Did you know . . .

. . . there is a worldwide tire shortage? I didn't, but apparently it is affecting particularly the industries which use those vehicles with huge tires, like in the mining industry. Here's the story from today's Star Phoenix: Saskatoon StarPhoenix - canada.com network: "'We get calls from all around the world from tire dealers and customers looking for relief,' said Bob Bennett, general manager of the mining tire group at Kal Tire in Vernon, B.C. . . . Bennett has heard pleas from as far away as Russia, England and Chile, but with the Big Three manufacturers -- Michelin, Goodyear and Bridgestone -- struggling to keep pace with demand, there's little that can be done. [It is expected that] the issue will be resolved by mid-2006, but some industry estimates say it could be at least 2008 before suppliers catch up."

But what does it MEAN?

Progressive Blog Digest provides a roundup of recent Rovegate stuff: in summary, it depends on what the meaning of "negligent" is, it depends on what the meaning of "covert" is, it depends on what the meaning of "notify" is . . .

It all comes down to the people's law vs. the 'divine' law

We stopped subscribing to Newsweek after one too many cover stories about Jesus and his angels.
So without Orcinus, I would have missed this great column on the basic similarity between homegrown and international terrorism --Untrue Believers by Christopher Dickey:

The sentencing of Eric Rudolph, who bombed abortion clinics, a gay bar and the Atlanta Olympics, ought to be a milestone in the Global War on Terror . . . Rudolph killed two people, but not for want of trying to kill many more. In his 1997 attack on an Atlanta abortion clinic, he set off a second bomb meant to take out bystanders and rescue workers. Unrepentant, of course, Rudolph defended his actions as a moral imperative: “Abortion is murder, and because it is murder I believe deadly force is needed to stop it.” The Birmingham prosecutor declared that Rudolph had “appointed himself judge, jury and executioner.” Indeed. That’s what all terrorists have in common: the four lunatics in London earlier this month; the 19 men who attacked America on September 11, 2001; Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City, and many others. They were all convinced they had noble motives for wreaking their violence. Terrorists are very righteous folks. Which is why the real global war we’re fighting, let’s be absolutely clear, should be one of our shared humanity against the madness of people like these; the rule of man-made laws on the books against the divine law they imagine for themselves. It’s the cause of reason against unreason, of self-criticism against the firm convictions of fanaticism. [emphasis mine]. . . [Quoting writer Eric Hoffer] “faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves” fits the profile of terrorists everywhere. "in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless." The threat is more vast when it comes from those inspired by Al Qaeda, because Osama bin Laden’s pseudo-chivalric ideology of “sacrifice” and “martyrdom” has proved so infectious among small groups of young people on the margins of Muslim societies. Rudolph and McVeigh were basically loners, although they, too, claimed they were fighting for a greater cause—in Rudolph’s case, the “right to life.” . . . the difference between rationalism and obscurantism should be underlined at every opportunity. And that’s not what’s happening. Instead, since the detour into Iraq it seems the intellectual compass of those who led us there has gotten lost in a fog of moral pieties, and sweet reason has surrendered to missionary zeal. To be a true believer in the Global War on Terror you are supposed to believe that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq, but that they would never think of fighting back outside of Iraq. Any effort to understand the enemy or his motivations is treated as an apology for what he does. At times we seem to be infected by the very pathology we are fighting against . . . facing the basic painful facts and addressing them logically, reasonably, without demagoguery is not a surrender to terrorism, it is the first crucial step toward defeating it. Righteous murderers may claim they're defending Islam or unborn babies, but clearer heads and common sense can distinguish true believers from those who believe in truth.

