I read the news today, oh boy

Iran reasons: Boris at Galloping Beaver gives two excellent reasons why Iran has taken those British sailors hostage: Iran wants to undermine the US/UK alliance and it needs human shields.

Plastics

I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Yes, sir.
Are you listening?
Yes, I am.
Plastics.

No wonder he jumped into the pool -- its everywhere. They think the pet food contamination is melamine, and now they're even recalling a dry cat food brand as a precaution. And they just found chunks of plastic in some Caramel Kit Kat Chunky chocolate bars.

Bush-onset alzheimer's The Bush administration had better be keeping excellent records -- their top-level appointees and staff just can't ever seem to remember anything.

ROTFLMAO...

The head of a California company hired by the U.S. government to help build a fence along the Southwest border to curb the flow of illegal aliens into the United States has been sentenced on charges of hiring illegals for the job.

Is there any way to comment on this without laughing? You can't make these things up.

There must be a God, after all. The controversial right-wing anti-birth control zealot who was appointed by the Bush administration to head up the government family planning office has had to resign because he was charged with some kind of Medicade fraud. You can't make these things up.

And here's a post the world has been waiting for. Over at Steve Gilliard's blog, guest poster Jesse Doc Wendel has an article about how to win at Rock, Paper, Scissors, thus going to show that you CAN make these things up.
When in doubt, go paper.

Gonna wash that man right outta my hair

First, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah cancelled a US state dinner in his honour with just two weeks notice, something about having to wash his hair that night.
Now he has given the opening speech to the Arab Riyadh Summit in which he describes the US occupation of Iraq as an illegitimate foreign occupation:

King Abdullah denounced the American military presence in Iraq on Wednesday as an "illegitimate foreign occupation" and called on the West to end its financial embargo against the Palestinians.
The Saudi monarch's speech was a strongly worded lecture to Arab leaders that their divisions had helped fuel turmoil across the Middle East, and he urged them to show unity. But in opening the Arab summit, Abdullah also nodded to hardliners by criticizing the U.S. presence in Iraq.
"In beloved Iraq, blood is flowing between brothers, in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and abhorrent sectarianism threatens a civil war," said the king . . . Abdullah insisted that only when Arab leaders unite will they be able to prevent "foreign powers from drawing the region's future."
"The real blame should be directed at us, the leaders of the Arab nation," he said. "Our constant disagreements and rejection of unity have made the Arab nation lose confidence in our sincerity and lose hope."

The US response is just the usual weak lie:

"The United States is in Iraq at the request of the Iraqis and under a United Nations mandate. Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong," said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Oh, who do they think they're kidding -- we all know that the Iraqi who "requested" the invasion was Chalabi, and we all know the US and Britain didn't dare ask for a Security Council "mandate" before the invasion; they only got a favourable vote after the fact because the UN membership hoped against hope that things would work out OK (and they were wrong. ) It isn't a response the Saudis will respect.
Oh, and Jordan's King Abdullah has also cancelled the state visit he had planned for September, something about having to wash his hair that night, I guess.
Bush is circling the drain now.

Great line of the day

From greenboy at Needlenose:

Bono was playing a U2 concert in Glasgow recently, when he asked the audience for total quiet.
Then in the silence, he started to slowly clap his hands, once every few seconds.
Holding the audience in total silence, he said into the microphone, "Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."
A Glaswegian voice rang out from near the front of the crowd, piercing the silence........
"Well, fuckin' stop doing it then!"

Soooeeee!

The more I read about Bush White House shenanigans, the more I think it resembles Pigs in Space.
The beltway media -- who couldn't be bothered themselves to investigate any of this stuff over the last five years -- are now frantically trying to con the Democrats into thinking that the public doesn't really want to know all these sordid details. But the stories of bribery, corruption, yachts, spurious contracts, limos, hookergate, and wise guys are bursting out all over -- with the icing on the cake being that Abu Gonzales fired the US attorneys, like Carol Lam, who were starting to uncover all this.
It's rapidly becoming another grime-encrusted tale of Republican corruption -- just like Nixon and his plumbers, like Reagan and his Iran-Contra-BCCI scandals, it appears that Bush and Cheney and their gang of idiots just couldn't restrain themselves -- all that lovely federal money just sitting there waiting for them to wallow in it, throw it around, spend it, to enrich all their good buddies and dearest pals.
I mean, it's not as though government actually does anything important with all that money anyway, so the boys might as well put it to good use, eh?
So just belly up to the bar -- pigs, meet the trough.
But luckily, they have been just as compentent about raiding the public purse as they have been with everything else they've done. Presumably believing Karl Rove's assurances that the Republicans would have a permanent majority, they pandered to their base by hiring ideological light-weights from Pat Robertson's Regent University.
So it's all falling apart now.

