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Not quite ready for prime time

Once again, Conservative cabinet ministers demonstrate why Harper doesn't want them to open their mouths.
Canadian Cynic flags Peter MacKay accusing Denis Coderre of "a dangerous and elaborate stunt" for traveling to Afghanistan, exactly one day before Maxime Bernier and Bev Oda arrived there.
And Alison flags two of the dumbest remarks ever made by Canadian politicians -- Bernier's JFK hommage, and Oda's "little cakes" giveaway.

Great line of the day

Hunter talking about how unpopular Giuliani will be as the Republican candidate:

. . . who wouldn't like a guy who traipses around the country wearing 9/11 like a superhero's cape -- like a toddler tying a towel around his neck and pretending to be Superman? It may be terrible for the country, but the comic possibilities are endless. You put him and Clinton as the nominees, and red state voting booths will look like the sand wastes of Dune.

Emphasis mine.

Great post of the day

From Dave at Galloping Beaver -- You'd think Iran would at least send Bush a "Thank You" card. Read the whole thing, but here's a taste:

By ignoring the histories of the peoples of the Middle-East, by failing to acknowledge the political depth of those countries and by disparaging populations which they have not studied, the current American political leadership (and its advisory bodies) have overlooked centuries of astute political acumen, adept military strategy, well-educated populations and a long record of out-thinking and out-maneuvering an opponent.
. . . Bush has allowed this semi-educated crowd to lead him into a corner surrounded by paint that will never dry.

Whew!

Another Thanksgiving dinner for seven successfully completed!
And a great time was had by all.

Great post of the day

From Balloon Juice, on what is wrong with the Republican party:

... A bunch of bedwetting, loudmouth, corrupt, hypocritical, and incompetent boobs with a mean streak a mile long and no sense of fair play or proportion.
Seriously- what does the current Republican party stand for? Permanent war, fear, the nanny state, big spending, torture, execution on demand, complete paranoia regarding the media, control over your body, denial of evolution and outright rejection of science, AND ZOMG THEY ARE GONNA MAKE US WEAR BURKHAS, all the while demanding that in order to be a good American I have to spend most of every damned day condemning half my fellow Americans as terrorist appeasers.
And that isn’t even getting into the COMPLETE and TOTAL corruption of our political processes at every level. The shit is really going to hit the fan after we vote these jackasses out of power in 2008.
Screw them. I got out. They can have their party. I will vote for Democrats and little L libertarians and isolationists until the crazy people aren’t running the GOP. The threat of higher taxes in the short term isn’t enough to keep me from voting out crazy people and voting for sane people with whom I merely disagree regarding policy. Hillarycare doesn’t scare me as much as Frank Gaffney having a line to the person with the nuclear football or Dobson and company crafting domestic policy.
That is why the Republican party is in shambles. The majority of us have decided that the movers and shakers in the GOP and the blogospheric right are certified lunatics who, in a decent and sane society, we would have in controlled environments in rocking chairs under shade trees for most of the day, wheeled in at night for tapioca pudding and some karaoke.

Super Tuber

Senator Larry "Wide-Stance" Craig's special recipe. (via)
You can't make this stuff up...

He's baaaak!

Look who's getting lots of publicity lately -- a prize from the Fraser Institute for NAFTA, plus he just published a catty memoir.
But I wonder why he thinks that Canadians, or even Harper's Conservatives, want him to be visible in politics again? We had enough trouble getting rid of him 14 years ago.
Personally, I never had that big a problem with Mulroney, but the rest of the country hated him so much that he singlehandedly destroyed the Progressive Conservatives as a legitimate political party in Canada -- they never recovered from 1993.
But he's still entertaining, isn't he -- let's not forget this:

One out of three kittens vote for Harper

Poor Harper -- it must be driving him to drink.
He makes nice with the press, he plays to his base with a drug "crack-down" while also burnishing his national security cred, he even has photos of homeless kittens on his website...and he STILL can't get support from more than one out of three Canadians:

Despite a hellish month, a new poll suggests the federal Liberals remain in a statistical dead heat with the Conservatives in public support nationally and are actually leading in most provinces.
Although they've been bombarded with negative news coverage, suffered disastrous byelection results and are feuding publicly, they're only two percentage points behind the Tories nationally.
The Conservatives' 33-31 per cent lead in the latest Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey falls within the margin of error, while the NDP is at 16 per cent and the Green party is at 10.
The Liberals actually lead the Tories in the three largest provinces, throughout Atlantic Canada, and among women and younger voters.

