Follow-up

Just to follow up on my previous post, Annie Laurie provides links to discuss the Terrorist or Head Case? question.
She notes this article from The New Yorker The Line Between Terrorism and Mental Illness

In a world where “clash of civilizations” rhetoric is pervasive, it is possible that radical Islam offers the same appeal to some unstable individuals that anarchism had for Leon Czolgosz, who killed President William McKinley in 1901, and that Marxism had for Lee Harvey Oswald. If you are alienated from the existing social order, the possibility of joining, even as a “lone wolf” killer, any larger social movement that promises to overturn that society may be attractive. For a person radicalized in this manner, the fantasy of political violence is a chance to gain agency, make history, and be part of something larger.

She also posts some off-the-wall opinions from, who else, The War Nerd.

These guys are surplus, after all, surplus males in an era doing some fairly frantic tinkering with that whole concept. The best way to deal with them is let them take one for the team they’ve talked themselves into joining. ...
Islamic State is such a perfect organ for draining the surplus reactionary-male rage from a certain demographic of the secular West ... a sort of global kidney, drawing in and filtering out a pool of potentially troublesome young males. And all done far away, in the bowels of Syria. But only if places like Canada have enough cold-blooded sense to let this piece of luck keep doing its job. And that means only one thing: business class upgrades for every male under 25 with a record of jihadist rants and a one-way ticket to Istanbul.

And by the way, we're going on holidays this week, so I won't be able to post anything or even check on the blog until next weekend. Happy Halloween!

It isn't "terrorism", its mental illness

What Canada should always remember about Wednesday was the courage of our politicians -- hearing a fusillade of gunfire right outside their meeting room, they armed themselves with flagpoles and prepared to defend Parliament and their colleagues against what they must have believed at the time to be an invading force.
But to me, it inflates the importance and significance of Wednesday's attack in Ottawa to continue to call it "terrorism" or even "micro-terrorism".
It actually appears to be an almost-random outburst by a mentally ill man.
While Michael Zehaf-Bibeau may well have thought of himself as an "ISIS terrorist", the attack he made was apparently not planned out in any particular fashion nor was it pointed towards any real goal -- according to the Globe and Mail, he first shot an unarmed soldier who was out in the open, standing still, then he ran crazily down the street, hijacked a car, drove to the Centre Block, and ran inside the Parliament Building. If he was thinking to shoot up the caucus meetings or kill politicians, he didn't even seem to know exactly where they were, apparently running right past the caucus meeting rooms before he was shot down.
Even if he was wearing a ghutra, this doesn't make it terrorism; its mental illness.
Rather than worrying too much about terrorism in Canada, we would do better to make sure a person this delusional doesn't have access to a rifle.
Oh, wait...
As Montreal Simon says about both this attack and the running down of two soldiers in Quebec:

For the day we allow some deranged gunman, or some ISIS wannabe from small town Quebec, or just two pathetic losers like these...To scare us, and change our Canadian way of life, is the day we lose our last shred of self respect.
It's the day the crazies WIN.

Saskatoon snatches defeat from the jaws of victory UPDATE: lockout is over!

So you might think that the reluctant LRB ruling both the transit lockout and the pension bylaw illegal would have provided the Saskatoon civic administration with a great opportunity to rethink their whole strategy with this labour dispute, and come up with something that would work better.
But you would be wrong!
The city strategy of trying to starve the bus drivers into an agreement was never going to work, and now it is in tatters -- the drivers know they will eventually get their back pay for the 27 days the strike has lasted so far.  But the union was so happy about the LRB ruling, that the drivers would have cheerfully gone back to work without an agreement, and they would not have dared to go on strike.
So the city could have jumped at the opportunity to get everyone on board with the obvious way to end this dispute -- the same pension changes as everyone else, a slightly higher percentage increase than the rest of the city unions got, but with a longer contract to justify the difference. There, done!
But no.
Clearly, the city was in the wrong with this lockout, and that what the LRB ruled, but the powers that be in the city administration just couldn't accept "losing".
They doubled down by immediately issuing a new lockout notice to the transit union.

“My first thought is ‘Oh my goodness, they’re going to do this to the citizens of Saskatoon again,’ ” ATU local 615 president Jim Yakubowski told reporters outside City Hall Saturday morning. “They don’t deserve that, nor do our members deserve this.”

And the people are furious:

I am profoundly disappointed in @cityofsaskatoon. They missed an opportunity to fix this mess: http://t.co/0021cbEILX #yxetransit #yxecc

— Tracey Mitchell (@TMitchSK) October 18, 2014

The City of Saskatoon's actions toward their employees and citizens have reached indefensible levels. I am ashamed. #yxe #yxetransit

— Paul Thompson (@paulbthompson) October 18, 2014

#yxecc, the students at #uSask deserve much better leadership from you. This has cost #yxe enough. End this nonsense. #yxetransit

— USSU Executive (@USSUExec) October 18, 2014

@cityofsaskatoon/#yxecc have issued another lockout on #yxetransit. #yxe, this isn't leadership. It's politics at the expense of the people.