And while you are visiting Orcinus, take a gander at his next post, The Zigzag March of the Minutemen. I think Dave Neiwert is doing the best analysis in North America today on the dangers of the -isms (racism, anti-semitism, nationalism, fascism, etc)

This is good news

U.S. court issues tough opinion on cattle trade
They rejected all of the R-CALF arguments

. . . [Montana Judge] Cebull erred on all counts when he sided with Montana-based ranching group R-CALF, the [Appeal Court] judges said. Canadian ranchers hope the written reasons would now convince Cebull to shelve a planned hearing on the long-term fate of the border and rule to dismiss the case. Many U.S. groups were encouraged by the tone and content of the appeal court's 56-page opinion, which attacked, one by one, all the vehement objections to trade presented by R-CALF. 'We are very pleased with the opinion . . . which upholds every aspect of USDA's rule-making process,' said Terri Teuber, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, adding her agency is making no assumptions about what Cebull will do. 'It sends a strong signal to the district court about how this case should be resolved,' said Mark Dopp, spokesman for the American Meat Institute. 'It would certainly seem a logical step (to dismiss the case).'

But R-CALF won't be going down without a fight.

R-CALF made it clear Monday that it still wants a full hearing and the fight isn't over.

Round and round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows.

How many deaths does it take 'til we know that too many people have died

Speaking of anti-war songs (see the Fonda post, below), I found myself humming "how many deaths does it take 'til we know that too many people have died" as I was reading this LA Times story, Shots to the Heart of Iraq (thanks, Buzzflash). The story is about the increasing number of innocent Iraqi civilians who have been shot by jumpy US troops.
The answer, my friend, is that too many people have already died in Iraq.

She's baaaaack!

This is the antiaircraft gun photo for which Jane Fonda later apologized.

Jane Fonda plans anti-war bus tour. "Actress and activist Jane Fonda says she intends to take a cross-country bus tour to call for an end to U.S. military operations in Iraq . . . Fonda said war veterans that she has met on a nationwide book tour have encouraged her to break her silence on the Iraq war. “I’ve decided I’m coming out,” she said. Hundreds of people in the audience cheered loudly when Fonda announced her intentions to join the anti-Iraq war movement."
I love it. And I only hope that Michael Moore can join her -- wouldn't the wingnuts just piss and moan about that!
Actually, I do think it is important for more people to step up to the plate and take on the American wingnuts. The Democratic party and MoveOn and Kos can't do it all alone.
Now, time for a few rousing choruses of "We shall overcome" and "Joe Hill" and "When Johnny came marching home" and "Hell, no, we won't go" . . .

Scorpions

In The Beirut Express Billmon writes: "Iraq is no longer a country (if it ever was) but a collection of scorpions in a bottle, each maneuvering for position to strike. "
Once again this Sunday, the New York Times had an article pointing toward the US surrender in Iraq.
Reporter John Burns has tried for two years or more to accentuate the positive and pretend the US occupation is making progress. But there's a limit. Even Burns has flipped now.

. . . opponents of the American-led invasion had warned [that] American troops could get caught in the crossfire between Sunnis and Shiites, Kurds and Turkmen, secularists and believers - reduced, in the grimmest circumstances, to the common target of a host of contending militias . . . [now] the nightmare could come true. Recent weeks have seen the insurgency reach new heights of sustained brutality . . . with Sunni insurgents targeting hundreds of Shiite and Kurdish civilians in suicide bombings. There are reports of Shiite death squads, some with links to the interior ministry, retaliating by abducting and killing Sunni clerics and community leaders. The past 10 days have seen such a quickening of these killings, particularly by the insurgents, that many Iraqis are saying that the civil war has already begun . . . One measure of the doubts afflicting American officials here has been a hedging in the upbeat military assessments that generals usually offer, coupled with a resort to statistics carefully groomed to show progress in curbing the insurgents that seems divorced from realities on the ground.

Over the last six months, I think the American military has already been withdrawing from vast areas of the country, turning policing over to the Kurd and Shiite militias. The American military is preparing to hunker down in its bases and abandon the rest of Iraq to its fate. Bush was promoting the idea that American troops would withdraw as Iraqi troops stood up. But now we are hearing increasingly that Iraq will not learn to defend itself until the Americans leave. I call this the 'tough love" excuse, and, as Billmon notes, it is a disgusting abandonment.

