Your Long Weekend Giggle

This is from a truly hilarious blogger, Wendi Aarons.

An Open Letter to James Thatcher, Brand Manager, Proctor and Gamble

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your Always maxi pads for over 20 years, and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core(tm) or Dri-Weave(tm) absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from "the curse"? I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my "time of the month" is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call "an inbred hillbilly with knife skills."

Isn't the human body amazing? As brand manager in the feminine-hygiene division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers' monthly visits from Aunt Flo. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior.

You surely realize it's a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend's testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey's Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy!

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in capri pants. Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: "Have a Happy Period."

Are you fucking kidding me?

What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness-actual smiling, laughing happiness-is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything "happy" about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlúa and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreens armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man. If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something that's actually pertinent, like "Put Down the Hammer" or "Vehicular Manslaughter Is Wrong"? Or are you just picking on us?

Sir, please inform your accounting department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flexi-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bullshit. And that's a promise I will keep. Always.

Best,

Wendi Aarons
Austin, TX

This is Beyond Twisted

Just when you thought you knew how twisted, mean and despicable the far right can be, along comes something to warn you we really don't know how creepy these bastards can be.

The Huffington Post has a story about the anti-abortion lobby in Oklahoma and their compliant state government that thinks it's just fine - mandatory even - to publish online full particulars of every woman obtaining an abortion.

The new law requires that every woman who obtains an abortion in the state disclose to the Secretary of State (who will post it online) the following information.

Date of abortion
County in which abortion performed
Age of mother
Marital status of mother (married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
Race of mother
Years of education of mother (specify highest year completed)
State or foreign country of residence of mother
Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Number of pregnancies that ended in live births
Number of pregnancies that ended in miscarriages
Number of pregnancies that ended in induced abortions

The only thing women won't have to reveal is their names--but, if you are a woman in a small community in Oklahoma, your neighbors (and anti-abortion forces) will likely be able to easily identify you anyway. That's probably the point.

The intimidation factor in this is obvious. I wouldn't be surprised to learn Harper is pencilling this one in just in case he manages to win a majority.

Screw the Polls, Let's Talk

Well the Liberals are certainly down and, judging from the sudden paucity of posts from Liberal bloggers, that has them down too.

Many respected Liberal bloggers are now calling for Iggy to begin releasing policy statements but his advisers, brilliant folks I'm sure, want him to wait for an election campaign. I have a couple of problems with that.

I think Ignatieff is overestimating his prowess if he thinks he can sell a complete policy platform in the brief span of an election campaign. He can't do it, he's just not that good in connecting with the Canadian public. He's better than Dion but not that much better.

Worse yet, I think if Ignatieff runs true to form, his policy platform will probably remain centre-right glossed over with a bag full of platitudes. Besides, who says an inexperienced, annointed party leader has the right to dictate party policy?

Unfortunately Mr. Ignatieff has shown that his judgment is fundamentally flawed. His position on Gaza, for example, was prematurely taken, naive and utterly inconsistent with Liberal tradition. In an awful conflict in which there were no clean hands, Ignatieff firmly lashed the Liberal Party to one side, absolving them of what turned out to be some pretty nasty war crimes.

Iggy was wrong on the Iraq war when he enthusiastically endorsed that hopelessly illegal invasion. I can understand that. He was then living in America and the mood at that time was pretty overwhelming. What troubles me is the character Ignatieff showed in changing his mind, in admitting he was wrong. He couldn't do it without trying to denigrate those who opposed the war from the outset as being disingenuously opposed, motivated mainly by a hatred of George w. Bush. Is this guy still stuck in high school? 15-year old kids do that sort of thing, not leaders of national parties.

On foreign policy, Mr. Ignatieff sees a "robust" role for the Canadian Forces, more peacemaking than peacekeeping. We've had a decade to see how well this peacemaking thing works out - in Iraq and Afganistan. Should a Liberal leader, one acclaimed to the post, be steering the party away from its traditional posture on this?

Ignatieff has been flat out wrong on his position on the Tar Sands. He claims to see Athabasca as the beating heart of the Canadian economy throughout the 21st century and has even proclaimed bitumen a key to national unity. What is this man thinking? Does he not know what's happening to our planet? Is he ignorant of what's already happening to the Athabasca region? If he mentions that at all, he glosses over it with empty platitudes.

On the environmental front Mr. Ignatieff has shown no spine, none whatsoever. He declared carbon taxing as dead, twisting the last election as a referendum on Dion's Green Shift. No need to talk about that any more, the public have spoken. That was a total and intellectually dishonest dodge.

Harper is going to the Copenhagen climate change summit with empty hands. He's done squat on global warming and our opposition leaders have been just fine with that. They've given him a pass, happy to duck the controversy themselves. That's leadership?

So, maybe it's time rank and file Liberals voiced their views on the issues of the day, stated their opinions on what the party policy ought to be. Why not right here, right now? Let's begin with the climate change conundrum.

What do you think Liberal policy should be on climate change? What would you expect of a Liberal government in terms of action on global warming?

It's 19/51 All Over Again!

I only wish that was true, but it's not. Ekos shows Iggy's approval rating at 19% while his disapproval rating is over two and a half times that at 51%.

When you're only getting one in five to approve of the job you're doing, you're not doing the job people need you to do. Fortunately, I suppose, the party's approval rating continues to hover above that of its Leader. Out of that one in five, how many do you think really approve of Michael Ignatieff? How many of them are just holding their noses? How many are whistling past the graveyard?