— Jordan Sherbino (@JordanSherbino) October 18, 2014

I don't know how this will end now, but it isn't going to be pretty.
UPDATE: Wiser, or cooler, heads have prevailed.
City Council held an emergency meeting this afternoon and voted unanimously to tell the city administration to lift the lockout.  So the buses are back as of 6 am on Monday morning.  Hooray!

Oh, the humanity

Happy thanksgiving everyone, though somewhat belated.




The greatest line in television history: As god is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

Playing with the big boys

I haven't written anything about the Harper Cons enthusiastic support for Canada's participation in Son Of Iraqi Freedom Part Deux because I haven't really known where I stand on this.
I can't say I have thought it through still, but two things struck me today.
First, Michael Den Tandt explains why Harper wants Canadian fighter jets to participate

The PM told the House of Commons Friday – and there is no reason to disbelieve him – that he made the decision to deploy warplanes knowing that doing so is politically difficult, particularly in an election year. He also acknowledged, laudably in terms of simple frankness, what appears to be his main rationale. “If Canada wants to keep its voice in the world – and we should, since so many of our challenges are global – being a free rider means you are not taken seriously.”

In other words, we're not throwing our marbles into the ring because the Harper Cons think our participation will actually make a difference in a fight against an awful enemy, but rather just so the rest of the guys on our side will still be our pals.
At least this time the goal of the whole exercise is clear -- to degrade and destroy ISIS.  If Obama has his way, western armies won't be an occupying force, handing out money and Viagra to warlords, sending soldiers out on meaningless and dangerous patrols, running prisons.
But if we're participating in a potential quagmire without any actual sense of mission ourselves, except to show everybody that we have jets too, then I wonder how Canadians will feel when we have more hearses to salute on the Highway of Heroes.
And that brings me to my second observation, about Trudeau's supposedly juvenile and much-criticized comparison of our CF-18s to big swinging dicks.
If Canada is flying combat missions only because we are trying to impress the big boys, then maybe we actually are just participating in a dick-measuring contest.

Yes, it is astonishing

The US Supreme Court basically ruled today that all those lower court decisions authorizing gay marriage in a number of states are constitutional.
In celebration, Andrew Sullivan has written The Astonishing Actual History Of The Gay Rights Movement, from the despair of AIDS to today's victory:

Using the institutions and self-knowledge and smarts that had somehow defeated the plague, gay men charted a future when nothing like this would happen again, when gay men would never be parted from their spouses on their death beds, when gay men’s physical and psychological health would never be treated as insignificant, when gay men would never suffer the indignity that so many endured in front of our eyes. And so we built the case for marriage equality and for open military service as a recognition of the self-worth our survival had given some of us, and to pay some kind of tribute to those who had fallen.

We went, in other words, from about the deepest hole you can imagine to a determination not just to get out of it, but to see the mountaintop in our lifetimes.

...We are on this mountaintop together, even as so many dead lie round.

Field of dreams

Loved watching tonight's ball game.
There is no game but baseball where the team that wants it more can come back to win, even against a better opponent.

KC may not get very far against the LA Angels, but you never know.

Our parliamentary secretary for short pants

The Harper Cons went just a little too far this week in demonstrating their disrespect for Parliament, and finally they got called on it by the Globe and Mail and Ottawa Citizen.
So Paul Calandra apologized -- he's just such a passionate guy ya know and he couldn't help himself and we have to forgive him!

So the apology is for allowing his “passion” and “anger” to get the better of him? But this is, like most political apologies, self-praise.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) September 26, 2014

But I don't think he was trying to stop himself from crying as he spoke to the house, but rather from laughing -- he also said he was "fairly certain" he would do it again.
And what's with his "short pants" obsession? He keeps mentioning them....

Sad news

Such sad news today -- the Canadian blogosphere has been informed that Skdadl and Pogge have both died..

Susan Kent Davidson (Skdadl) died yesterday, and Rob Hills (Pogge) in July -- they had both blogged at Peace, Order and Good Government, Eh, which had gone dark lately and I didn't know why.