Some senior officers have said privately that there is a chance that the pullback will be ordered regardless of what is happening in the war, and that the rationale will be that Iraq - its politicians and its warriors - will ultimately have to find ways of overcoming their divides on their own. America, these officers seem to be saying, can do only so much, and if Iraqis are hellbent on settling matters violently - at the worst, by civil war - that, in the end, would be their sovereign choice.

.
Oh, yessiree bob -- I'm sure we all remember seeing those Iraqi people in January making a sovereign choice to vote for a violent civil war.

The Bette Midler response

This is priceless.
A gay blogger called Manhattan Offender makes up a funny post about how Supreme Court nominee John Roberts must be gay (catholic boys school, wrestling team, drama club, took French -- you know, all the usual "gay" stuff!) -- How gay is this guy?
Well, it got picked up by Wonkette, the must-read Washington 'sex in the city' blog, who added the tidbit that, according to the NYT's fawning Roberts profile, it was also terribly suspicious that he had played Peppermint Patty in a school play.
Well, that got it going. But its mainly being talked about by right-wing bloggers who were shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that left wingers could come up sith such a horrible, disgusting smear campaign.
Powerline pontificates "Throughout American history, until now, there have been limits. There have been depths beneath which Americans would not sink for the sake of partisan advantage. Even during the Civil War, when the Democrats were fighting to preserve slavery, limits were observed [ED: oh yeah? check out Andersonville, and Sherman's march, and . . .] Now, all civility is gone. There is no depth to which some Democrats will not sink. Hold your nose. Things are only going to get worse. With MoveOn and the Daily Dose dominating Democratic politics, all constraints are gone."
And Reasoned Audacity writes "Of course it is the height of hypocrisy for the (allegedly) pro-tolerance crowd to start questioning someone's sexual preference. It's a strange and twisted tactic for those who are allied with the gay rights movement to try to make an issue out of someone supposedly being gay. Who cares? Well, that's just the point: they think we do. They think that they can undermine support for someone among conservatives if they can dredge up some sort of homosexual connection -- or, in this case, just the manufactured whiff of a question. If it weren't so cruel and small, it would be funny."
But. . . but . . . but. . . it IS funny.
It was supposed to be a joke - that is quite clear from Manhattan Offender's original post.
I guess being gay is such an terrible, horrible, no good, very bad prospect for right wingers that they simply cannot comprehend a gay person making a joke about a straight person being gay.
I can only conclude with what Bette Midler used to say "Fuck them if they can't take a joke."

Teach your children well

AltHippo at the TPM Cafe directs us to photos on Rush Limbaugh's site showing dozens of people wearing his "Club G'itmo" t-shirts. The idea seems to be, while actually wearing the shirt, to go openly and courageously to some Libbrul place and have your photo taken. No chickenhawks here, these Limbaugh crusaders are carrying the fight to the enemy, taking the supreme risk of getting yelled at by actual libbruls at places like the Carter Centre, the Clinton Library, the FDR memorial, the Supreme Court building, a Birkenstock store, the University of Colorado, LL Bean, Starbucks, a Muslim-owned store in Dearborn, Michigan, and various Democratic Party offices. Why, one t-shirted man even had the guts to go to an actual anti-Bush demonstration for a photo, though he stayed across the street of course. Libbruls bite, you know.
Interestingly, the town of New London, CT, where the "eminent domain" court decision originated, was featured prominently in several photos -- anything that pisses these people off seems to be, by definition, 'libbrul'.
And the shirts have SUCH cute sayings on them, like 'Club G'itmo, Your Tropical Retreat from the Stress of Jihad' (also available as a car flag), 'I Got My Free Koran and Prayer Rug at G'itmo', 'What Happens in G'itmo Stays in G'itmo', and, for the kiddies, 'My Mullah went to Club G'itmo and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt'.
But it was the photos of the children that really got to me. I guess its just loads of fun for the whole family now to teach their kids to cheer for indefinite imprisonment, torture, and denial of the Geneva Convention.
Here's (left) Conner, 13, from Texas and (right) Dan, 14 and Mike, 10 (who also have a bunch of Limbaugh's other products, which he labels EIB for (gag!) Excellence in Broadcasting):