Quebec election

In the great movie The Wind and the Lion, one of the best lines is when Brian Keith playing Teddy Roosevelt says "I go to Oyster Bay for the weekend and the government of Morocco falls."
Well, I feel a little like that tonight -- I go to Kamloops for the last two days, and the government of Quebec falls (or sort of falls, anyway).
Jason Cherniak provides the following analysis of the confusing conservatives-helping-liberals aspects of Quebec politics:

During the last federal election, Québec Liberals helped the federal Conservatives outside of Montreal. This was at Charest's behest and he was able to convince provincial Liberals because the federal Liberal cause seemed hopeless in many parts of the province. Federal Conservative Jean Charest seemed to have played his cards right. He and Harper would work together to end the separatist threat, then the PLQ could help Harper everywhere in the province.
Then came the ADQ. Oops. Who would have thought that the election of a federal Conservative government would help the provincial conservative party? Like any other political party, members of the Québec Liberals want to win. While they did win, it was by a whisker. I don't think they will be in much of a mood to help Harper after seeing how his success helped the ADQ.
I think it has become very clear that if politics is to become a true left-right argument in Québec, then the provincial and federal Liberals need to work together. Otherwise, both Liberal parties will fail in the province. Federal Tories like Charest may be around for a while yet, but they cannot be the future of the Québec Liberals. The only question in my mind is whether Québec Liberals will figure that out before the next federal election. They might not, but in the longer run I am fairly sure they will. I am also fairly sure that if federal politics becomes a debate of ideas, then the Liberals will win in Québec.

Away

Sorry for the lack of posts -- I've been away since Sunday and not back until tomorrow, so I haven't had much chance to blog. More on Wednesday.

Scary

Not scary

Watch out

First they came for our cigarettes, and you didn't smoke so you said nothing.
Then they came for our trans-fats, but you didn't like potato chips anyway so you said nothing.
Now they are coming for our booze . . .

Health Canada is set to unveil a proposed National Strategy on Alcohol that will include 41 recommendations drafted by experts in alcohol treatment, addiction research, provincial liquor monopolies -- even distillers and breweries -- to shift alcohol's innocent image as a benign indulgence and curb dangerous drinking.

Actually, I agree with this article's contention that alchohol is a greater blight on society than marijuana -- nobody ever got toked and then went home to beat on their wife and kids.
But I always thought this was an argument to legalize drugs, not to "illegalize" alcohol -- families and society in general would be much better off if the people now addicted to alcohol could escape reality with dope instead.

The innocent

So now it is being reported that rat poison was found in the recalled pet food.
I know in the greater scheme of things, we must care more for people than for pets.
But also in that greater scheme, the deal we have made with our pets is that we feed them and take them for walks and play with them and keep them healthy, and in return they will give us their complete and unconditional love and devotion.
It breaks my heart that for some poor innocent dogs and cats, we broke the deal.
Here are Globe and Mail photos of Pebbles, a Yorkie from Los Angeles, being treated for kidney failure.



I hope he makes it.
And if not, I hope his family can create a Farley's Tree for him:

Great line of the day

Jane Hamsher writing about how they suddently "found" some emails from the the 18-day gap in the Abu Gonzales scandal:

I guess there were emails that didn't get turned over in that 18 day gap. Everyone surprised by this raise your hand, and then let us know how soon you are expecting to receive your Nigerian inheritance.

"No-fly" zones

Hmmm. Its interesting how language changes.
"No-fly zones" in Iraq used to refer to the areas in northern and southern Iraq where Saddam's helicopters and planes were not allowed to fly because they would be shot down by American and British planes.
Today, the term "no-fly zone" in Iraq refers to areas or routes where U.S. helicopters do not dare to fly anymore for fear of being shot down by Iraqi insurgents.

Flexing

You can tell what scares people by what they use to threaten others.
Here's an example:

The Conservative government is promising to take historic steps to limit federal spending power - but only if Quebecers vote for a federalist party next Monday.
Lost in all the budget headlines this week was a little-noticed promise to negotiate with the provinces about how to formally prevent Ottawa from spending money in provincial jurisdictions. Prime Minister Stephen Harper repeated the promise in the House of Commons on Wednesday and said he hopes to hold those discussions with a federalist government in Quebec.
Tory Quebec lieutenant Lawrence Cannon was asked whether that means the entire initiative hinges on the defeat of the separatist Parti Quebecois in Monday's election.
"That's what I understood," Cannon said of the prime minister's remarks.
"We'll see what happens on election night. But it takes federalists to reform federalism."
The suggestion that Ottawa could scrap such a major initiative if it disagrees with Quebec voters' choice drew accusations of interference in the provincial election.
"It's not a responsible comment," Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe said.

Harper is trying to flex his fiscal muscles in an attempt to make Quebec shiver in shock and awe. Now for Harper, like many federal politicians, nothing is more frightening than the prospect of losing influence, being cut off from authority and power by electing the "wrong" party.
So he thinks Quebeckers must be frightened of this, too.
Not!
There's not much that scares Quebec, but I think they find this kind of federal flexing to be particularly pathetic.

And another great line today

Digby talks about the Fox Noise reaction to Al Gore's global warming testimony today:

. . . my favorite thing about the know-nothing wingnut argument is that Al Gore is said to be all hysterical on this silly little problem by the same people who are screeching like howler monkeys that the oceans don't protect us anymore and "they're comin' to kill us in our beds!" The fact that ridding ourselves of our dependence on oil might mitigate both of these problems escapes their notice. But then, they are incredibly stupid.

Great line of the day

The Editors write about the Bush statement on how the American people should be patient about Iraq:

Today, we find Bush asking us to be patient with progress in Iraq, and warning of dire consequences should Democrats succeed in denying Bush the chance of passing on responsibility for losing the war to the next administration. . . . . the American people, after being entirely too patient, have lost patience with President George W. Bush, and with his cronies and sycophants. They have lost patience with his conduct of the war - and, as no one else can conduct the war, they have lost patience with the war itself. And I doubt they are much inclined to hear sermons on “patience” from the man who was so anxious to rush into a war that, four years later, he still can’t justify.

Emphasis mine.