Maybe it's time for the Liberal Party to become liberal again. Even if there was merit to Mikey's right of centre posturing (and there's really none), he's not been able to sell his vision to the Canadian public. If these numbers mean anything he's not been able to sell it to a lot of Liberals either.

Maybe we should hope for an early election to put this mess out of its misery.

Sarkozy Cabinet Minister Liked (Really Liked) Boys

"I got into the habit of paying for boys

All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market,

all that excited me enormously

The abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys

put me in a state of desire"

- French culture minister, Frederic Mitterrand

And, having written that in his tell-all memoir, minister Mitterrand can't understand why critics are demanding his resignation or why they're indignant over his defence of Roman Polanski.

The 62-year old Mitterrand admitted in his autobiography to paying for boy sex in Thailand - a lot. But his attitude seems to be "that was then, this is now." Let bygones be bygones.

It's unimagineable how a guy who has openly admitted this monstrous abuse could have been allowed into Sarkozy's cabinet in the first place.

Que sera, sera?

Blaming the Victim - Mountie-Style

Robert Dziekanski was derided as a "whackjob" by the lawyer for Kwesi Millington, the RCMP constable who tasered Dziekanski to death at Vancouver airport.

Ravi Hira, the lawyer for Const. Kwesi Millington, stressed witness accounts that paint Dziekanski as a "whackjob" and an "unusual passenger" and made constant reference to potential alcoholism.

"It's relevant to perhaps the cause of death. It's relevant to perhaps his actions. It's relevant to why he acted the way he did," Hira said after commissioner Thomas Braidwood questioned his approach during closing submissions.

All the while, a heartbroken Cisowski twisted and turned in her seat at every remark and had to be restrained at times by her victims' services handler.

"Oh my God," she cried. "Oh my gosh."

Public observers at the inquiry offered their support to the grieving mother, who confessed listening to the remarks was "so upsetting."

So that's what it's come down to. The officers' defence is going to be that Dziekanski got what he had coming to him. His death was his own doing. Isn't that the same thing they said about Ian Bush when they blew his brains out with a bullet to the back of his head while in police custody?

First Came Acid Rain, Now It's Acid Sea

Will the Arctic Ocean turn into a corrosive stew? Researchers now warn that parts of the Arctic Ocean could reach corrosive levels within a decade. From The Sunday Observer:

"This is extremely worrying," Professor Jean-Pierre Gattuso, of France's Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, told an international oceanography conference last week. "We knew that the seas were getting more acidic and this would disrupt the ability of shellfish – like mussels – to grow their shells. But now we realise the situation is much worse. The water will become so acidic it will actually dissolve the shells of living shellfish."

Just as an acid descaler breaks apart limescale inside a kettle, so the shells that protect molluscs and other creatures will be dissolved. "This will affect the whole food chain, including the North Atlantic salmon, which feeds on molluscs," said Gattuso, speaking at a European commission conference, Oceans of Tomorrow, in Barcelona last week. The oceanographer told delegates that the problem of ocean acidification was worse in high latitudes, in the Arctic and around Antarctica, than it was nearer the equator.

"More carbon dioxide can dissolve in cold water than warm," he said. "Hence the problem of acidification is worse in the Arctic than in the tropics, though we have only recently got round to studying the problem in detail."

About a quarter of the carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by factories, power stations and cars now ends up being absorbed by the oceans. That represents more than six million tonnes of carbon a day.

Editing Jesus

A gaggle of Christian conservatives is fed up with Jesus and all his silly, liberal ways. So they're writing a new Bible, one in which Jesus is edited into one of them, a conservative.

Screw biblical inerrancy, Jesus was wrong. That line, "forgive them Father, for they know not what they do"? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Never should've said it. Doesn't belong in a conservative Bible at all. It's gotta go. From AlterNet:

In an effort to rid the Good Book of "liberal bias," the group has set up the Conservative Bible Project, which aims to rewrite the Bible from a modern, conservative perspective.

"Liberal bias has become the single biggest distortion in modern Bible translations," the project's Web site asserts.

...The "forgive them father" quote "is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible," Conservapedia states.

And evidently many of Jesus' other teachings -- from the "turn the other cheek" lesson, to his disdain for profiteering -- will also no longer be acceptable in the conservative Bible.

"Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification," the Web site states -- a strange assertion, given that English versions of the Bible date back at least to the 16th century, while socialism as a concept was formed in the 18th century.

..."The insane hubris of this really staggers the mind," writes Rod Dreher at Beliefnet. "These right-wing ideologues know better than the early church councils that canonized Scripture? They really think it's wise to force the word of God to conform to a 21st-century American idea of what constitutes conservatism? These jokers don't worship God. They worship ideology."

I think this is wonderful. The nutty Christian Right tacitly admitting Jesus, the man they worship, call Son of God, and vow to obey, was plainly a liberal. So instead of changing their ways to be closer to God, a liberal, they're going to change God (or at least his son) to reflect their image.

It was bound to happen. This sort of thing inevitably happens when you let crazy people loose, especially crazy fundamentalists (of any faith).

Are the Days Numbered for the Greenback?

There's a plot afoot to dump the United States dollar as the standard currency for pricing world oil deals. Robert Fisk writes in The Independent that the Gulf States are plotting with Russia, China, Japan and France for a new scheme whereby oil will be priced by a basket of currencies.

...Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

...The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."

This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy.

...Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

..."These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

The First Failed State in America - California

It's the stuff of legends - magnificent beaches and mountains, movie stars and Rodeo Drive, exotic cars and perfect tans - and now it's virtually broke. According to The Guardian, California is on the verge of becoming America's first failed state:

From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life, California is like a patient on life support. At the start of summer the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave. In a state made up of sprawling suburbs the collapse of the housing bubble has impoverished millions and kicked tens of thousands of families out of their homes. Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster – his approval ratings having sunk to levels that would make George W Bush blush.

CanWest - Tits Up - Files for Bankruptcy Protection

The Fat Lady has sung. CanWest Global has thrown itself on the mercy of the bankruptcy court.

The Winnipeg-based company has filed for protection under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act. The CCAA is a vehicle for insolvent companies to have the court shelter them from the claims (and claws) of creditors while they try to reach a settlement with the major, secured creditors. Wee, little, insignificant ordinary creditors are toast.

If the company comes up with an "arrangement" satisfactory to the court it can emerge as a functioning, operating entity conveniently shed of those little creditors and with the majors pared down. If the court doesn't like what it sees, it's over - bankruptcy.

What remains to be seen is what happens to the Aspers, their equity in CanWest and their future role in the management of the company.

Way to go David. Way to go Lenny. Way to go Terry and Jonathon and Lorne and all the rest of you hacks. Here's a tip. Make up your mind whether you're going to produce a newspaper or toilet paper. If it's the latter, you'll do better if you leave out the ink.

Rethink Afghanistan

Watch this and then ask yourself, "Just what are we doing in Afghanistan?"

More Rethink Afghanistan

Why Grow a Hopeless Cause?



The Civilian Cost of Afghanistan



The Women of Afghanistan

McChrystal's "Lose-Lose" Strategy for Afghanistan

The US general responsible for the West's forces in Afghanistan is already a media celebrity. General Stanley McChrystal has even been given the gushing approval of 60 Minutes. And, while he may not have much of a grip on the Taliban and tribal insurgency, he's got the Obama administration in a headlock.

McChrystal wants Obama to sweep eight years of Pentagon and NATO failure under the carpet and, instead, start over. He wants a do-over. He wants his chance to wage this war just as each of his predecessors had their turn. And, the very best part, he wants to hang the political risk for his strategy around Obama's neck.

The general and his boss, even bigger general David Petraeus, have Obama in a box. Someone on their side leaked McChrystal's report calling for more forces for Afghanistan or else failure. There it is. Give us another 40,000 troops Mr. President or we'll make our failure your failure but, if you do give us those extra troops, we're still not on the hook to win. We may even be back for more, a lot more.


McChrystal wants more troops so that he can stage a tactical retreat. He's proposing to yield control of the countryside to the insurgent/rebels and, instead, concentrate on defending population centres. Any way you cut it, that's a retreat.


The Petraeus/McChrystal tag team are falling back on the cities. They're presenting this as a strategy when, in fact, it's not their strategy but the other side's that's behind this. The insurgent/rebels now pose a genuine threat to Afghanistan's cities, notably Kabul and Kandahar city. If those centers fall, it is indeed over and everyone knows it. The insurgent/rebels will gain a critical mass at which point our side's warlords, in the time-honoured Afghan tradition, will begin to defect. The insurgent/rebel leaders are trying to force the West into the same untenable position previously occupied by the Soviets - a foreign army propping up a nub government at war with all the tribes.


It doesn't help that Obama's key general has aspirations of someday winning the Republican presidential nomination. In my opinion Petraeus has a pretty direct interest in making sure that, when the music stops, he's not the one who winds up without a chair.


If the insurgent/rebels succeed in forcing the White House and Pentagon to accept urban warfare in Afghanistan it hands them several powerful victories. It's an enormous victory in the Taliban's war, the political war, the war for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. The public perception, right or wrong, will be that the Western forces have been driven to retreat.


Undermining the public's confidence in the willingness and ability of the government and government forces to protect them is the Holy Grail of the insurgent/rebel's political war. The West's problem is made all the worse by the inability or unwillingness of the central government to establish itself as viable, effective and honest. We're propping up an unnecessarily unpopular and hopelessly corrupt regime and we don't have the means to change that.


As Western forces fall back on the population centers, so does Afghanistan's central government. Kabul's already tenuous grip on the countryside, without which it cannot become viable, is lost.


If Obama gives McChrystal the additional 40,000 troops already demanded, his generals will probably be back for more before long. Why's that? Look to David Petraeus for the answer to that one. He commanded the brain trust that wrote the US military's new counterinsurgency manual, FM3-24. One of the pearls of that collected wisdom is the observation that successful counterinsurgency requires a force of one counterinsurgent (soldier) for every 25-50 of the civilian population. Afghanistan has a population of nearly 30,000,000. To secure that population in these highly difficult circumstances would require, by Petraeus' formula, a force of not less than 600,000 soldiers. That's what you need to win, not 60,000 here and another 40,000 there.


The insurgent/rebel's second victory in forcing the Western forces to fall back on population centers is that it negates much of the West's heavy firepower superiority. Tanks don't work well in a labyrinth of narrow city streets. You can't call down artillery barrages and air strikes on the friendly locals in downtown neighbourhoods. You're left with the very sort of battle best suited to the insurgent/rebels. It's the sort of battle that allows them to inflict the level of casualties that destroys public support at home.