Here's (left) Victoria from Florida, and (right) Dan, 12 and Matt, 13, with Club Gitmo mugs

Here's Seth and Nate with their own Gitmo lego model

And finally, here's a couple of cute baby photos:

Oops, I'm so sorry, this last one isn't on Limbaugh's site after all. But it looked so much like the others, I guess I got confused.
Teach your children well -- their father's hell did slowly go by --
And feed them on your dreams; the one they pick's the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why. If they told you, you would cry.
So just look at them and sigh, and know they love you.

Running from police into a subway station can be a capital offense

The BBC is reporting 'Shot man not connected to bombing' The former police commander told the Beeb that "he expected officers to face criminal charges, and other officers could even refuse to carry weapons. "
I hope that criminal charges are not laid -- sounds like it was an honest, though horrendous, mistake.
He exited a house connected to the subway attacks, he looked like he was wearing explosives, he ran when police tried to stop him. then apparently he vaulted over the subway turnstiles and ran to the train. Perhaps he didn't speak English; perhaps he thought he was some hitman's target, not realizing that the people chasing him were police, or perhaps he did know they were police but he had committed some other crime and that's why he ran. But its understandable why police would think he was a suicide bomber determined to complete a mission, so they had no choice but to shoot him before he could trigger his explosives. In fact, police threw themselves on the man even though they believed they were risking their own lives, trying to protect the public.
Its very sad, but I think we all have to realize that in large cities or in sensitive locations like airports and subway stations, there is a very limited tolerance now for strange behaviour.
Just as people had to learn not to joke about hijacking at the airport, and teenagers had to learn not to joke about shooting their classmates, so people now need to recognize that running from police toward a subway station can be a capital offense.
When we visit a foreign country, we need to find out whether everyone will be on edge due to a recent terrorist activity, and we need to learn what "This is the police. Put your hands up" sounds like in their language. And the people for whom this new caution is most important -- the people who are most at risk in any of these security situations -- are men aged 15 to 40.

Good, better, best

Good

Patrick Corrigan, The Toronto Star

Better

Jeff Stahler, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Best

Bill Day, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee

Hooray for Canada -- that'll show ya!

Canada wins dumbest gov't at World Stupidity Awards: "Canadians often feel we're in the shadow of the U.S., especially when it comes to stupidity, but now we're proving we're world class."
Oh, Canada!

"Severed from its moral foundation"

It's not just me.
Here's how Guantanamo is described by Washington State writer Mike Whitney in this Smirking Chimp article 'Guantanamo: The calculus of human misery':

Guantanamo was intentionally shoved in the world's face to announce the arrival of the New World Order; the neocon phantasm of autocratic rule and perpetual war. It has become the foremost icon of the Bush regime; an ominous stone monument to human cruelty. It is cleverly disguised as a prison facility but, in fact, Guantanamo is a state of the art laboratory where the parameters of human suffering are explored by a highly-trained staff of professionals. To be precise, it is a "Torture-lab" replete with all of the modern gadgetry required for enhancing pain . . . psychiatrists, psychologists and other medical professionals worked intimately with the military at Guantanamo "advising officials on how to conduct harsh interrogations of detainees". Their experimentation focuses on establishing the limits of human endurance; trying to gauge, through original and highly-controversial techniques, the maximum agony their subjects can withstand before they die or become unresponsive. This is not merely torture, but the science of sadism; a finely-tuned regimen of systematic abuse, the calculus of human misery. It has become a vital adjunct to the new American foreign policy . . . Guantanamo is the truest expression of Bush's America; a looming block monolith where the crimes of empire can be carried out with impunity. It has become the primary symbol of the global onslaught on international law, personal liberty and human decency. Languishing beneath the blood-striped standard, the gun-towers and concertina wire depict an America that has changed at its very core; a rogue nation severed from its moral foundation; executing the coercive policies of the state.

