but when did Washington care about them anyway?

What's with the Globe and Mail?

Can anybody make sense of what the Globe and Mail is doing with its newspaper these days?
On the web, the newspaper makes sense -- a perfectly logical line up of the major stories of the day, today beginning with the UAE terror plot.
The print version of the paper? Different story. Its impossible to tell what the major news story of the day is -- each department apparently gets to throw a headline onto the front page, and some graphic artist just fits them together as best she can.

Cartoon of the day

From the Globe and Mail:

Mistakes were made. Sorry if you were offended....

Well, I've been laid low by the flu the last few days but I see the Harper Conservatives are carrying on regardless and maintaining their usual standard of governance.

Great post of the day

James Howard Kunstler writes about the American mortgage meltdown AKA the Masque of the Red Death:

...The bankers say, just bring a "lost note" letter to the closing. "The dog ate it." Signed, Mom. Like, that's an okay substitute for the rule of law. Oh, and, by the way, the dog ate the title, too. Congress even tried to get in on the act last week with a bill that would have essentially negated the significance of notarization. . . "Oh, the dog also ate my signature...." President Obama vetoed the damn thing, which was passed in the US Senate unanimously by the human dung-beetles who work that manure pile. The dog ate your financial system.
...the upshot will be a paralyzed property sales industry. Who will want to buy property when there is any question about owning it free and clear? You can be sure the sickness will spread into commercial real estate, with its much shorter-term loans and its desperate rollover deadlines. Things begin to look a bit gruesome. But 'tis the season for it! The night of the Blood Beast comes Sunday, just in time for the All Souls Day open of the equity markets. That's the day when the costumes come off and we stop pretending. That's the day that the skeletons dance on the real estate destined to be our graves.

Pull up a chair and grab some popcorn

Warren Kinsella thinks the Rob Ford administration isn't going to work out very well:

Here’s the paradox about the Etobicoke-based mayor-elect: The very thing that won him the mayor’s chair is the same thing that will sink him. For a decade, Ford’s brand has been that of the angry, fed-up City Council outsider — the guy who refuses to go along with the rest of council. That “outsider” reputation obviously didn’t hurt him on Election Day. But it will hinder him in the months ahead — too many councillors just don’t like him. And the mayor always needs council to implement his agenda.

Oh, this ain't gonna be pretty.

There but for the grace of Vic Toews...

I was glad to see CBC News cover the Conservative prisoner transfer scandal where ideological Conservative ministers have decided they were elected to abandon Canadian citizens imprisoned abroad:

According to a document obtained by CBC News, of the 49 applications investigated in 2006, seven were denied. In 2007, 43 per cent of the applications were rejected, 15.5 per cent in 2008 and 62 per cent in 2009.

Ontario justice system vs Alex Hundert

Regarding the latest charge against G20 protester Alex Hundert -- that he supposedly tried to intimidate two Crown attorneys during his court appearance last week -- POGGE writes:

The stench from this is becoming overpowering.

This is starting to remind me of how the Pentagon described Guantanamo suicide attempts as asymmetric warfare.

Getting to know Alex Hundert

This Star article points out one other significant development in the Alex Hundert story -- the more police harass him, the more he is becoming a national figure and an intriguing person for the media.
If you google Hundert's name, you now get 20,000 links. I see stories about him on blogs in Denver and in the UK.
So I hope he gets some solace from the fact that his causes are being publicized along with the multiple arrests:

So who is this guy?
Hundert, 30, is described by his friends as a serious, committed activist who works full time for social justice. Bearded and bespectacled, he wears his hair long and puts most of his energy into campaigning for indigenous land rights and environmental protection.
“He’s really most passionate about doing work in indigenous communities that are struggling for their sovereignty,” says friend Rachel Avery who is currently on a non-association order with Hundert, so her comments come from their history together and not any recent conversations. “He really believes firmly in social and environmental justice.”

Revolving door for Alex Hundert

I'm waiting to see what caused Canada's scariest criminal mastermind™ AKA Alex Hundert to be arrested again on Saturday but of course it must have been something truly heinous.
Like getting into an argument with someone. How awful.
Or maybe he spit on the sidewalk? Awfuller still!
I just hope he didn't take the crown prosecutor seriously and actually speak to a reporter.
The Canadian justice system appears to be a revolving door for Hundert now, with previous accusations justifying new incarcerations.

Neat II

Neat!

Martha Mitchell lives!

This whole Ginny Thomas-Anita Hill-Lillian McEwen story is hilarious, actually -- an only-in-Washington breakfastini moment becomes a cautionary tale which bites the biter in the end or in the ass or whatever.
Somewhere, Martha Mitchell is laughing...

Second envelope

The three-envelope joke goes like this:

A new manager takes over and finds on his desk three envelopes from his predecessor, with instructions to open them in order whenever he gets into trouble.
Well, things go along OK at first and then he starts having trouble. So he opens the first envelope and it says "blame your predecessor."
That works for a while, but then problems build up again. So he opens the second envelope and it says "reorganize".
That works for a while, too, but then he gets into trouble again. So he opens the third envelope.
It says "prepare three envelopes."

RCMP Commissioner William Elliott has opened the second envelope.

Lessons learned?

Orwell's Bastard flags this posting about the G20 police riot from the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition:

. . . While sleeping on the floor of a University of Toronto building, [Quebec students] were woken by a police raid. About 110 students were arrested and taken to the Eastern Street detention centre where they were strip-searched, charged with conspiracy, and then kept for 36 - 48 hours before being given bail and released. They were required to return to Toronto three times for procedural matters before the court, On October 13, three and one half months after being charged, the students were told that all charges would be dropped.
This seems similar to strategies used in other parts of the world against students threaten them with the humiliation of strip-searches and jail, then leave them dangling for a while before announcing that there were no grounds for arresting them in the first place. The might be contrary to the Charter or Rights and Freedom, but once the police have used these tactics in Canada and emerged without consequence, other police might decide this is the way to behave.

O.B. concludes

As things stand currently, there doesn't seem to be any effective institutional remedy, even in the face of massive and egregious violations of the Charter. In other words, the cops know perfectly well that they can use the highest law of the land for toilet paper, and nobody's going to call them on it.