I suspect that Stan McChrystal knows that he's inherited a load of stable sweepings. The Pentagon must feel that, in Afghanistan, it's been placed behind the eight ball by the neglect and hapless leadership of the Bush administration in the years immediately after the Taliban were run out, the years when Bush & Co. were distracted by Iraq. I'm guessing that the Pentagon sees this as a political betrayal and wants to stick the blame on the political classes, even if that means the successor to George w. Bush. I'd bet they're all too ready to stick Obama with this fiasco.

Burying Healthcare Reform with Money

It's war. America's healthcare industry has launched a legion of lobbyists to overrun, even overwhelm Congress to block public medical insurance and thwart other reforms.

Sounds like hyperbole? Not really. What else can you call it when Big Med is waging its campaign with six lobbyists for every member of Congress? From The Guardian:

The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totalling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law.

...Drug and insurance companies say they are merely seeking to educate politicians and the public. But with industry lobbyists swarming over Capitol Hill ‑ there are six registered healthcare lobbyists for every member of Congress ‑ a partner in the most powerful lobbying firm in Washington acknowledged that healthcare firms' money "has had a lot of influence" and that it is "morally suspect".

Right, and can anyone guess just how much "education" a senator can get with $1.5m of Big Med money in his pocket?

A primary target of criticism is Senator Max Baucus, the single largest recipient of health industry political donations and chairman of the finance committee that drafted the legislation criticised by Woolhander.

The committee this week twice voted against including public insurance in the legislation, with Baucus opposing it both times.

Baucus took $1.5m from the health sector for his political fund in the past year. Other members of the committee have received hundreds of thousands of dollars. They include Senator Pat Roberts, who last week tried to stall the bill by arguing that lobbyists needed three days to read it.

Baucus holds dinners for health industry executives at which they pay thousands of dollars each to be at the table, and an annual fly-fishing and golfing weekend in his home state of Montana that lobbyists pay handsomely to attend. They have included John Jonas, who represents healthcare firms for Patton Boggs, widely regarded as the top lobbying firm in Washington. Jonas, who formerly worked on the congressional staff, acknowledges that political contributions are intended to buy influence and says it works.

Bush Blamed for Russia-Georgia War

It was no surprise this week when an independent EU fact-finding commission reported that Georgia started its 5-day war with Russia in August, 2008. But a member of that commission, writing in The New York Times, says their report left out the role George w. Bush played in the outbreak of that conflict and in failing to bring Georgia's Saakashvili to heel:

...the report has a major flaw. It fails to thoroughly analyze the decisive role that the United States played before, during and after the conflict. Only a detailed assessment of President George W. Bush’s Georgia policy and its failures can fully explain the outbreak of the war and help the E.U. and President Obama shape new policies toward Russia and Georgia.

...After 9/11, ...President Bush changed the policy toward Georgia, introducing two elements that developed into serious strategic disadvantages. Mr. Bush not only made Georgia into a partner in the “war on terror,” but he promoted Mr. Saakashvili and Georgia into a centerpiece of his “promotion of democracy.” In Tbilisi in 2005, Mr. Bush proclaimed Mr. Saakashvili’s Georgia “a beacon of liberty.”

Even as President Bush became increasingly aware that he needed the Kremlin’s help in Iran and for other American interests, he was kept a prisoner by this exaggeration of Georgia’s importance for U.S. foreign policy.

Senior officials of the Bush administration claim they warned Mr. Saakashvili against using force against Russia. But having invested so much ideological importance in the Georgian president, Mr. Bush couldn’t warn him publicly — or, as it turned out, stop him. Having become so dependent on Mr. Saakashvili’s success, the United States lost the political influence to stop him.

Once the war broke out on the night of Aug. 7, President Bush decided against any U.S. military action, and instead to encourage President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, then holding the E.U. presidency, to seek a cease-fire. That was also a strategic mistake: Only the United States had the political clout to negotiate and enforce a serious peace agreement with Russia.

A foreign policy failure of the Bush administration? That'd be one for the record books, wouldn't it? Jörg Himmelreich's assessment does make sense. It explains why, when Russia snapped back and counterattacked into Georgia, Saakashvili appeared genuinely surprised that the United States didn't send forces to rally to his support. He really believed that, even if Western Europe didn't go to war with Russia in defence of Georgia, America would.

Dalai Lama - Afghanistan Is A Failure

He accepts that war is sometimes necessary as in the Second World War and Korea. But, to the Dalai Lama, both Bush's Iraq adventure and the war in Afghanistan are failures.

At a press conference in Calgary he was asked about the tar sands. He responded indirectly by saying that in a choice between, "destruction of environment or losing money, then we have to choose losing money."

Hmm, I wonder if there's still time for Iggy to become a Buddhist?

Earth to Obama

It's not enough for Barack Obama to negotiate a climate change deal with China. It's Earth that matters, not China. However the approach Obama is taking virtually guarantees we're all going to fail in the fight against global warming. From The New Republic:

It's been a long year--Barack Obama has faced, in rough order, John McCain, global financial collapse, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Blue Dogs, the Progressive Caucus, the Gang of Six, Glenn Beck, Representative Joe Wilson (R-Hissy), and the third of Republicans convinced he was born somewhere else. Of course, minus the birth certificates, roughly the same has been true for Hu Jintao and Nicolas Sarkozy, for Angela Merkel and Manmohan Singh. That's what politics is--a series of challenges, which are rarely won or lost completely. You get part of what you wanted (everyone with health insurance), and maybe you leave other stuff for another day (the public option). That's why we call politics the pursuit of the possible.
And it's why the next big issue on the agenda is totally, scarily different. Assuming that the health care fracas eventually ends, Washington will tackle the president's other great priority for his administration--energy and climate. The House has already approved the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, and a Senate version is expected at month's end. Even if Congress drags its feet, Obama will visit China in mid-November to likely conclude a bilateral pact that will set the stage for the huge Copenhagen climate conference in December. It promises to be one more big fight.