And today it was announced that the Pentagon is not going to follow a judicial order to release more Abu Ghraib photos and videos. In June they asked the judge for more time so they could redact the faces in the photos; now they are asking for an exemption not to release anything -- "to withhold law enforcement-related information in order to protect the physical safety of individuals."
This is a laugh -- NOW they're worried about people's physical safety?
These new photos and videos apparently show, in Rumsfeld's own testimony to congress as quoted in a 2004 news story "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman". The news story quotes NBC news as saying that the unreleased images show American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys. It also quotes Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham "We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience; we're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.'' Seymour Hersch said last year that the videos cover "women who were arrested with young boys/children . . . The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking."
Its probably their own safety that Rumsfeld and the Pentagon staff are worried about.

Pandering to our Inner Joe

' Ontarians to have say in whether province changes daylight saving time'. This stikes me as meaningless pandering to Canadian ego, our Inner Joe -- 'I don't change my watch when Americans do! I am Canadian.'
The Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant is quoted in this story as saying "Our government's going to do what's in Ontarians' interests, which does not necessarily mean automatically following in lockstep with the United States government's change to daylight saving time."
So I guess it is in Ontario's interest to dither, causing disruption and anxiety to businesses across the province before making the obvious decision, eh?
Can anyone give me any reason for Ontario, or any other Canadian province which is already on DST, to not just follow the American hours for Daylight Savings Time? Most provinces have significant US border trade plus Ontario has industrial involvement in US industries like the auto industry, so why on earth would Ontario NOT want to be on the same time as Detroit and Buffalo and New York?
Being in Saskatchewan myself, where we don't bother to switch times anymore, we feel that time is just an arbitrary constructed concept anyway.
We don't change our clocks because of the very early evening or very late morning which DST would cause to half of the province. Being on Manitoba time in the winter means Yorkton isn't dark by the time school lets out, while being on Alberta time in the summer means Lloydminster gets longer summer evenings. It works out for everything except the TV schedules.

Stand and deliver

The Senate is trying to hijack the defense spending bill to do somthing about torture, so naturally the White House is threatening to veto the bill.
Let Bush bluster and threaten -- what odds would anyone give me that Bush would actually issue his first veto in five years over the 'principle' that the president should be able to imprison and torture people at whim?
And its about time the Senate stepped up. The issue is this: the US Senate is reviewing a $442 billion expenditure for US defense programs. Republicans John McCain and Lindsay Graham are working with Armed Services Committee chair John Warner to add amendments to the bill to standardize treatment of prisoners, to define the legal status of the Guantanamo prisoners, to barr the holding of "ghost" detainees, to codify a ban against cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, and to use the Army manual as a basis for all interrogations. Democratic senator Carl Levin also wants to add an amendment to establish a commission on abuses, which the Pentagon says would be just "political theatre".
So now the White House has announced that such amendments would "interfere with the protection of Americans from terrorism by diverting resources from the war." and has threatened veto "if legislation is presented that would restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice."
I think the Pentagon and the White House will find that their 'political capital' on the torture issue is long since spent. McCain, Graham and Levin aren't going to let their own presidential campaigns be hijacked over torture and Guantanamo.
Not to mention, of course, that stopping all this stuff is the right thing to do. In the past, Congress and the American people could expect that their executive branch would defend the American constitution -- in his oath of office, the president swears to protect and defend the American constitution. But the Bush gang demonstrated their basic contempt for the constitution when they responded to 911 by so quickly and eagerly embracing the characteristics of dictatorship -- torture, imprisonment without trial, and abandonment of habeas corpus. More than any other issue, this revolting stampede to abandon constitutional principles has caused a substantial loss of US respect and prestige around the world, and rightfully so.