Treating foreigners like they're not human

I've been thinking about this for a while, but this video has really crystalized things for me.



Sometimes, I feel like a major problem with American exceptionalism is that it leads to feeling like other people, well, just aren't people.

I've lamented before that often we say "America is the best" but can't quantify how it is. I've heard that America is more "free" than anywhere else in the world, without explaining how it's more free than, say, Canada or Britain or the Netherlands.

And there often seems to be this presumption that because it's America that's doing it, it's inherently good. Think about how Dubya couldn't respond to the questions saying that if he could re-define the Geneva conventions, couldn't other, less savoury nations? He basically said, well, the US would only do it in good ways.

Add to that the fact that Americans just don't get out of town that much, and don't tend to know much about the world (our readership, of course, excluded) and I think you have a problem. Because when you don't know about foreigners, but know that you're better than them, it leads to a bad situation.

Look at the lack of outrage (apart from among the liberal left of the cities) at Guantanamo.

Look at the lack of worry about the detainee bills--they're foreign, they're different, they're probably bad, so why afford them the same rights we get?

Look at the fact the torture bill sailed through Congress and Dems were afraid to oppose because their constitutents would get mad: Well, it doesn't matter, because they're foreign and different and probably bad, so why treat them the way we want to treat ourselves?

Look at Abu Ghraib--I simply have no concept of how anyone could do that to people, unless they didn't think that they actually were people. Who do you know could scare their fellow humans with dogs? Cover them in excrement? Make them pile up naked and simulate sex? Do mock executions?

What human being would drive a car and make kids run for water (keep in mind Iraq doesn't have a constant water supply in most cities)--kids, for Christ's sake--as sport? Only people who don't think of those kids as people.

The Nazis did what they did because nongermans were less than Germans.

Is history repeating itself?

The wisdom of Solomon

Paul Wells has quite a long excerpt from an interview between Evan Solomon and Iggy. Where Iggy looks more and more the fool. First:

Solomon: Stéphane Dion was the author of the Clarity Act. He said that was the best way to fight the separatists, not reopening a constitutional debate like Michael Ignatieff wants to do. How would you respond?

Ignatieff: I don't want to reignite a constitutional debate. He's putting words in my mouth that I've never expressed. What I've said is - what I've said is, and it's a fact that Stéphane has to acknowledge and Bob Rae has to acknowledge - we all have to acknowledge - Quebec has not signed our constitution. Until they've signed, the constitutional architecture of our country is not complete. That's not a fact I made up. That's a fact that's been present in our national life since 1982.

First off, Dion is right. The point is to say to separatists: You take it or you leave it. And if you're leaving, you leave, not with some weasily deceptive questions. An end to blackmail. Further, "the constitutional architecture . . . is not complete." Bullshit. Aboslute bullshit. First, all but one of the MPs from Quebec voted for the Constitution. Just because some little provincial despot presiding over provincial powers didn't endorse the Federal constitution doesn't mean that the constitutional "architecture" is not complete (and who, other than an academic, would phrase things that way? Sure, it might look good in a paper to talk about constitutional structures and keystones and flying buttresses, but in the real world, it's just nonsense. To paraphrase Dion, Canada works better in practice than on paper. It's worked just fine since 1982, and our current Golden Age has happened even if the document isn't Iggy's perfect document.

Onwards:

Ignatieff: I go to small rooms in Saskatoon, I go to small rooms in Grand Prairie, Alberta, I go to small rooms in Alberta, I go to small rooms in Nova Scotia, and I'm asked this question and I talk about it. Never underestimate the good faith, the warm-heartedness, the generosity, the openness of the Canadian people, the willingness of Canadians to make our federation work and find ways -

Solomon: More generous than they were during the Meech Lake Accord?

Ignatieff: Never underestimate the Canadian people. Never underestimate their generosity. Never underestimate their openheartedness. Never underestimate their political courage. Remember one thing here. I was at the '68 convention where Trudeau was choosen as our leader. There wasn't a person in that room who if you'd asked them in '68 would have said that by 1982, we would have a repatriated Canadian Constitution with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The thing about politics is what seems completely impossible at one moment becomes possible later on, in conditions which we can't predict. And one of the reasons it becomes possible is we're a great people.

Such nonsense. First, he's doing his small rooms thing. As my blogging partner in crime has pointed out, what exactly does this mean? And second: "Never underestimate the Canadian people." WTF? That entire paragraph is nonsense. We weren't so "generous" during Meech and during Charlottown. My idea of national generousity certainly doesn't mean compromising the integrity of my country. It doesn't mean bowing and scraping to a few separatist traitors who harbour resentment for every wrong allegely visted upon them by virtue of their place in the Canadian nation.

And hearing some guy who's been out of the country for 30 years give a lecture on the Canadian people is also nonsense.

And then: He can't even answer the "what if Alberta says it's a nation?" question, which I think is the very logical extension of his nonsensical position on national unity.

Ignatieff: Let's, let's remember what we, what we have in common and reinforce what we have in common: the equality of our citizenship, the equality of all the provinces and territories who form our federation. Those bedrocks of our constitutional reality must never change and would never change under my leadership. The issue for us is how we recognize another thing, which is constitutive of our country and has been for forever. Namely, that we're, we're composed of collective groups who have strong collective identities. It's for those groups and for our country to work out a discussion about who those are. But we've already acknowledged -

Solomon: But this isn't a Joe Clark community of communities, is it?

Ignatieff: No, it's not. It's not - it's absolutely not. It's not because we're held together by a spine of equal citizenship. We're held together by the equality of provinces.

Iggy would be a disaster. In so many ways.

Substantial second-ballot support

Well, if we're talking cheap shots, then I'll fire off my own:

from Ignatieff's interview with the Hill Times:

What is your strategy for avoiding a defeat by an 'anybody-but-Ignatieff' movement on the convention floor in December?

"Well I'm flattered that someone thinks there's an anybody-but-Ignatieff move afoot. I don't see one. I see all the candidates competing to win. I'm competing to win. In terms of strategy, it's very simple. I get up in the morning and I phone delegates all day long, one by one. And then I go across the country, as I've done in nine provinces in the last eight days, and I talk to delegates in small rooms. And I can tell you there's substantial second-ballot support."

---------

Hmm, are they...small, windowless rooms? Furnished with a single chair and lit by bare light bulbs?

Ok, cheap shot, but it was honestly the first thing that came to mind when I read his curious usage of the word 'small'.

Borat at my alma matter

Oh my.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, who has the hottest head of state of all?

I'm sure our regular readers are aware of this corner's adoration for the GG, but really, how can you disagree?

The Pacific is a scary place

Liberal YouTube Ads

For all the chatter about nasty Liberal attack ads, I do really like this one:

Le Canada est une nation

This manifesto is inspiring.

From it:

Quebeckers have always shown the strength and capacity to nurture an authentic Canadian vision, to make this country a democratic, independent and humane society, and to promote peace throughout the world.

Of course, they succeeded in building a vibrant Quebec, but their greatest achievement has been fully participating in the shared creation of Canada, the country we cherish, and the world admires.

Those who aspire to the leadership of the Liberal Party should not undermine their commitment to the founding principles of this country and the role Quebeckers have played in forging this great nation. Are we too embarrassed to be proud, and to recognize what a unique society we have created?

Let us build on the values and principles that brought us together, and not trade this generous vision for the risk of discontent, fragmentation and perpetual tension.

There is a better way.

I agree. Back during the Referendum, some of us talked of getting T-Shirts made (and forgive my rusty French if I screw this up, 11 years later), with a Maple Leaf on the back, and the following:

Il n'existe qu'une souveraineté.

There is only one sovereignty.

I believed that then, and I believe it now. One of the things I envy about Americans is how they can simultaneously embrace their regional identities while always embracing their American nationality. And I would argue (supported by Michael Adams) that Quebecers and Ontarians (or other Canadians) have far more in common with each other than a New Yorker or Californian does with a Mississippian or Alabaman. Yet when they talk, the existence of their country is never at issue. Why is it so with us?

Gay marriage in South Africa

So South Africa has approved a gay marriage bill.

Let's get something straight: This is a country that 12 years ago had apartheid. This is in Africa, hardly known for its tolerance of homosexuality.

And over here in the US of A, voters are happily passing same sex marriage constitutional amendments and bans.

Land of the Free, my ass.