But, throughout the process, as industry and environmentalists, Chinese and Indians, Americans and Europeans push and prod each other, another more important negotiation will be going on behind the scenes. That negotiation features human beings--led more by Obama than anyone else on the planet--against physics and chemistry. It's not going to be enough to strike a deal with Beijing or Delhi, to meet in the middle on some mutually plausible scheme. A deal has to be struck with the climate itself, and the climate is unlikely to haggle.

The logic is inescapable. Unless you negotiate within a "never exceed" emissions framework, all you'll accomplish is to negotiate yourself right past a tipping point where the planet's natural carbon dioxide and methane emission mechanisms are triggered. If you don't negotiate to stay well within that threshold, your negotiations are disastrous to the point of potentially lethal.

Is the US Really a Democracy?

The performance of Democratic senators and representatives in the healthcare debate has led me to question whether America is still a democracy.

Throw these facts into the mix and see what you come out with. Americans spend more per capita on health care than citizens of any other nation. America spends a much higher percentage of its GDP on healthcare than any other nation. The quality of American healthcare, despite all the money that's poured into it, ranks 37th globally. Americans are paying enormous sums for really quite poor results. Close to 15% of Americans have no healthcare insurance at all. The administrative costs of the private healthcare insurance industry eat up approximately 30% of every health care dollar. The American public supports universal healthcare.

Despite all of those compelling facts, which are not even disputed, and despite that the Democrats have not only a majority but a veto-proof super majority in Congress, not only is single payor healthcare taboo but the so-called "government option" gets trounced - by Democrats. You have to ask just who is pulling their strings? Could it be the lobbyists and the all-powerful healthcare industry? Big Med, Big Pharma perhaps?

Here's my point. If both the Republicans and the Democrats answer to the same master - and it's not the American public - aren't you left with a de facto one-party state? And we know any one-party state can't be a democracy because the manner in which it governs isn't decided at the ballot box. It's decided not by how people vote but by how forces that don't vote buy influence, even control. An America in which both parties are controlled by corporatism is not a democracy.

It's Not Ignatieff's Problem - It's Yours

The problem goes deeper than Michael Ignatieff. The Liberal Party's real problem are the Liberal Party members responsible for putting Ignatieff at the helm. That's Jim Travers' take on the Liberal malaise. The worst part is - he's absolutely right.

From a distance, Ignatieff was easily mistaken for [a] champion. A cosmopolitan public intellectual with patrician bloodlines, the writer and professor blended exotic success with domestic roots.

All that was missing was the discipline of due diligence. Locked on to Ignatieff in much the same way they blindly fastened their fortune to rusty John Turner, Liberals either ignored or dismissed available evidence contradicting the consensus and conventional wisdom. Too lightly weighed was the absence of experience in a craft that mercilessly punishes on-the-job training. Too easily skimmed was the library of awkward Ignatieff musings on the American Empire, the Iraq war and the utility of torture. Too fast forgotten was the revealing use of "we" when talking to southern neighbours wary Canadians know as "them."

Every portrait needs a frame and Liberals had none for Ignatieff. A party that hadn't seriously considered its policies, principles or purpose for nearly 20 years could only wistfully compare him to Pierre Trudeau and consider his candidacy in the context of Liberal prospects in the next election.

The Liberal conclusion, accelerated by the Christmas coalition crisis, was that the more seasoned and campaign ready Rae was too burdened by his NDP resumé and that Ignatieff was the answer. Given a broader choice, Canadians are proving harder to convince.

Travers is right on this one, dead right. It was almost stomach-churning to listen to all the IgLibs swooning over "Michael" and praising the brilliance of the "war room" guys all the while the party stagnated and fumbled and their vaunted Michael slid beneath Harper in public acceptance.

Travers is right that there's an arrogant indifference to the Liberal Party and its members about policy and principles and purpose even liberalism itself. Many Liberal bloggers I've observed are far too preoccupied in their party reclaiming power to discuss what the LPC ought to do if returned to power.

Michael (swoon) will unveil our policy when Harper calls the next election, right? Whose policies? Michael's? Is this guy who unequivocally supported the brutal conquest of Gaza, who can't see beyond the Athabasca Tar Sands, who somehow thinks Canada and the world need a muscular Canadian military presence, who supported the illegal invasion of Iraq, who made so many other questionable calls along the way - he's going to tell the party what its policies will be?

Oh please, spare me.

I, for one, hope there is an early election call and I hope in the wake of that election the LPC membership emerges with an appreciation that the Liberal Party of Canada without liberalism is an empty vessel the Canadian voter will not embrace.

An Ounce of Prevention - Mike, Steve, Are You Listening?

Two recent events have clearly demonstrated the essential need for climate change information and preparation. It saves lives, lots of them.