Skdadl's obituary is here: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?pid=172542918 and Pogge's is here: http://www.aftercare.org/obituaries/David-Rob-Hills/

Covering the Impact of the transit lockout

CBC Saskatoon is doing a good job covering the impact of the transit lockout. Today there are two stories -- this one: Saskatoon transit lockout affects high school attendance:

Of the more than 300 people that are registered students at Oskayak High School, more than half missed class on Wednesday...the Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools board is looking into hiring a bus to pick students up from an area where the greatest number of absentees live. The buses can carry 72 passengers, but if more students need a ride to Oskayak, they may look into acquiring a second bus.

In the meantime, some staff members from other Catholic schools are going out of their way to get students to school.

and this story: Transit lockout hitting Sheena Bird's family hard

Bird said the city's decision to shut down bus service might force her to keep her son out of school.

"Usually I have to drop him off and then I take the bus to work after I drop him off early," Bird said. "But now I can't get him to school at 9 and be at work at 9. I have to now walk an hour to get to work."

...Bird's husband is walking about 45 minutes to work.

The Star Phoenix is doing an abysmal job -- a "both sides are to blame" editorial a day ago which I cannot link to because it is not online; and no other coverage today at all.  Great leadership!

What's the rush, Saskatoon?

I guess the idea is because the city administration has failed to negotiate a contract, then City Council should just implement the pension changes by fiat.
Yeah, that'll calm things down.
Saskatoon's transit lockout experienced its first workday morning today.
The next big story will be tonight's so-called emergency city council meeting -- when our councilors are supposed to vote on a bylaw that would impose the pension changes on the transit union.

The city and union have been warring over pensions and wages for months. The city has offered a 10-per-cent wage increase over four years with changes to the defined benefits pension plan — an offer the union voted 91 per cent against. City council had scheduled an emergency meeting Monday to legislate changes to the pension plan and force the union to accept the pension changes, but the move won’t end the lockout. The union calls the legislation a “bullying tactic” and said it would only accept the new pension arrangement in exchange for a 22-per-cent wage increase over five years.

So negotiations have been going on for a year, and the pension problems have been an issue for much longer, but its just terribly, terribly urgent that the pension be resolved TODAY?
Why don't I think anyone is going to buy this?  I hope councilors can resist getting sucked into this rush to judgement.
And now the union that represents many of the other city workers is entering the fray:

The national office at CUPE, the union representing four locals and more than 2,500 city workers in Saskatoon, now agrees with the locked out transit workers that the pension plan is sound.
The Amalgamated Transit Workers Union (ATU) is arguing that the city’s pension plan is now in a surplus position, not in a deficit, as officials have stated.
Today, a CUPE national spokesperson said they agree with the ATU.
CUPE has had its own pension experts look at the latest data from the City of Saskatoon and they tell the union that there is no deficit.
What’s more, said national representative Rhonda Heisler, the four locals in Saskatoon believe that they were misled when they signed their latest contract.

Checking out the People's Climate Marches

Some memorable photos --
New York city


People's Climate on Twitter:

RT @JennaBPope @LeoDiCaprio ~ GO LEO! THX for hitting the street! #PeoplesClimateMarch #PeoplesClimate #NYC 9/21/14 pic.twitter.com/u4rrhxxRtz

— Mike Hudema (@MikeHudema) September 21, 2014

Sydney, Australia: Beyond Coal + Gas

So happy to have been a part of #peoplesclimate in Sydney today. @michaelcaton was amazing. @350Australia pic.twitter.com/gbuB9RNFxn

— Jane Nicholls (@janey64) September 21, 2014

Berlin

In Berlin, 3 marches are converging on the Brandenburg Gate. Marches ongoing in Paris, London & more #PeoplesClimate pic.twitter.com/gdznFLLsad

— CAN-International (@CANIntl) September 21, 2014

Paris

25,000+ at #PeoplesClimate march in Paris. Thousands in Rome. Check it out: http://t.co/67eL5KLygg pic.twitter.com/KufdDJ5wqm
— Avaaz (@Avaaz) September 21, 2014

Toronto

#Toronto showing solidarity with #NYC #climatemarch #PeoplesClimate #PeopleClimateMarch pic.twitter.com/bzeNiXZOkq

— Rebecca Spring (@rspring) September 21, 2014

Saskatoon's Press Release War has begun!

I see the first shot in the press release war between the city of Saskatoon and its bus union was fired by the city tonight when they locked out the bus drivers -- likely we can expect to see an answer tomorrow from ATU Local 615.*
I am totally annoyed about how the city has been managing our transit system lately -- this lockout is the last straw. SaskatoonHomepage News summed it up today:

Saskatoon Transit is dealing with a multitude of issues at the moment: a transit union dispute, lack of mechanics, lack of available buses and route disruptions. And that doesn't even touch on the recent incident where a 9 year old stole a city bus that had been left running. SaskatoonHomePage News has asked repeatedly in the last week what the status of the [Calgary] buses are, that were ordered to alleviate the shortage of working buses, which have caused service interruptions for riders. The response from the city has been "we're working on it". Working on what has not been specified.