GG's state visit to Africa

So, let's see. Adrienne Clarkson got into a lot of trouble--from those on the right--for her circumpolar trip with distinguished Canadians. And now Harper is requesting that Michaelle Jean visit five countries in Africa on a state visit, bringing a bevy of distinguished Canadians with her.

Not sure I see the difference.

Calamity Jane

8:02pm and Jane Pitfield is arriving at her campaign headquarters. A reporter walks up "Good evening Ms. Pitfield. CityTV is declaring David Miller the winner. Do you have anything to say about that?"

Pitfield: Really? They're saying that? Uh...

Oh Jane, we hardly knew you. Thank god. As for Stephen LeDrew, I feel dumber for just having known he was in the race.

Not that I'm 100% behind Miller. I grudgingly gave him my support tonight in hope he'll do better in his second term. He didn't accomplish much of what we hoped, and despite the high expectations, I think he aimed lower than even reasonable expectations. Killed the bridge and inadvertently funded an airline, got a neutered City of Toronto Act, and his signature accomplishment, that he campaigned on, was the Transferable Metropass! The what? That's it? Well, it served Dean well on one of his visits, but seriously. This city has ISSUES to be dealt with effectively.

Happy Kiwis

This video is really cute. And got me a little teary. Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

War as disruption, not policy

Further to my post below on how we are so inured from the costs of war that it seems a policy choice, rather than an agonizing, wrenching decision to be made only at the last resort, this quote:

The death and destruction unleashed by the Second World War was unparalleled. Those men and women who gave their lives might have written great books, discovered cures for disease, or, more likely, simply have lived out their days in peace in their native land. They lost the chance for a full life because of forces beyond their control, beyond their country's control -- forces most of them comprehended only dimly.

- J. L. Granatstein and Desmond Morton in A Nation Forged in Fire.

Bob Rae Smackdown!

A great smackdown of Bob Rae by the NDPs Judy Wasylycia-Leis.

So let's see. Rae sucks, Ignatieff will ruin the country, Kennedy is nowhere. Who's the obvious choice?

Who has the strongest record in Cabinet and in government?

Who has the strongest record in beating back separatists?

Who is the most passionate advocate for national unity?

Who has the most clearly articulated position on just about everything?

Dion.

There simply is no other choice.

Call of the Callboy

Great article by Dan Savage, discussing outing people. His conclusion:

[W]hile most callboys will continue to respect a code of silence where the average closet case is concerned, the Ted Haggards of the world have been placed on notice: You can’t have your callboy and disparage him too.

I agree completely. If someone is closeted, that decision, as unfortunate as it is, should be respected. But when that person wants to suck dick on (in?) one hand and then ban gay marriage on the other, that's too much and they deserve what they get.

And, for all the "it's a sad situation" that I've been hearing with Haggard--no, it's not. I don't give a rat's ass for his wife's sadness or his own sadness. She was his partner in crime in all of this--supporting his right-wing Bush-loving Bible-thumping nonsense. She didn't know he was sneaking off to get laid? Tough. She was as gay-hating as he purported to be (except when he was on his knees in places other than church). She gets what she deserves.

War as a choice of policy

One of the things I've really come to think in the last few weeks as we've suffered through those endless "people on the streets" interviews is that too many people--particularly the less-engaged--view war not as some sort of cataclysmic upheaval and not as the last resort in a bad situation, but simply as a policy choice.

"I'm for higher taxes, and I'd like us to find alternative sources of energy, and oh yes, I think that the war in Iraq is the right choice."

No.

No no no no no.

War is something entierly different from normal policy. Choosing to go to war isn't the same as choosing to raise taxes or to spend more on this that or the other program or improving education or tweaking social security.

But the problem is that the brunt of war is now born not by everyone in the country, but simply by (generally) poorer and more disadvantaged people.

Think back to the Second World War (particularly in the countries that were there from the outset). There was a draft, and the percentage of the population that fought was dramatic (by way of example, in the First World War, almost a million were moblized in Canada out of a population of 8 million.) Food was rationed. Taxes were raised.

i.e. Normal life didn't go on.

But now--what sacrifices are being asked of anyone, other than that tiny percentage of the population who served? NONE. We still get our taxes cut. We still get our cheap gas. Our waistlines are still expanding.

And so people view it as an abstract policy choice. Most policy choices don't have direct and meaningful impact on our lives when they're taken--the environment, social security, education, healthcare--they're all things that eventually we'll have some awareness of change.

But if we were all in the war together, it would be different. It would be a sudden, meaningful change to our lifes.

Until we can get people to realize that their policy choices ("I'm for the war in Iraq") mean that people are going to die, they'll simply treat it as a glib policy matter rather than what it is: a titanic, destructive cataclysm that brings overwhelming misery and suffering on a vast scale.

Lies on Rumsfeld

So wait. Last week, Dubya said that Rummy had his confidence and wasn't going to drop him.

And now, he says that he'd talked to Rummy, but hadn't yet "visited with" Gates and hadn't had his final conversation with Rummy. So he was thinking of replacing Rummy, and he said he wasn't going to mention it because he didn't want to influence the election (because, of course, he would never do that!).

Where, exactly, is the truth? Was he lying when he said that Rummy was staying for 2 years? Or was he being truthy, since at that point, he'd not finalized the details of replacing him? Or is he lying now about his reasons.

Still, however we got there, it's good. What did Bismark say about law and sausages?

Liberation!

On the day before the 2004 election, in DC (a Dem bastion) it felt like how it must have felt in Paris the day before it was liberated--this sense of impending freedom and liberation.

And then when we woke up, we felt like it must have felt the day after Paris was occupied.

Today, it's not quite like that, but it feels great. To go to bed knowing it was going to be good, and now we've got Montana, Rummy's gone, and Lieberman's not Sec of Defence. Priceless.

It's a beautiful fall here in LA, but today the sun is just a little brighter, the smiles are a little bigger, and it feels good.

Change is in the air, and it's good change.

Bush's Conference

What a JERK.

First, he goes back on all he's said about Dems being a victory for terrorists. All his "To our troops: Our nation always will support you." No SHIT sherlock. Not a single person doesn't "support the troops" (whatever that shibboleth means). How about the "To our enemies: Don't take comfort" (or whatever he said). No KIDDING, jackass.

So all your electoral noises were nonsensical.

And then his "I've always tried to work bipartisanship but we haven't made as much progress. I hope we can work together." What-fucking-ever, Dubya. When you didn't HAVE to work with the Dems, you didn't even try. When you ran both houses, you didn't give a fuck what Dems thought.

But now that the people have held your feet to the fire, you have to!

We elected a black muslim

Keith Ellison was elected to Congress in Minnesota.

So to all those nutjob countries that criticise us here for being anti-Islam: How many Christian democratically-elected members of your majlis or council of whatever do you have? How many Jews?

(Okay, I take it a little back. Iran has one Jew, one Armenian, one Zoroastrian, and one Christian. But still.)

I love Daliah Lithwick

Will comment on this later:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301451.html

Using the N word

Apparently Andrew Coyne doesn't think that it'd bad for Norman Spector to have called Stronach a "bitch," because women wear shirts that say "bitch" on them all the time. Scott Freschuk has a nice little rejoinder to that:

Many large black football players and armed hip-hop artists refer to themselves and each other using the N-word. I invite Mr. Coyne to join in and see how that goes.

Right winger who hates gays likes gay hookers

This is awesome. Some crazy preacher, who bragged about the access he has to the President, and who campaigned against gay marriage, seems to like drugs and rent boys.

Thrilling stuff. From Salon:

Ted Haggard may not just be the most important evangelical you've never heard of, but the most important evangelical, period. . . . . Haggard has been preaching against homosexuality with his typical charismatic fire-and-brimstone fervor ever since he founded New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Probably even before then. And if he's right that there is a special place in hell for gay fornicators and drug abusers -- not to mention for liars and charlatans -- I guess he knows where he's headed.

Manners

Goodness. I mean, for all the flak we all get about being snobbish central Canadian bastards who oppress the west (forgetting that there are more people in greater Toronto than there are in the three prarie provinces) and are fat latte drinking snobs, this gives us some comfort. A fun quote:

Civic officials have had it with people spitting on the street. They're sick of people relieving themselves in public. Fighting in plain view has also become a blight. And propping feet up on public benches and artwork is creating a mess.

Voting for the opposition is treason

I really can't take it. In what other reasonable democracy would people tolerate the President saying that to vote for the opposition is tantamount to voting for "The Enemy"?