US Samoa was hit by a tsunami yesterday but the loss of life was greatly reduced by public awareness and planning. Now, obviously, the earthquake that generated the tsunami is not a product of climate change but the event does show how proper public education and planning can save lives.

The typhoon that struck the Philippines and Vietnam, Typhoon Ketsana, does make the direct case for climate change education and planning. The Philippines, which was struck first, was relatively unprepared and got hammered. Vietnam had a couple of days warning and, largely due to a properly informed and prepared public, was able to avoid massive loss of life:

Ngo Thi Thanh has weathered dozens of tropical storms and typhoons living in central Vietnam’s coastal region, but in her 60 years she has never seen the kind of destruction wrought by Typhoon Ketsana, which struck late on 29 September.

“It swept through just like an atomic bomb was dropped here,” says Thanh, who lives in Quang Nam, the hardest-hit province, on the south-central coast of Vietnam.

... Ugo Blanco, who is helping to coordinate the UN Development Programme’s response to the storm, says the casualty figures could have been much higher. “The typhoon was one of the worst in intensity, but not in terms of damage,” says Blanco.

This was because “preparation was very, very good. When the storm hit the Philippines it triggered preparations [in Vietnam]. Two hundred thousand people were evacuated. It saved many, many lives.”

In the Philippines where the death count already stands at 250 and the displaced number 730,000, Typhoon Ketsana has fueled demands for urgent action on climate change:

"The death, the pain and the damage in the Philippines help us to understand the necessity of an earnest negotiation," Heherson Alvarez, head of the Philippine delegation to the talks and presidential adviser on climate change, told reporters.

"We should cut deep and cut early in order to moderate these destructive typhoons," he said. "Think of Manila. Think of what can happen in this world." Alvarez said the Philippines experiences about 20 typhoons a year; they have been increasing in speed over the past 30 years from 100km to up to 200km per hour.

The Philippines is gathering scientific data to show the effects of climate change on the country, but Alvarez said there was evidence to show a correlation between an increase in the level of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and the severity of typhoons.

Graciano Yumul, under-secretary at the Philippine government's national Department of Science and Technology, pointed to changing weather patterns in the world's second largest archipelago nation, including rain during the country's normally dry summer months from April to June.

During summer this year, "a lot of people died because three typhoons hit the country. Summer is supposed to be dry, not wet," said Yumul.

The Word's Out - We're Backing Karzai!

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the West has decided to hold its nose and support the supposed re-election of Afghan president Hamid Karzai:

The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and NATO foreign ministers have reached a consensus that Mr Karzai will probably stay on as president, regardless of the continuing inquiry into vote rigging.

The allies told the Afghan Foreign Minister, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, in a meeting in New York last week that they would support the regime and its policy of persuading Taliban commanders to defect.

...Despite concerns that the US-led military mission could fail if Mr Karzai's weak and corrupt government continued, the allies see him as the only viable option.

Nearly six weeks after polling day, Afghanistan remains in political limbo, with either a certified victory or a decision to hold a second round of voting at least a week away.

Shit, oh dear. Another endorsement from the West for rule by warlords. Does no one realize that our legitimacy over there now can be no greater than Karzai's legitimacy that can, in turn, be no greater than that totally fraudulent election? Not that we had a lot of choice but I think we've just handed the Taliban and its allies the means to transform this insurgency into a genuine civil war.

Don't Allow the Slaughter of Anything More Intelligent Than Your Presidents

Thanks to George w. Bush, that would cover all species of whales and most primates, maybe even a couple of wallpaper patterns. Unfortunately America seems to be moving the other way.

The Environmental News Network reports that the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service is moving to strip the humpback whale of its endangered species protection in the north Pacific.

Since an international ban on their whaling in 1966, populations of the north Pacific humpback have increased about 4.7 percent each year, researchers say. An estimated 18,000 to 20,000 humpbacks now exist in the north Pacific.

Oh great, we'll let the Japanese cull that herd when the herd that really needs thinning is us, mankind.

So Much Hate, So Little Time

From AlterNet. Can you match the hate talk to the hate talker?


1. "We need segregated buses... In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yah, right on, right on, right on, right on,'"

2. "... monkeys came running out of the jungle, and they grabbed the golf balls ...and the rule was, you have to play the ball where the monkey throws it."

3. Obama "is most certainly creating a climate of hate against" Jews.

4. Obama has... a "deep-seated hatred for white people… and white culture."

5. "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate."

6. "The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans."

A. Lou Dobbs
B. Glenn Beck
C. Rush Limbaugh
D. Michael Savage
E. Congressman Ray Blount

(Answers: 1-C 2-E 3-D 4-B 5-C 6-A)

Yeah But Did They Use a Fact-Checker?

Sarah Palin's memoir, you bet'cha. Comin' out in November, don'tcha know. She's fixin to tell us her whole life story and it's bound to be a good one - story that is, as in tall tale.

Now we know that Sarah isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. That she made it to the drawer at all was due to a chain of flukes. Sarah may be the darling of America's radicalized right but, like them, she can be a stranger to truth and reality.

I'll tell you who will be snapping up advance copies of her tome - anyone interested in the Republican nomination in 2012, that's who. They'll be parsing every phrase, dissecting every claim, preparing themselves to slice and dice her into slaw during the drawn out nomination campaign.

Oh yeah, somebody else - Tina Fey.

