Hope for Egypt

If Obama and Clinton can pull this off, then Egypt could actually be rid of Mubarak soon and without more bloodshed.
Give Christiane Amanpour credit, too, for gently pushing Mubarak toward a graceful exit -- her contribution is another example of the kind of positive influence an experienced and trusted journalist can have in world affairs.
Compare and contrast the momentum toward change with the Harper government's "go slow" miscue, putting themselves on the wrong side of history again.

Hundert: using prison as a weapon

After spending Thanksgiving and Christmas in jail, G20 activist Alex Hundert has finally been released, still on bail. Rabble reporter John Bonnar provides Hundert's analysis of what happened to him and to many other protesters:

"It's all been about the criminalization of dissent," said Hundert, "and the state and the police and the Crown cracking down on the people who resist and organize." . . . "the prison system is used as a weapon against communities that might or would resist."

Now we hear national leaders objecting to Mubarak's police criminalizing dissent in Egypt -- while still not acknowledging that this also happened in Toronto during the G20 protests.

Who wants a food sack dress?

My reaction to the news that young women don't know how to iron a shirt or cook a roast anymore is simply "Well, iron this, buddy!" As Enchidne concludes, it is really these lost gender roles that are being mourned -- the days when men brought home the bacon and women fried it up in a pan.



As Miss Piggy says, what would you do with a food sack dress anyway.
And anyone can learn how to cook a roast -- let me google that for you.
Though perhaps some shouldn't try:

So that's what dogs are sniffing for!

Once again, animals are trying to tell us something and we haven't been listening.

Words to live by

Over at one of the dog posts on Balloon Juice, a commenter quotes the epitaph that Queen Victoria wrote for her favorite dog::

“Here lies Dash, the favorite spaniel of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, by whose command this memorial was erected. He died on the 20th December 1840 in his ninth year. His attachment was without selfishness, his playfulness without malice, his fidelity without deceit. Reader, if you would live beloved and die regretted, profit by the example.”

The scariest thing ever

No, not this one:


This one

Things fall apart

I wonder if Harper and the Conservatives hadn't better try to finesse an election sooner rather than later -- like before he turns down a stadium project, and before the air farce purchase falls apart, and before Rob Ford starts pissing off conservative Torontonions.
But why in the world would Harper think that corporate tax cuts are the issue to send Canadian voters scurrying to the polls to give him a majority he yearns for?

Sign of the times

You can tell what a society values by what its people spend their lives working on.
In medieval times, stonemasons would spend their whole lives building a church.
In our times, it appears that lawyers will spend their whole lives fighting one lawsuit.

Government commercials

Has everyone noticed how many Government of Canada commercials are on TV lately? There's the Canada's Action Plan spots, and those bizarre "your kid's head is like an egg" spots, and tonight I saw how Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation is busy protecting my money.
Sort of a warm, fuzzy feeling, isn't it, to know how much money my government is spending just to talk to me!

Saturday Morning wake-up call

Imaginary friends

DougJ at Balloon Juice observes how often pundits rely on imaginary friends as sources for wildly inaccurate social observations

It’s amazing that in this so-called information age such a huge amount of our discourse—not just the Beck/Palin part of it but the serious, respectable part—is driven by reminiscences of hunchbacks, magical dolphins, nonexistent Applebee’s salad bars, Stagger Lee-style cab drivers, and so on. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why this is so. Bob Somerby’s been at it for ten years and he doesn’t seem to have gotten anywhere with it. It’s probably something for anthropologists of the future to sort out.

Softwood potshots continue

The 2006 softwood lumber agreement was touted by the Harper Conservatives as "peace in our time".
Well, looks like we're still losing and the skirmishes continue.

Godwin chronicles

Dave goes Godwin. And if you think he's gone too far, remember this?

During the past week, while the nation wondered if the government would fall, junior Conservative staffers were ordered to be outside 24 Sussex Dr. by 6:15 in the morning. Their job was to stand there in the dark with the temperature well below zero and wait for the PM to appear. Their instructions were to applaud, wave and sing O Canada loudly as the motorcade pulled out of the gates and drove Stephen Harper to work.
Mr. Harper, by all accounts, actually believed that the young people were there of their own accord and represented a groundswell of love and support for his actions. Staffers in the Prime Minister's Office know that he is easier to handle when being applauded and not questioned.

It sounds like Harper will now be making sure that nobody like Henry Morgentaler will ever get an Order of Canada ever again -- instead we'll see a lot more of this:

Jerk du jour

What an appalling way for a father to act.
Jerk is the kindest description. And what a burden this self-important, self-righteous, loud-mouthed jerk must be to his son and his whole family.
I ran into many awful parents when my daughter was involved in competitive sports, but the parents of 12-year-olds were, hands down, the worst of the worst. And I talked to many coaches whose dream was to coach a team of orphans.
HT the Rev Paperboy

Best title ever

From TBogg:

Everybody Was Blood Fu Libeling