This is the sort of thing we expect from Banana Republics, where people are arrested for voting against the government, where election results are always 99.9% in favour of the incumbent, where the opposition is hounded and demonized.

But here--casting a ballot is the ultimate patriotic exercise, and saying that you can only vote for one party in order to show your patriotism--well, that strikes me as the ultimate unpatriotic statement.

And remember, this is from the man who arrogated to himself the right to decide if you're an enemy combattant, saying "trust me" that he won't use it on you. But how far a logical leap is it from "voting for Democrats helps the terrorist" to "anyone who helps the terrorists is an enemy combattant" to "I can throw dissenters in jail?"

Bush said "Trust me" on Torture. He said "Trust me" on WMD. He said "Trust me" on the conduct of the war.

I think he's lost the right to ask for trust.

Is there no depth

. . . to which the Right won't sink.

Some of you may have read my post on Michael J. Fox's recent ad. Well, apparently Rush Limbaugh thinks he's acting.

This is an ad where Fox is clearly showing the signs of Parkinsons--And Limbaugh thinks it's "shameless" because he's either "acting" or "forgot to take his medication."

Wrong, asshole. The symptoms of Parkinsons include stiffness--thus the shaking is caused by TAKING the medication, not skipping it. Get a clue on symptoms, jerk, before you go making assinine comments.

And for him to suggest that Fox is just acting--well, I won't comment. It's such an idiotic statement that it speaks for itself.

Andrew Sullivan and Reality

Over at Andrew Sullivan's blog, he's making some rosy-eyed ahistorical arguments. In response to a reader who pointed out that never in history has invading a country led to democracy, or led to the countries around it embracing democracy, he makes this vapid, simplistic point:

So question one: When in recorded history have human beings reacted to the sudden toppling of their systems of governance the way Iraqis are supposed to react after we topple Saddam, by peacefully creating an entirely different system of governance? Answer: Japan and Germany after the Second World War. Question Two: When in recorded history has a change of government in one nation
led to a peaceful and spontaneous change of governments in neighboring nations?
Answer: the collapse of the Soviet Union was followed by an astonishing transformation in many neighboring countries.

I'm calling bullshit on that one (actually, I did, but of course, to right-wingers, the actual truth should never get in the way of a good explanation for something, and so he didn't post it on his blog.) My letter to him is below. But one thing--when I finished grad school (in history), I didn't really buy the "those who don't learn from history's mistakes are doomed to repeat it." And now that I'm older and wiser, I believe that 100%. If people who made policy would just run things by historians before they try them, the might find that their facile analysis doesn't stand up to reality. Anyway, my letter:

Dear Andrew,

Your suggestion that Germany and Japan are examples of people "peacefully creating an entirely different system of governance" is, unfortunately, simplistic.

Start with Germany: The Germans didn't create an entierly different system--they returned to an old one, though a different model. Remember that Germany had had democratic government in the past, in the form of the Weimar Republic. Even before that, arguably since the revolution of 1848, Germany had had some form of party-based government (albeit with strong army and Kaiser influence). Thus, the Germans weren't being given something with which they were unfamiliar. Further, German reconstruction was highly tempered by the experience of the war--long fought, massive shortages of food, and a gradual realization (particularly with the revelation of the Holocaust) that they had to change. Add to that the enormous external threat of soviet communism and the realization they had to pull together. Finally, it is worth noting that Germany was ethnically homogenous and that Protestants and Catholics stopped killing each other over religion sometime in the 1600s.

Likewise Japan. It's harder to suggest that they had as much experience as the Germans with democratic government, but it was not something with which they were entierly unfamiliar. Add to that what was replaced--Japan was ethnically and religiously homogenous, and they maintained the stabilizing figure of the Emperor.

In short, neither of these two states has any similarity to the situation in Iraq--a country with no civil society built up, no experience with democracy, and three ethnic/religious groups far more wedded to their ethnic/religious identity than their national identity. It is too simplistic to suggest anything more than a passing similarity to the situation of Germany and Japan in 1945.

Similarly with the Soviet Union. Sure, after the Soviet Union's collapse, Eastern Europe opened up, but bear in mind that a large part of that collapse was a result of the opening of the East German border to West Germany and the massive outflow of people to the West. The East realized it had to open up in order to avoid collapse and the full-scale hemmoraging of people to the West. Further, once the Soviet Union collapsed, all of the authoritarian regimes lost their principal economic and military backer, so of course they collapsed as well. Those states were satelites of the USSR, not equals allied with it of their own choice.

That isn't the case with Iraq--it is simply not the case that every state around Iraq is or was dependent on Iraq for any sort of economic support, nor are or were they client states in the way that the Eastern bloc was.

Yours

[Dean P]

Pat Tillman's Brother

I'm sure everyone remembers Pat Tillman, the NFLer who went off to war, was killed and held up as a hero by the Bushies, until it came out that he was killed by friendly fire? His brother has written a pretty powerful essay. Some choice quotes:

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
...
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Stem Cells

This post from the Huffington Post is so . . . shocking . . . that I reproduce it in its entierty. Everything below is from the post.



I can't tell you how much this ad with Michael J Fox upsets me. I had the chance to meet him during the Kerry Campaign, and he is such a good person and to see him so much worse, barely twenty four months later breaks my heart.

It just is truly awful.

And then I checked out the reaction to this ad and see plenty of right wing nut cases chortling that we ought to send him back to Canada because he was born there? Here's a comment someone actually posted on YouTube.

"This dude is a Canadian. Why is he in the US talking to Congress, faking being American? Because we need to fix him up, all our resources are to go to him, because he has a problem. Go to Canada, they have socialized medicine, maybe they can help you. Oh, that's why you are here. I get it now."

Please, allow me to be the first to say: Fuck you.

I just can't take this anymore.

They destroy veterans to win elections so they can play toy soldiers and kill our children.

They smear and attack and lie.

And here's a man, a father to young children, a good person - and we're not doing everything humanly possible to help him? Everything humanly possible is the only moral and ethical choice here. The only one.

Wonder where we would be if the millions we spend every hour in Iraq were spent on stem cell research?

Wonder if Jesus would think maybe we should re-allocate some funds? And reconsider our opposition to saving lives? What do you think?

The essence of tyranny

This article from Andrew Cohen in the Washington Post breaks my heart. It really does. Speaking of the new torture law--that astonishing assault on centuries of Anglo-American jurisprudence, on everything that makes us different from the uncivilized world--he writes:

Enormous and unchecked new power now has been given to a White House whose officials at first called Zacarias Moussaoui the "20th hijacker" but were wrong; who at first called Jose Padilla the "dirty bomber" but were wrong; who at first called Yaser Hamdi such a threat to national security that he could not even be allowed to talk to his attorney -- until they decided to set him free. Freedom from judicial review now has been given to the same administration officials who allowed Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen whom we now know that they knew was not a terrorist, to be transferred to Syria for torture. Vague or narrow definitions of torture now have been given to the executive branch operatives who are responsible for Abu Ghraib. New powers have been given to the people who brought us the National Security Agency's domestic spying program, the one that some legal experts say violates both federal law and the Constitution.

The rule of law is everything. It is the most important, the most fundamental thing in our society. The rule of law means that the law applies to everyone--to the government as much as to citizens. The rule of law means that the person implimenting the law (the executive) does not get to say what a law means.

Legal blogger Jack Balkin writes (as reported in the Post):

The President has created a new regime in which he is a law unto himself on issues of prisoner interrogations. He decides whether he has violated the laws, and he decides whether to prosecute the people he in turn urges to break the law. And all the while he insists that everything he does is perfectly legal, because, the way the law is designed, there is no one with authority to disagree.

It is a travesty of law under the forms of law. It is the accumulation of executive, judicial, and legislative powers in a single branch and under a single individual.

It is the very essence of tyranny.

Bush has a secret plan

Apparently Bush has a secret plan to win the war. The astonishing this is that people believe him, all evidence to the contrary.

Historical note: While Germany was in ruins and Allied and Soviet armies at the gates of Berlin, Germans believed that Hitler had a secret plan to win the war. And the Germans, all evidence to the contrary, believed him.

US torture corps

Awesome. Especially the "most of 'em don't speak english anyway."