So Many Wars All in One Little Country

Compare and contrast:

1. The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.

2. An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict.

3. War between people of the same country.

Which of these describes the conflict underway in Afghanistan today? Does it matter? In fact it does. The first of these is the US military's definition of terrorism. The second its definition of insurgency. The third is the standard definition of civil war.

When an internal conflict reaches sufficient proportions that the interests of other countries are affected, outside states may recognize a state of insurgency. A recognition of insurgency, whether formal or de facto, indicates that the recognizing state regards the insurgents as proper contestants for legitimate power. Although the precise status of insurgents under international law is not well-defined, recognized insurgents traditionally gain the protection afforded soldiers under international rules of law pertaining to war. A state may also decide to recognize the contending group as a belligerent, a status that invokes more well-defined rights and responsibilities. Once recognized as a belligerent party, that party obtains the rights of a belligerent party in a public war, or war between opposing states. The belligerents stand on a par with the parent state in the conduct and settlement of the conflict. In addition, states recognizing the insurgents as belligerents must assume the duties of neutrality toward the conflict.

At the moment, Western politicians and military leaders deliberately blur the distinction when they describe the war they're fighting in Afghanistan. The continued presence (so we're told anyway) of al Qaeda allows them to maintain they're fighting terrorists, the "9/11" bunch. We have to keep fighting in Afghanistan, the line goes, to prevent that country from again becoming a sanctuary for terrorists.

But the Taliban didn't return as terrorists but as guerrillas in a classic insurgency. That's a nationalist movement, an "organized movement" to be sure but still narrowly based especially in a multi-ethnic state like Afghanistan.

Today, however, that insurgency has morphed into something more closely resembling a civil war. As noted by General McChrystal, the Taliban has been joined by two other groups - Haqqani's forces and Hekmatyar and his militia. Also involved are the drug lords (who may or may not also support Karzai), common criminals (who may or may not also support Karzai), ordinary Afghans who sign on for the pay or to exact revenge and the standard bunch of nationalists who just want the infidels out of their country.

As in a civil war, the Taliban and their supporters actually control territory and contest control in other areas, implementing their own security and justice systems for example. Sure they're brutal but they offer the people relief from Kabul's predations and corruption.

Are these distinctions - terrorism, insurgency, civil war - important? I think they are for several reasons. One of these is that the nature of the adversary defines the type of war you're fighting. Terrorists and insurgents operate differently and must be confronted differently. We're constantly told about "moderate" Taliban fighters but no one is suggesting there's a moderate wing within al Qaeda.

The more troubling prospect becomes the evolution of a full-blown civil war. That's because we, the Western outsiders, Infidels, are propping up one side of that conflict. It's not a very nice side to boot. Without us Karzai wouldn't last more than a few months and he knows it. This past election showed his limited support and how what support he did muster had to be bought. And, all other considerations aside, this is the true measure of how little we've achieved since 2001.

The side we're defending, enabling to remain notionally in power, is decidedly unpopular. As a functioning government it's not viable nor, as the election has shown, is it particularly legitimate. If we're going into a civil war Karzai and his cadre of warlords are not the sort of government who are going to generate a lot of badly needed support for our side. It's one thing if it's Western forces versus the Taliban. It's another thing entirely if it's Western forces versus the people of Afghanistan. We didn't go there to fight Afghan nationalists but, within a short time, we may be reduced to that.

Karzai versus the insurgency. Do you think the Afghan public's perception of the last election is going to garner support for Karzai or for the one party that is directly opposing him? Do you think that election did anything to increase Karzai's acceptability to the insurgents? Answer one - of course not. Answer two - of course not. Anyway you carve it up, that election was a body blow to our efforts in Afghanistan. We ignore that at our peril.

We're not winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. We've been there too long and for too long we've waged war very counterproductively. Afghans can't be counted on to put up with that for very long and a lot of them have already had their fill of us. We may not be winning them over but Karzai is positively losing them. This is a candle burning from both ends.

McChrystal is right; the sort of warfare the West has waged has led us to the brink of failure. Where he's wrong is in contending that he can now do what we actually needed to do as far back as 2003. That's when the Afghan people needed our security. That's when we needed to rid Afghanistan of warlord rule. Unfortunately McChrystal is fighting Afghanistan 2009 not Afghanistan 2003 and he has no means to roll back that clock. Whistling past the graveyard is not a strategy to reverse our failures in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan - Now There's Real Progress

Finally. Finally the Harper government has ordered Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan to either stop or report incidents of Afghan soldiers and interpreters raping young boys. DefMin Pete MacKay announced that yesterday, after years of pretending that Canadian soldiers and others hadn't been complaining about the predilictions of our supposed Afghan allies.

"We require that any wrongdoing that a Canadian soldier would see in Afghanistan or anywhere would be no less than the expectation that we would have in Canada – to do the right thing, to prevent, to pre-empt, to intervene," MacKay said Monday.

Now Pete what about those young girls in prison down the road from Canada's garrison, thrown into the slammer for refusing their fathers' attempts to sell them to other old men? Think maybe we should spring them too?

Vatican Points Pedophile Finger

The Vatican admits it's had a few bumps and bruises from revelations of child molestation, and worse, by its priests but, hey, doesn't every church? In fact, the Vatican says that, when it comes to kid diddling, some other churches are just as bad, even worse:

In a defiant and provocative statement, issued following a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva, the Holy See said the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts were not paedophiles but homosexuals attracted to sex with adolescent males.

The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that "available research" showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

He also quoted statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.