Imagine what could happen if Dion actually started to run the Liberal Party!
Anyway, getting back to Harper, I can't believe he has really changed any spots. He just cannot stop wagging his finger at us about saying the course in Afghanistan, playing the humanitarian card this time:

"We took that responsibility as a country and I think we should see that responsibility through to the best of our ability," he said . . . the mission is a moral responsibility to not only the families of the 71 Canadians who've lost their lives in the conflict, but to the people of Kandahar and NATO allies.

Once again, the argument seems to be, basically, nothing more than the We're Here song (sung to the tune of Old Lang Syne)-- "We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here..."

"People's lives have been brutally affected"

Well, I don't know the facts of the case.
But I think the defendants' lawyers should just shut up for a while about how awful the legal case has been for their clients.
It will take some time before we will feel sympathetic toward the people who supervised the blood transfusion service that gave Canadians AIDS and hepatitis.
The defendants, however much they have suffered, are at least all still alive.

I know you are but what am I

Just guess who said this with a straight face:

. . . reports about very innocent people being thrown into detention, where they could be held for years without any representation or charges, is distressing . . .

Gee, I think the hundreds still in Guantanamo just might agree, don't ya think? (via Digby)

September in Iraq

I was glad to read today that September was better in Iraq -- though the Iraq Body Count website says 1,280 Iraqis were killed in September, not the 988 AP reported.
Better is a relative term. At Faces of Grief, as well as Yahoo news, I found photos showing what September looked like inside Iraq:


Sept. 1. An Iraqi Muslim Sunni woman shows a picture of her son who was reported missing in Baghdad in March. There are over 1 million people who have gone missing since 2003.


Sept. 2. Cholera victim in Sulaimaniyah being treated. There are now 100 new cholera cases a day. (via Iraq Today)


SSept. 3. A car bomb in Baghdad, which killed two people and wounded two others.


Sept. 8. A son weeps during his father's burial in Najaf.


Sept. 11. An Iraqi woman holds her daughter as US soldiers ... search her home during a patrol into southern Baghdad,


Sept. 18. A young boy cries as his mother consoles him after U.S soldiers detained a family member during operation Saber Hammer 3 on the outskirts of Muqdadiyah


Sept. 22. A man sifts through the rubble of a destroyed house after a U.S. raid in Mussayab.


Sept. 23. Displaced Iraqi Shiites carry aid on a donkey cart as they leave a relief center in Karbala.


Sept. 25. A girl stands near a partially burnt vehicle after two car bomb attacks in Baghdad, which killed two people and wounded four.

But I did find one photo where people looked happy:

Sept. 25. An American soldier celebrates with some of the 800 new Iraqi police graduates during their graduation ceremony.

Great post of the day

TRex says Thank You, Rudy Giuliani for taking that call from his wife during a speech to the NRA:

By crossing this new frontier in boundary-free living, by once again raising the personal narcissism bar to new heights of impolitesse, Rudy has finally given me, an American liberal, a way that 9/11 can personally benefit me on a daily basis. And it’s about damn time.
. . . I can justify even the most petty acts of selfishness simply by invoking the fall of the Twin Towers. I will never, ever, ever have to turn off my cell phone again.
Tomorrow morning, when the groggy solemnity of the Monday staff meeting is shattered by my cell phone . . . all I have to do is chuckle sheepishly and say, “9/11!” and take the call and everyone will automatically just sit there and wait ten minutes for me to finish talking to my brother about whether he should order another pair of Red Wing boots or get some Dingos like mine.
Because, you know, 9/11? It changed everything.

With friends like these, Dion doesn't need enemies

So an MP who bills himself as a Dion supporter wants to avoid a fall election by a parliamentary manoeuver -- Dion would vote against the Throne Speech while the rest of the Liberal caucus abstains, so that Dion can talk about how he is against the Harper government without actually having to fight an election against them.
Great optics, Byron! Just what Canadians need from the Liberal Party, more trickery and sleight-of-hand tactics...

Just when you thought it was safe...

Just when you thought it was safe to go swimming -- Brain-eating amoeba kills 6
Just when you thought it was safe to go on vacation -- Dengue fever surges in Latin America
Just when you thought it was safe to get a CT scan -- Woman left in CT scanner for hours
Just when you thought it was safe to drink beer -- Oktoberfest reveler stuck in chimney for 12 hours
Some weird news lately, isn't there?