The clear message to the rest of the world

I have to say I completely agree with Dan Froomkin's assessment of the new torture law. It's a dark, dark day for our democracy, and for our freedoms. Keep in mind, the terrorists haven't changed our way of life, or our freedoms. We have. Read on:

President Bush this morning proudly signed into law a bill that critics consider one of the most un-American in the nation's long history.

The new law vaguely bans torture -- but makes the administration the arbiter of what is torture and what isn't. It allows the president to imprison indefinitely anyone he decides falls under a wide-ranging new definition of unlawful combatant. It suspends the Great Writ of habeas corpus for detainees. It allows coerced testimony at trial. It immunizes retroactively interrogators who may have engaged in torture.

Here's what Bush had to say at his signing ceremony in the East Room: "The bill I sign today helps secure this country, and it sends a clear message: This nation is patient and decent and fair, and we will never back down from the threats to our
freedom."

But that may not be the "clear message" the new law sends most people.

Here's the clear message the law sends to the world: America makes its own rules. The law would apparently subject terror suspects to some of the same sorts of brutal interrogation tactics that have historically been prosecuted as war crimes when committed against Americans.

Here's the clear message to the voters: This Congress is willing to rubberstamp pretty much any White House initiative it sees as being in its short-term political interests. (And I don't just mean the Republicans; 12 Senate Democrats and 32 House Democrats voted for the bill as well.)

Here's the clear message to the Supreme Court: Review me.

Coolest toy EVER!

These are the coolest things EVER.

Even probable terrorists have rights--in some countries.

This is a welcome ruling. Basically, the Federal Court of Canada said that even for someone who might be a terrorist, his fundamental right not to be tortured was paramount, and if the Government wanted to deport him, it had to deport him somewhere where he wouldn't be tortured.

Thank god we've not subscribed to the alternate view that others embrace.

Broken Constitution

Great article in the LA Times.

His point is that the Constitution is totally dysfunctional for a variety of reasons:

1. The electoral college, which leads candidates to write off big states and pander to little ones or swing states.

2. There is no means of removing a President unless he's criminal.

3. Lame Duck presidents stay in power.

4. Supreme Court Justices stay forever.

And I want to add another: The electoral districting. It's astonshing to me that with the Dems so far ahead in every metric and on every issue, they might not win, because only a few districts are actually competitive thanks to gerrymandering. In no other rational system does that happen--where a massively unpopular party actually retains power.

Sure, ridings can be gerrymandered a little in Canada--push a line a bit further west to get more rich people, etc--but if you look at one of our electoral maps, the lines are straight. Or more straight than the crazy shapes of districts here.

That is an impediment to change and democracy. When incumbents get to pick the voters, rather than voters picking their representative, democracy dies.

Thoughts on the debate

Today was the Liberal leadership debate at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto.

I liked the format, three candidates on stage, responding to a question in turn, then open debate for 5 minutes. All candidates responded with about two sentences of french, then switched to english. Lip service, essentially, and a bit insulting. The short format also tended towards very superficial treatment of the topics.

A few interesting exchanges. Brison and Kennedy savaged Volpe on the topic of same-sex marriage. Brison, Dryden and Dion couldn't find anything to disagree on with respect to the gun registry. Dion's english really is a liability, I hate to admit it.

The best exchange came when Rae, Ignatieff and Martha Hall-Findlay debated Canada's role in the world. Who came off the best in describing their vision? I think Martha did. She laid out a vision of leadership in Afghanistan that was forceful and realistic.

Rae and Iggy tussled early and took up the whole debate with their fight. Ignatieff accused Rae of inconsistency in his views on the Afghan mission. Rae shot back that he should talk, having changed his mind on the Middle East three times in the past week. Iggy took the hurt approach, mentioned their friendship of 40 years. Rae started to apologize, when Martha tried to end the fight, ultimately yelling 'Gentlemen!' before they stopped. She said that while this made great television, they were all Liberals and this argument had nothing to do with the issue.

If applause was any measure, Findlay won hands down.

What is a Martha Hall Findlay supporter called? Marthite? Marthanista? MHFer?

Whoever wins the leadership, they MUST bring her on side. She is an asset to this party.

Delusions of Grandeur

I'm sorry, but what relevance does this stunt have to do with the leadership campaign? Iggy, you're not the leader of your party, the Opposition, or of Canada's government yet, yet and yet, (foot-in-lower-esophagus-at-this-point notwithstanding).

Stick to winning over Liberals in the short term.

I wonder who he expects will greet him at the airport?

"We're engaging the enemy more."

I really can't take it. Does Bush have NO SHAME?

Today in his press conference, he said that the reason why Iraq is getting more and more violent is that "We're engaging the enemy more."

Right.

The astonishing thing is not that this nonsense comes out of Bush's mouth, but that people buy it. It's a bit of a damning indictment not of Bush but of . . .

The last flickering flame

was almost blown out today. The California Court of Appeals reversed a trial court's striking down the ban on gay marriage, saying it was for the Legislature to decide.

Um. The Legislature DID decide--it passed a gay marriage bill, which the Governator struck down, saying it was for the COURTS to decide.

What is it?

Are our civil rights just a little football to pass around? More importantly, the Court of Appeal is basically saying marriage goes to those who can muster the vote for it. Civil rights subject to majority rule.

If I hear one more goddamn opponent say that liberal activist judges are imposing gay marriage on people against their will, I'm going to fucking puke. The number of states where the courts have found there to be a right to gay marriage: exactly 1. The number of states where the courts have decided there is no such right? Off the top of my head, California, Nebraska, Washington, New York, some other southern state. The number of states where court's CANNOT decide that gay marriage is an okay thing? All the ones that have amended their constitution to lock us out.

Screw that. I thought we had a fucking chance here in California. That the state that's a little different, a little kinder, a little more just might actually see the light. Might look to say, Canada, or the Netherlands, or Spain, or the UK, or Massachusettes, and see that the entire world isn't going to come crashing down on all of us. Maybe say, hey, denying an entire class of people a basic right isn't something we do here in California, even if the nutjobs that are screwing up the rest of the country do.

When taking responsibility meant something

So Denny Hastert is going to "take responsibility" for Foley's bad behaviour.

Good for him

But there's one little thing: He's not stepping down. As the Post reports:

A House GOP official said that Hastert, fighting to save his job, will take responsibility for the unfolding scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., but will insist that he will stay on as leader of House Republicans at a news conference scheduled later in Batavia, Ill.

So, let's see--he stands up, mouths a few words, and presto! All fixed!

In a real government, people resonsible for things quit or are fired (except, of course, in Republican world, no one gets fired for doing something wrong. They get awarded Medals of Freedom).

It's such posturing--it's the meaningless acceptance of blame with zero consequences. Well done Republicans.

Defence of Religion Bill

Is completely wrongheaded.

The problem is that the Tories aren't targeting churches, etc., with their bill (well, they are a bit). They make a big stink about churches and stuff, but the Supreme Court and the law itself are crystal clear on that issue. The Catholic church is not going to face a (viable) Challenge that it won't marry Adam and Steve.

Their bigger concern is justices of the peace or civil marriage commissioners. Quite a few provinces (I think Sask. and Man.) have told their civil officials that they will be fired if they refuse to perform the marriage. Ontario, I believe, did a compromise, that an official can refuse provided that the official finds a replacement.

The provinces that require it have it right, and that's what stresses the Tories.

The problem is, of course, that people acting on the behest of the state are acting for the state and only the state. Performing a civil marriage is ministerial: provided that the couple are qualified (adult, not related, filled out the paperwork), they qualify to be married. Period. There is simply no discretion on the state's part. The person performing the act is acting as the state and that person's personal beliefs have nothing to do with it.

What happens if we go down this slope? Then, any person who is charged on acting on the part of the state can get around all the equality guarantees of the Charter, can get around the separation of religion and state, simply by saying it is against their religious beliefs to do anything. Theoretically, police officers are meant to apply the law universally. What if a Christian or Jewish police officer sees a Canadian law that prohibits something that (in their belief) their religion allows? Do they turn a blind eye? Every single governmental department then becomes a minefield: You get one official whose beliefs allow for one thing, and another whose beliefs allow for another.

I don't see how this can stand up in Court. Think of the downsides. Sure, in Toronto, there is probably someone who can stand in for the official. But what about in a small town, where there is likely only one person who is permitted by the state to perform a civil marriage? Is a same-sex couple there without recourse, if the official refuses?