Of course, if the "previously-owned" buses need repairs, the city has locked out the bus mechanics, too.
But if you want to see someone who is absolutely furious, don't miss the tweets from Max FineDay, president of the 11,000-strong University of Saskatchewan Students Union. It was only a few years ago that the city and the student union worked out a deal whereby all students would pay for bus passes with the guarantee that the transit system would improve for students.
Yeah, right:

Its official, #yxe has locked out transit operators. Our community loses faith in #yxecc & our transit system #skpoli pic.twitter.com/qvmuhmr3jH

— Max FineDay (@MaxFineDay) September 21, 2014

*Here it is already!

2/2 Results show that the plan is actually in a surplus not deficit. City may not have to pay the $90,100 monthly. pic.twitter.com/W5dGFMAvCJ

— Eric Beck (@GlobalBeck) September 21, 2014

Here is the document (PDF).

Defending our right to choose

The days when old men get to decide what a woman does with her body are long gone. Times have changed for the better. #LPC defends rights.

— Justin Trudeau, MP (@JustinTrudeau) September 18, 2014

I'm glad to see Trudeau and the Liberal Party hit back hard against the so-called Liberals who thought they could generate some traction for the Harper Cons by criticizing Liberal policy requiring MPs to vote pro-choice on any abortion bills:

"Anyone is entitled to hold their own personal views, but Canadians deserve to know that when they vote Liberal they will get an MP who will vote to defend women's rights in the House," party spokeswoman Kate Purchase said in a statement.
"Women's rights are long-held Liberal values that we will not back down from."

Not surprisingly, the National Post editorial board has weighed in to decry Trudeau's "troubling stance".
But it is absolutely clear that Trudeau never said, and is not saying now, that Liberals must support abortion.
Rather, he requires that  Liberal MPs must promise to support a woman's right to make her own choice.
And these old men never will.




h/t illustration 

Whoever has the most trucks wins: redefining winning in war

Our ideas about war have mostly been patterned after WW1 and WW2, where states sent their armies to war against other states, eventually somebody won, peace agreements were signed, and the soldiers all came home and got real jobs.
That isn't the way war is anymore.
What we see now are numerous smaller wars of "insurgency", where semi-organized ideological well-armed rebel groups grab their guns and leap into their pickup trucks, traveling back and forth across their home territories, killing their enemies as they go, uprooting families, destroying people's ability to raise crops or run a business. Chechnya, Mali, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria, eastern Ukraine, the Sudan. Nobody seems to win or lose wars like these, or at least not for long; there is often nobody to sign a peace treaty with and nobody would respect it if one could be negotiated. In these wars, success isn't "winning".  Success seems to be just "not losing" for just long enough to exhaust the opposition and then take back some of the territory lost in the last offensive.
Its the kind of war where apparently some additional air support can give one side a crucial edge.
This appears to be Obama's strategy for dealing with ISIS. From Juan Cole: Obama's ISIL Actions are Defensive, Despite Rhetoric of going on Offense:

Obama hinted in his speech that he wants to help Baghdad and Erbil take back towns from ISIL just as Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the president of Yemen, took back Zinjibar. And just as AQAP hasn’t disappeared in Yemen, Obama expects ISIL to be around for a while. In essence, the Yemen policy has de facto yielded a sort of containment with regard to AQAP, though how successful it will be in the long run can be questioned.
What if Obama is a sharper reader of the Middle East than his critics give him credit for? He knows ISIL is likely not going away, just as, after 13 years, the Taliban have not. US military action may even prolong the lifetime of these groups (that is one argument about AQAP) even as it keeps them from taking more territory.
Don’t listen to his expansive four-stage program or his retooled, stage-managed John Wayne rhetoric. Look at his metaphors. He is telling those who have ears to hear that he is pulling a Yemen in Iraq and Syria. He knows very well what that implies. It is a sort of desultory, staccato containment from the air with a variety of grassroots and governmental forces joining in. Yemen is widely regarded as a failure, but perhaps it is only not a success. And perhaps that is all Obama can realistically hope for.

I don't know if Obama will be right or not, but certainly landing American troops likely wouldn't work any better (see: Mogadishu).
Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog writes:

Obama's job is not to try to rid the world of evil. Obama's job is to protect America and U.S. interests. With regard to ISIS, that means curtailing the group's ability to be a threat to our country and our interests. If Cole is right, and if something like this gets Obama's actual job done, I'd prefer that to a bloodlust-satisfying full-on quagmire of a war that inflames our enemies and inspires ISIS's current enemies in the Arab/Muslim world to rally around the group.