And what would we say if you substituted "same-sex" for "inter-racial" or "different faith"? Are we going to protect the rights of civil marriage commissioners to refuse to marry divorced Catholics? Or blacks and whites? Or Jews and Muslims?

The civil marriage act is about civil marriage, and the religious views of ANY of the parties--the officiant and the couple--is completely irrelevant.

OH come on

Now, I'm not a big Scalia fan. Not at all.

But the furor his comment today is generating is starting to generate is a little beyond me.

It's an immigration case. The government was arguing that the petitioner would be abiding his terms of release (i.e. parole) even when he was out of the country. One of these conditions was to not drink. Said Scalia:

Nobody thinks your client is abstaining from tequila down in Mexico because he's on supervised release in the United States.

Daliah Lithwick, whom I love, is a little upset by this.

But come on. It's not a Macaca moment. Allen was deliberately a jerk and mocked the guy for not being from the "real" america (he was indian).

I mean, if Scalia had said "beer in Canada" or "wine in Italy" or "beer in Germany" or "bubble and squeak in England," would anyone care?

Should Scalia have had to say "abstaining from alchol?"

And is suggesting that someone in Mexico is consuming a drink native to Mexico a racist suggestion?

This just seems like hypersensitivity to me.

The threat the terrorists pose isn't that big . . .

. . . that we need to have torture and secret prisons.

Sure, there is danger from terrorists. But the danger is NOT that they are going to bring down Western society. The danger is NOT that they are going to "take away our freedoms." They don't want that.

More importantly, they can't do that. What we face is the risk of isolated incidents. Bombings. Hijackings.

Is that so grave a threat that we have to change who we are? Our socieyt is being destroyed not by the terrorists, but by our own leaders.

From 1939 to 1945, the greatest threat to civilization and freedom that ever existed fought a war against the West and Russia.

The Nazis had soldiers in their millions, tanks, bombers, rockets. The Nazis were determined to invade other countries (and did so). For years, tens of millions were enslaved by them.

The Nazis had the real potential to snuff out Western democratic civilization. Not just damage its infrastructure, but erase it completely. They almost did. Until Pearl Harbour, the torch of freedom was carried by Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Only two other democracies existed: the USA and Sweden.

And yet we did not ignore the Geneva conventions.

We did not torture German soldiers.

We did not have secret camps. We did not authorize the President to decide who was an "enemy combattant" who could be sent to a secret prison indefinitely.

We did not suspend Habeas Corpus.

During the Cold War--facing an enemy that could turn our cities to rubble, that could have sent armies in their millions into Europe and potentially into North America--we kept our freedoms. We kept our civil rights.

We kept our decency.

Today, we pretend that the threat of terrorist attacks is greater than the Nazi menace. Than the Soviet menace.

It is not. The great threat we face today is that we give up everthing that makes the West great under the guise of making ourselves safer.

Pictues as lies

Richard Cohen makes a great point about that picture of some young adults sitting on the Brooklyn shore on Sept 11. He writes:

It has been interpreted as yet another example of indifference or the compulsion to return to normal even though, as anyone can see, there is nothing normal about what is happening. It is the emblematic photo of our times.

Photography, of course, is often a lie, and this photo is no exception. It captured a moment, a second or less, when one of the subjects said something and the other four turned toward him and away from the plumes of smoke, so they seemed not to care. This photo, like all photos, lacked context -- what went before and what went after -- and the interpretation of insouciance has been challenged by no less than some of the people in it. They insist they were intensely aware and horrified by what happened.

Exactly. I'm glad someone is standing up for those kids. I'm sure, during that day (I was in DC), there were plenty of moments where I smiled at something, or did something other than look horrified and shocked (which I was). Hell, I went for a drink with my roommate and some friends. There would have been thousands of opportunities to take a picture of us to say that we were being insufficiently sensitive.

But it is the delight we take in taking things out of context, in cherry-picking our quotes, in not understanding the context. So much easier never to scratch the surface than to actually stop and think.

We've become our enemies

As some might know, before my legal days I was on track to be an academic in German military history (my master's dissertation was on German troop morale in the First World War). I've spent a lot of time reading about both wars. Nothing has ever shaken my belief that in the Second, we (the Western allies at least) were the good guys, and that, unlike virtually every other war ever fought, the Second was a true struggle of good against evil.

When you compare our armed forces' conduct to theirs, the contrast is staggering.

When you compare our governments' conduct to theirs, the contrast is staggering.

When you compare how we treated prisoners of war, the contrast is staggering.

We didn't torture. We treated prisoners humanely (aside: the Germans did the same, for the most part, to us, precisely because of the Geneva Conventions. They did not to the Russians, because the Russians were not signatories. Just sayin'.)

And now what? Now, we torture. Now, treat prisoners inhumanely. Now, we lock people up in undisclosed locations on the slightest whiff of suspicion, in some gulag archipelago of secret prisons with no access to law or court. We disucuss suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus.

That was how our enemies behaved. It's not how we should be now.

And I'm sure I'll hear that it's a different kind of war with a different kind of enemy. Fine. We're still the good guys, and the good guys behave differently.

FCC FU

A great little song, to the tune of God Save the Queen

An example verse:

Are we all so repressed
That one small glimpse of breast
Must be taboo?
One Janet Jackson boob
Botched up what's on the tube
Bend over, we're not using lube
FCC FU

Bush wants a vaguer definition of torture, not clearer

Bush keeps harping on about how he needs clarity and more precision in the definition of cruel treatment and torture under the Geneva Convention's common article 3. But as Rosa Brooks points out, he's worried that it's not vague enough.

Exactly. How is it that for quite a long time, we've had no problem following the Geneva Convention, and suddenly it's a pressing need?

For all the perversion of language that Bush has been using ("alternative techniques," "stress positions," "dietary modification"), what we're debating is whether or not we can torture someone, plain and simple.

What rational, civilized country would ever have that debate? What country which holds itself out as some kind of beacon of civilization and progress could actually discuss that?

What Bush wants isn't clarity, though. He wants a free pass--something saying that things that any rational, decent person would call torture isn't torture at all.

Shame on us that we even talk about this.

And for anyone who says that being horrified by this debate and by Bush is anti-American, I say this: Bush is anti-American. Being American, I thought, meant setting a higher standard. It meant belief in the rule of law. It meant being truthful.

Instead, under Bush's watch, we've tortured people at Guantanamo. We've whisked people off to foreign lands to be tortured. We maintain secret prisons around the world. We've argued that anyone captured by us can't even see a lawyer or get a hearing.

If that's not anti-American, I don't know what is.

America is safer for not having gay soldiers

This is truly awesome. From the Daily Show, where some nutjob claims that a) we homos have a habit of drinking each others urine (er . . .) and b) the country is safer for having kicked out an arabic crypto-linguist at a time when there is a desperate shortage of . . arabic linguists.

Awesome.

Coups in Thailand

This coup in Thailand is a really bad idea, and it's even worse that the King is endorsing it.

Sure, the government may have not been great, and maybe corrupt, but it was still elected. If corruption and waste and incompetence alone were grounds for the military to step in, well, I can think of lots of western countries that deserve a bit of military rule.

But that's not how democracy--and the rule of law--work. Democracy means that sometimes you elect bad leaders. But in a democracy where the rule of law prevails, you endure and wait for a chance to vote the bastard out.

If, tomorrow, General Hillier decided to be done with Harper, even if he were bumbling and useless, the correct thing for the Governor General or the Queen to do would be to instantly demand the restoration of Harper and his government--namely, to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. That's the crown's job.

But what Rama IX has done simply is to say, sure, I'm okay with going around the constitution and the rule of law and endorsing blatantly illegal acts by the army, no matter how salutary the result.

Once the King approves of that, where's the limit? Sure, Thaksin wasn't a great PM, but he wasn't a dictator, and wasn't engaging in the sort of behaviour that might justify the army stepping in. He was elected. If you make a mistake and elect a loser, you don't get a deus ex machina to bail you out--you have to pay for your mistake and vote for someone better the next time. But now the Thai military can say, any time they don't like the government, hey, he was ineffective, so we're going to remove him.

As the Post notes:

The distaste for Thaksin may have colored the tepid U.S. response. "Nobody wants to go to bat for Thaksin. He's just an odious figure," said Michael A. McFaul, director of Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. "But there's the problem -- democracy's not about picking winners and losers, it's about defending institutions."

Lorne W. Craner, former assistant secretary of state under Bush and now director of the International Republican Institute, agreed that U.S. concerns with Thaksin did not justify a coup. "You can't sanction a coup just because you don't like the guy if you're going to stand up for democracy," he said. "It's unconstitutional."

Democracy and the rule of law died a little in Asia this week. Australia is right to point out that it thought Asia had moved beyond that.

Coups are never okay in a democracy, and Canada, which advertises itself as a great promoter of the rule of law, should come out strongly and insist that Thaksin be restored, no matter how bad a PM he was.

The rule of law demands nothing less.

Let me bring my coffee on board!

This is a great post from Wonkette. It quotes a report from a British expert, who points out:

"This story has been blown out of all proportion. The liquids would need to be carefully distilled at freezing temperatures to extract the required chemicals, which are very difficult to obtain in the purities needed."
Once the fluids have been extracted, the process of mixing them produces significant amounts of heat and vile fumes. "The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop." The whole process, which can take between 12 and 36 hours, is "very dangerous, even in a lab, and can lead to premature detonation," said Lt. Col. Wylde.

If there was a conspiracy, he added, "it did not involve manufacturing the explosives in the loo," as this simply "could not have worked." The process would be quickly and easily detected. The fumes of the chemicals in the toilet "would be smelt by anybody in the area." They would also inevitably "cause the alarms in the toilet and in the air change system in the aircraft to be triggered. The pilot has the ability to dump all the air from an aircraft as a fire-fighting measure, leaving people to use oxygen masks. All this means the planned attack would be detected long before the queues outside the loo had grown to enormous lengths."

So instead, because someone somewhere is getting quite paranoid, we now can't bring on water, we can't bring on baby formula, no lip gloss, no makeup, no deodorant. We have longer waits at baggage check because those of us who carry on normally now no longer can (unless we want to buy new products every time we fly). Ridiculous.

Memo to Muslim world: Get over it

And grow the hell up.

Okay, the Pope quoted some dead Byzantine emperor who said that Islam only brought "evil and inhuman" things to the world.

And what happens? They all go out and DO evil and inhuman things in the world. Like firebomb churches. And burn effigies. And riot. (Sidebar: Can you imagine what would happen if Christians and Jews were seen to be burning effigies of Mohammed? I mean, we can't even make a cartoon, let alone a model, let alone burn a model!)

Is the Islamic world populated by infants? Every time someone says something bad about islam, the islamic world blows up in anger. Things get stoned. Heads get called for. Jihad gets invoked. As Anne Applebaum notes:

Already, angry Palestinian militants have assaulted seven West Bank and Gaza churches, destroying two of them. In Somalia, gunmen shot dead an elderly Italian nun. Radical clerics from Qatar to Qom have called, variously, for a "day of anger" for for worshipers to "hunt down" the pope and his followers.

What sort of outrageous double standard do they live in? We cannot for the lives of us say that "Hm, maybe there's a fault in Islam--or the Islamic world--that people are blowing themselves up in the name of Allah, or are beheading people, or calling for the deaths of infidels" without being accused of being racist or anti-Islam or whatever, but they are free to fulminate against anything we say or do in the West, and use violence as part of their protests. We can't say anything, but they can bomb or burn things.

I'm sorry, but it seems to me that while not all muslims are terrorists, it appears that all terrorists are Muslims, and really, until it is that which is repudiated by the Muslim world--until the Muslim world is more outraged by the atrocities committed in its name than it is outraged by perceived slights from random people--then really, they should all just go into their corners and have a time out.

Headwaiter

Michael Ignatieff was interviewed by AMT (Anna-Maria Tremonte) on the CBC's The Current this morning.

On Quebec, and the recent controversy over his vision for national unity, he said that recognizing Quebec as a nation would merely be a symbolic gesture. Then, without any irony, he described his vision of Canada with the expression "community of communities" !  As if Trudeau wasn't spinning in his grave from his previous comments, I'm sure poor PET was downright altering the spin of the planet at this point.

This was followed up with the caveat that he would only re-open the constitutional debate if he was sure it wouldn't be like a painful trip to the dentist. Iggy would only revisit the Constitution if he knew he had the 'winning conditions' to do so successfully. Again, said without any irony.

He's a smart, reasoned and passionate man, sure. But again, where were you for the past 25 years? Oh, right...

More reasons to pick Dion

In a time when there are fewer and fewer people who actually will stand up and fight for a real Canada (not the Tory "community of communities" or the NDP "leave if you want" approach), Dion stands out as someone who can and does make the argument. This is why he should be the next Liberal leader (with a big important position for Martha Hall Findlay). From this old speech:

It was Fernand Dumont who wrote: "We currently speak of the 'Quebec nation.' This is a mistake, if not a fiction. If our English fellow citizens in Quebec do not feel that they belong to our nation, if many Allophones are repelled by it, if the Aboriginals reject it, can I make them a part of it with some sort of magic vocabulary?" (Raisons communes, 1995, p.63) [translation]. In response to this question, I answer that very few of our fellow citizens are repelled by being Quebecers. It is not belonging to Quebec that is the problem, it is renouncing Canada.

It is not Quebec nationalism that cannot be civic, it is secessionism. You can find many arguments to convince human beings of all origins to become Quebecers. But you will come up short when it is a matter of convincing them to cease to be Canadians as well.

***

If we had to break up a country because "the others" were more numerous than "we," how could we ask our own minorities to trust us as the majority? In any event, we could not offer them as extensive an autonomy as that which we had deemed to be insufficient for ourselves within Canada, because no one is talking of making an independent Quebec a decentralized federation. Renouncing Canadian solidarity means accepting a principle of rupture and a mistrust of others which run counter to the solidarity among Quebecers.

Secession is an exercise whereby one chooses one's fellow citizens: you choose whom you want to keep and whom you want to transform into foreigners. There is no civic reason for doing so in a democratic country such as Canada. On the contrary, democracy calls upon us to show solidarity toward all our fellow citizens.

Bush is a shrill liar

This is Matt Lauer cornering Bush on terror. It's disgusting. He can't make any articulate defence of his position, other than "We're doing what's in the law." Um, Mr. President: you're not. The Supreme Court has said you're not. The entire civilized world says you're not. John "Torture" Yoo is the "lawyer" who said that what you're doing is okay. No one else believes him.

And how specious is Bush's claim that he can't discuss techniques because the "enemy" will change their tactics. Okay, because terrorists will behave differently if they know interrogation will consist of pulling their fingernails rather than waterboarding them. He can't even defend the waterboarding!

And finally, I'm really over Bush falling back on "we're doing it to protect you and your family" (ahem, the family I'm not allowed to have, btw). As Daliah Lithwick pointed out in Slate,

I am willing to be persuaded, five years later, that provisions of the Patriot Act really do make us safer. But I am not persuaded by assertion alone. How can I balance the security benefits of so-called national-security letters, or the subpoena of my library records, if the government refuses to disclose how that information is used and why? If I am only weighing the curtailment of my civil liberties against the government's bare assertions that such curtailment makes me safer, then there is no real balancing to be done. And if that information is unknowable, am I not just balancing my own subjective sense of freedom against the president's promise that I am safer?

Exactly. Whenever George II is questioned, he falls back to "I'm trying to protect you." The ancient refrain of totalitarian regimes everywhere. You can't have free speech because we're protecting you. We must arrest people to protect you. We must torture people to protect you.

I would expect that from Stalin. Not from the American president.

Bloc and a Hard Place

Come on, the title just begged to be blogged.

A few polls have suggested a drop in Quebec support for the Conservatives over the Afghan issue, particularly after the weekend deaths of five soldiers. Harper's quest for a majority would appear to be in jeopardy. Sensing this, the Bloc and the NDP, conventiently holding their convention in Quebec City, have been cranking up the anti-war rhetoric.

However, few elections have been decided over foreign policy. Could the next one be the exception?

Well, today, Gilles Duceppe announced that the Bloc would support the controversial softwood lumber deal. The minority government could have been defeated on this issue. Apparently the BQ is still afraid of a fall election, despite the apparent weakness of the Conservatives.

Either the Bloc doesn't think softwood lumber holds much traction with Quebec voters, or they don't think the Afghan issue will cost the Conservatives much in the way of votes.

Either way, Harper wins.

Some days

I really hate being gay. Do we always have to act like scared schoolgirls when we see a BUG?

At the end of the rainbow

It's not a pot of gold . . . .

GOD DAMN these yankee cowboy buckaroos who kill our people

FUCK THIS SHIT.

Yet again, Yankee incompetence kills one of us.

Yet again, some jackass pilot who's got a hardon for his guns kills a Canadian and wounds 29 more.

Four years ago, some Yankee pilot on speed dropped a bomb on four Canadians, in SPITE of orders not to fire. Did their president say anything, knowing that 29 were wounded and one dead? No:

In Maryland, Bush paid tribute to American military personnel serving abroad during a Labour Day address, but said nothing about the friendly fire incident. By the time he strode to the podium in Piney Point, Md., the U.S. military had confirmed that it was their planes that strafed the NATO troops. That was an eerie echo of the silence from the White House in April 2002, when four Canadian soldiers were killed by Americans in a friendly fire bombing.

Did the world cry for us? No. Did anyone on the planet say, we are sorry, you gentle kind country who for over a century has sent its sons and daughters abroad to die for others and never asked for anything in return and certainly never been granted anything in return? No.

Our people died on the fields of Belgium and France, yet in 1919 who paid attention to us? Per capita, more Canadians died in one day in Flanders than died in the entire Viet Nam war, but who cried for us?

Our people were there from day 1 of the Second World War, we exited the War nearly bankrupt, yet did we find a place of leadership in the world? France, that collaborating nation, was an occupier, yet while its people were gleefully turning over Jews, our people were fighting to liberate them. And their maudit president dared to call for the destruction of our state, while the blood of countless Canadians stains their soil.

And so now, yet again, we will bury our dead, and we will carry on, and the world will not care.

As was said in that great Telegraph article, "Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun."

Indeed:

[A]s always, Canada will now bury its dead, just as the rest of the world as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does. It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored.

And so, as our crimson flag flies at half-mast, as yet another Canadian family grieves the loss of their son, we will be forgotten. Our gentle, kind, just country, thrice-invaded by the Americans, who has never fired its guns in anger save to help others and never for out own interest, now mouns yet another of us, shot down by the cavalier gunslingers who run the republic to our south.

I want to say, leave us alone, world. Let us follow our great vision--the vision of a just, bilingual, polycultural state--without you. Let us remain the stunning rebuke to those who say that every ethnic or religious or linguistic group needs it own state. Let us remain the rebuke to those who would say that equal rights for all will hurt society.

I cannot. Our small country is a force for good. There is no self-interest in our fight in Afghanistan. There was none in Korea. We got nothing from our other wars.

Yet, the world's neglect notwithstanding, the mocking of my own Canadianness I endure daily, the utter disregard for what we as a society have done, all of that aside, we are still Canada, and it is our historic mission to raise high the crimson and white and to fight and die so that others will be free.

But we do not deserve to be slaughtered by those who claim to be our friends.

"Give Joe a chance"

Linda Diebel at the Toronto Star has been writing profiles of all the Liberal leadership candidates. Of note was her glowing profile on Dion two weeks ago. Some would say 'too glowing' (but we certainly wouldn't!). Well today she proves today that she can write a profile that simultaneously lifts up and buries the profilee. Like say, Joe Volpe. Poor old Joe needs a break from the rabid anti-Italian conspiracy. He claims that the WASP crowd wants to keep him out and have resisted him his whole life. Others suggest that it's not because he's Italian, but because he's just an asshole.

A few choice nuggets:

"It's terribly, terribly unfair. It's absolutely outrageous the way Joe has been pilloried," says Barry Sherman, Apotex CEO and father of four children, one under 18, who contributed money to the Volpe campaign. Sherman describes himself as a wealthy man who wants to help Volpe and says pointedly the money was refunded. "Look," he says, "people like to sling mud. But if anyone did anything improper, it wasn't Joe Volpe. He's a principled person and he had no idea ... he's not in the pocket of the (brand-name pharmaceutical) industry like other politicians."

Nope, brand-name pharma doesn't own Joe! No, he's just in the pocket of the generic pharmaceutical industry! Ahem, I mean, in the pocket of the generic pharmaceutical industry CEO's children.

"Give Joe a chance," says lifelong buddy, Renzo Tanel. "He would make a great prime minister. He cares about people and he has a good idea where Canada should go."

Shudder at the thought.

Great ways to piss off your neighbours

This is fun. Apparently, Focus on the Family lets you buy their books--for free--and send them anywhere. So, for example, you can get this book, "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality" at absolutely zero cost. Send to your friends. Send to your enemies. Go to their homepage, click "resources" on the top left, and shop to your heart's content

The good thing is that it actually costs them. So if we all band together and get them shipping their books to people who will use them as door stops or litter boxes or kindling, that's less money that they'll have to do things like pass amendments.

The best part is that if you read through the selection you'd think that no straights were getting married and in fact gay marriage was actually legal over half the country. In fact, of course, 42 states either have constitutional amendments passed or pending banning it.

Land of the free.

Bush has read 60 books this YEAR?!

Apparently Dubya has read 60 books . . . this YEAR.

No way. No fucking way. I'm calling TOTAL bullshit on that one.

We're in August, the 8th month. That means he's been reading 7.5 books a month, every month, since January 1. That means one book every FOUR DAYS.

I can understand a book every four days. When I was a grad student in history, I was reading at that rate. For a few weeks at a time. Then I'd stop. At the time, of course, I wasn't, you know, the head of state of a superpower. I wasn't commander in chief of an army that was fighting two wars. I wasn't focused on winning wars on terrorism. Or fixing drowned cities. Or trade talks.

I work pretty hard, but I'd like to think that I have a lot more free time than the President. And right now, if all I did was to read when I wasn't working--no dinners with friends, no going out, no shopping, no cooking, no nothing--I might be able to manage a managable book in four days (I'm also thinking he's not reading John Grisham, given he boasted to Angela Merkel about reading books about George Washington and how he is apparently devouring the works of Camus right now). I might.

But for Dubya to claim he's read 60 books this year alone, that's crap.

If he's had time to read that many books then he should be instantly impeached for being a complete slacker who read books while Baghdad burned.

If he hasn't, he should be impeached for being a liar.

OMG Best Exercise Machine Ad EVER

This is simply too good. As Anna Marie Cox said, "So that's how they maintain their one child policy."

Crazy Bible Thumpers

Can you imagine what the reaction would be in any civilized country if a political candidate said this:

We have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.

Well, that's Katherine Harris (of Bush v. Gore fame) in a recent interview.

And while plenty of politicians in Canada are opposed to gay rights, very few would ever tout their opposition as a strength:

Civil rights have to do with individual rights and I don't think they apply to the gay issues. I have not supported gay marriage and I do not support any civil rights actions with regard to homosexuality.

Um - what part of individual rights for gay people doesn't she get? If individual rights as applied to groups aren't civil rights, then you can replace "gay" with "black" or "latino."

Mary Cheh in DC

This is a very welcome sight. For those who actually care about DC politics, Mary Cheh is amazing. She was my criminal procedure professor (easily my favourite class in law school) and downright awesome. She has her own style (always: skirt, blouse, blazer with cuffs rolled up, and a brooch), she's hysterically funny, and more importantly she's really really nice. She was always great to talk to in law school, about life, the universe, and everything generally.

So, Go Mary Cheh!

Evolution? Not for Americans

This chart is great--it's in response to the question of whether the respondent believed that humans were evolved from other animals:

Be Skeptical.

This is a great article.

Money quote:

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time. In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

Well, that was a bit of a firestorm

Well.

Who knew that suggesting sensible sercurity could set people off like that (see my post below).

First, the statement that I'm a "bigot" can be dealt with swiftly. That sort of response is typical of the PC set--the unintellectual, knee-jerk reaction that the instant you start characterizing anyone by anything other than the moniker "person," you're a racist. No facts. No logic. No attempt to refute anything. No attempt to explain why it makes sense to stop, say, orchestras from bringing their instruments on board (as reported on As It Happens last night) or to search wizzened grandmothers in wheelchairs. No--you just go for the jugular, the person is a bigot. Well, Ottawa Liberal, I breathlessly await an explanation.

And to Kris, who worries about the slippery slope effects, the answer is pretty straightforward: First, we reject slippery slope arguments all the time, notably that allowing gay marriage won't lead to fathers marrying their sons or women marrying their pet dogs. It's one thing entierly to say that in airport sercurity lines we'll be more attuned to risky classes of people. It's something quite entierly different to say we'll start rounding up anyone remotely middle-eastern looking in the streets and intern them.

And second, there's an even bigger hurdle: Constitutional issues. (I'm speaking from my understanding of American law). It is absolutely positively crystal clear that you cannot stop someone in the street just because he's black/gay/arab/muslim/purple. You cannot stop them without individualized reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, and you cannot detain them without individualized probable cause. Race/religion/class do not provide for individualized probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Period. Sure, in specific cases reasonable suspicion can be manufactured, but not on a wholescale.

That is not the case at an airport. At an airport, all passengers consent to searches--they don't have to board the plane and they have no more right to get on a plane without a search than they do to get into my office without my consent: the condition of boarding is that you consent to a search. Constitutional issues are not implicated. Searching can then be tailored. They can give grannies and babies quick searches, and more thorough searches to those who potentially are greater risk.

I know it's not pretty. I know it's not an ideal situation. But to live in the absurd situation we have now, all in the guise of "anyone could be a terrorist," is nonsense.

It's not like the world's dialogue doesn't acknowledge the problem. We aren't fighting against "people who want to blow up planes, irrespective of their religion or nationality." No. To quote from Thomas Friedman (hardly a right-winger), "the biggest threat to open societies today[is] violent, radical Islam." The papers have been full of the phrase "Islamic fascism" or "radical Islam." The groups that keep trying to blow things up aren't called "Tea-cozy grannies" or "United Church Brotherhood" or "Torah Martyrs Brigade."

PC Hogwash

Okay. Heard on NPR today that certain police chiefs in the UK are saying that airport security needs to be targeted, but that some top Muslim cop says that would be a bad idea because it would alienate the people we need to help combat terrorism.

I'm sorry, but I'm just a little over this nonsense.

The 19 Sept. 11 highjackers: Muslim men.

The London bombers: Muslim men.

The London liquid bombers: Muslim men.

The Spanish bombers: Muslim men.

The USS Cole bombers: Muslim men.

The Bali bombers: Muslim men.

Does anyone else see a pattern here?

But still at the airport we see the nonsense of old ladies having to take off their shoes, mothers with two babies having to take a sip of their baby formula, professional men and women not being permitted their laptops, teenagers being denied their iPods, all so we can maintain the fiction that everyone's a potential terrorist, not just the people who are.

The last time I saw someone blow up a plane in the name of the United Church of Canada, or some fanatic demanding strict adherence to the Thirty Nine Articles of Faith on pain of death (don't be celibate (article 32) or die!!!), or demanding that diapers be put on goats or the shepherd gets his throat cut was . . . well . . . NEVER (even though violating sheep is a real danger in Wales). Sure, during the Inquisition the Church did a lot of nasty things, but we're a bit beyond that in the 21st century now.

And every time some muslim blows something up or tries to blow something up, we get the usual PC hogwash--civic leaders saying it's important not to overreact, various muslim leaders equivocating ("Islam is a religion of peace, but we have to understand that . . ."), the police saying that no, there is no collective guilt.

Bullshit. Let's take some collective responsibility, folks. Next time, rather than ever Imam making some half-baked statement, let's get every last one standing up and saying "No." Let's get EVERY muslim civic leader not just condemning, but going out actively and doing something about it. Not the "Well, we have to understand that when a people are oppressed or degraded . . ."

The first thing it seems muslim leaders do is DISTANCE themselves from terrorists. How about the Germans? There's still a massive sense of collective guilt for things that their grandparents did. I went to high school in Germany and the faults of their forefathers are drilled into their heads, year after year. The Germans take responsibility for the horrors in which their ancestors were shareholders.

Not so the Muslim world. Bombers are always outcasts, they don't represent Islam, we aren't collectively responsible.

I say, no more. I'm over the fact that our governments spaces are now closed to the public because of a few MUSLIM terrorists. I'm over the fact that I have to submit to a ridiculous search at an airport, because of a few MUSLIM terrorists. I'm over the fact that our entire national dialogue has been hijacked by the right thanks to a few MUSLIM terrorists.

If Islam really is a religion of peace, let Muslims help themselves. And meanwhile, let's quit the fallacy that everyone is a possible terrorist. Because really, my 85-year old grandmother isn't. That 2 year old child isn't. The businessman and CEO isn't. My high-school principal mother isn't.

Let's drop the PCism and actually target those who are a real danger.

Bush doesn't understand cause and effect

Bush and his lackeys have always been one to go full steam ahead, damning the torpedoes. They make their grand pronouncements, piss off the world, and don't care. Until they have to. As the Times today in an editorial says (in re Freedom Fries):

The renaming also was the embodiment of President Bush’s my-way-or-the-highway diplomacy. A French Embassy spokeswoman gamely told The Associated Press at the time that “we are at a very serious moment dealing with very serious issues, and we are not focusing on the name you give to potatoes.” But “freedom fries” was intended to be, and was, a poke in France’s eye. Harassing the French is probably not the wisest course now that America may need their help negotiating a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Exactly. All the countries that Bush has pissed off have memories. Think of Canadians: We've seen how outrageously the US has flaunted NAFTA in regards to softwood lumber. You think we'll forget when it comes time to sign new trade deals?

So the US is stuck in Iraq. It's got new problems in the Middle East. At some point, it's going to need help. You think, given the abuse that all those who were not members of the coalition of the willing got, that the world's going to quickly forgive and forget and help dig the US out?

Fat chance.

Israeli Restraint

All this call for "proportional response" is making me damn sick.

What do you think the US would do if Canada were taken over by, say, Al-Qaida and people started firing rockets at the US from downtown Toronto or the Village or something? You think it wouldn't carpet-bomb Toronto into a sheet of glass, to the howls of praise of every last American?

And Israel, going after terrorists who are firing rockets NOT at military targets but at civilians, happens to kill a few civilians in doing so. Yes, that's tragic. But Israel, unlike Hezbollah, is not specifically targeting civilians. Has anyone stood up and said, "Excuse me, Hezbollah, would you please stop firing rockets at civilians?" No.

Has anyone said, "Excuse me, Hezbollah, would you mind not hanging out in densely populated civilian areas firing rockets at Israel, which you know will provoke a response and which you know will kill your own people?"

What on earth is Israel to do? Hang out while terrorists fire rockets behind human shields? What sovereign nation on earth would be expected to countenance that? The fact that civilians are being killed is because the terrorists specifically intend for them to be killed. If Hezbollah fired rockets from unpoluated areas, no civilians would be killed. Plain and simple.

No one is demanding "proportionality" from Hezbollah - no one is demanding that THEY stop risking civilian lives, that they stop targeting civilians.

Israel's a country surrounded on every side by enemies that take the form of state actors (Syria, Iran, Saudi) as well as nonstate actors (Hezbollah, Whatever-council-of-islamic-jihadi-whatever). It's surrounded by rabid anti-semites who think Jews eat children and drink blood and who believe The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, chapter and verse. And the people who attack it do so behind ramparts made not of defensive fortifications but of populated apartment blocks. And by our calls for "proportionality," we give them free rein to keep doing so.

Musical Praise

Recently I heard an NPR special on a Canadian group called The Duhks. I downloaded them but only this weekend spent any time listening, and to be honest, I'm a little hooked.

They're a nice combo of folksy-blue-grassy music, mixed with some celtic and french folk songs. As one review puts it,

the group manages to cut a wide swath through music history, one that incorporates everything from Irish reels to traditional gospel-blues concoctions while also touching upon the contemporary folk of The Mammals and the reggae-tinted pop of Sting.

They also take a hand at various spirituals, which are pretty cool.

I'd recommend both albums. The later album, Your Daughters and your Sons, is a little more folk-music laden than their debut album, The Duhks, but both equally cool.

So buy them. Tracks I'd recommend if you want to sample include Gene's Machine (Irish reels with an eastern undertone) and Dover Delaware (just nice), as well as the first minute or so of Guiliano's Tune.

More free, my arse--what about the beers?

As I'm sure our (four) regular readers have noticed, I'm not such a fan of the shibboleth of "America is the freest land ever!" Familiar readers (we do love you) will note that I've often pointed to various things which make others in other countries -- freedom to marry, freedom to not get sick, etc.

However, this past week, I was in London for my best mate's wedding (and my meditations on weddings soon) and one critical measure of freedom was suddenly drawn to my attention.

In the UK, you can walk down the street drinking a beer.

If that's not freedom, I don't know what is.