So, if the Vatican admits that Priestly Peds are less than 5% of its clergy and excludes from that calculation garden variety homosexual priests who just like to do adolescent males, defining them as "the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts," what's the bottom line when you lump in the teen diddlers with the really 'little kid' diddlers?

The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

Well, unfortunately that last statement invites us to do the math. If the Vatican admits that upwards of 5% of its clergy are peds but, of all its priests committing abuses, 80-90% aren't peds in Rome's eyes but just gay guys who fancy sex with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17 (that's not pedophilia?), then that works out to a whopping 50% overall. And the Vatican is pointing fingers? That's just plain creepy.

Why are Canadians Being Sold Down the River on Climate Change?

Look at it this way. Civilization is almost certainly doomed, finished if the leaders of the world show the same desultory attitude to climate change as Messrs. Harper, Ignatieff and Layton.

The latest number crunching by the United Nations Environment Programme shows that, even if all countries were to fully meet their carbon reduction targets, we're still going to blow right through the magic 2 degrees Celsius mark accepted as the absolute, "never exceed" limit to salvage our civilization. In fact, if our global leaders are miraculously totally successful in achieving their targets, mankind's emissions will still result in about 3.6 degrees Celsius heating by the end of this century.

There is an enormous amount of hope built into these projections. For example, we hope the earth can handle 2 degrees Celsius of heating without reaching 'tipping points' at which the planet begins releasing its own greenhouse gases - CO2 and methane - at life-snuffing volumes. Remember, these tipping points are just that. They're the point at which we capsize, the point where we lose control and are just along for a truly nasty dunking.

Why are Canadians not discussing this? Why are we not getting the information we need from Ottawa? There are so many things we ought to be considering, things we need to begin evaluating. So why is that not happening? Because we have a prime minister who wants to suppress that information and opposition leaders, Liberal and NDP, who are just fine with that.

Steve and Mike are Tar Sands shills, real bitumen boosters. You can't speak of the Tar Sands and the UNEP projections and not come off sounding like a reprobate. When you bring the two into the light of day together, your grand vision of the nation is revealed to be a sham. So what's Jack's excuse? The diminutive, bald-headed plebian knows that discussing this existential threat quickly and inevitably leads to substantial carbon tax initiatives and this court jester doesn't want to be associated with measures that might hit you in the wallet when you take the gas guzzling pick up to the pump.

When it comes to climate change, these three are afraid - not for what's facing our kids and grandkids, but for how this could derail their political fortunes. This is all about them. They're delighted to drone on endlessly about employment insurance and stimulus spending and Afghanistan and anything else they can transform into political fodder - but they won't discuss climate change, what it's going to mean for today's Canadians and tomorrow's and what we can and should be doing about it.

What kind of men are these three? I have one word that fits but I won't use it here.

Climate Change Numbers Heat Up

There's a new phenomenon sweeping through the halls of climate science - realism. After nearly two decades of constantly understating the problem, of seeing successive projections unexpectedly overtaken by events - and with the ever-important Copenhagen summit just a couple of months away - they're really sharpening their pencils and you're not going to like their results.

Memo to Steve and Mike - these numbers are going to make Tar Sands shills about as welcome as having Nosferatu in to babysit your kids.

Here's the bottom line. Even if every nation fully met its ultimate carbon emissions reduction targets the earth will warm at least 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit or about 3.5 degrees Celsius. Another way of looking at it is that this forecast is almost double the estimated maximum permissible heating if civilization as we know it is to survive. From the Washington Post:


The United Nations Environment Programme report, "Climate Change Science Compendium 2009", breaks from the past. It's not a consensus-based report like the previous IPCC reports that have consistently understated the problem. The denialists and lobbyists aren't going to be allowed to sabotage this report, it's simply too important.

Achim Steiner, UNEP's executive director, told reporters at the National Press Club on Thursday that the report aims to update the IPCC's 2007 findings to reflect both new physical evidence and a more sophisticated understanding of how Earth systems work.

"With every day that passes, the underlying trends that science has provided is . . . of such a dramatic nature that shying away from a major agreement in Copenhagen will probably be unforgivable if you look back in history at this moment," Steiner said. He noted that since 2000 alone, the average rate of melting at 30 glaciers in nine mountain ranges has doubled compared with the rate during the previous two decades.

"These are not things that are in dispute in terms of data," he said. "They are actually physically measurable."

...activists such as 350.org director Bill McKibben said politicians worldwide are not taking aggressive enough steps to address climate change.

"Here's where we are: The political system is not producing at the moment a result which has anything to do with what the science is telling us," said McKibben, whose group aims to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, well below the 450 ppm target that leaders of the Group of 20 major nations have embraced.

What makes me so damn mad about this is that Harper, Ignatieff and Layton; the people who ought to be getting Canadians specific, reliable information about this issue, what each of our regions can expect by way of change and what we can do to prepare for it, stand mute and wilfully keep us in the dark. I'm sorry to say this but each of these guys is betraying the people of Canada.

Swiss Nab Polanski - Extradition Next?

Roman Polanski got more than he bargained for when he showed up in Switzerland Saturday to collect an honorary award at the Zurich film festival. He was arrested by Swiss authorities on the 1977 US charges for drugging and sodomizing a 13-year old girl.

No, not for alledgedly drugging and sodomizing a 13-year old girl. Polanski admitted his pedophilic abuses in pleading guilty. He then escaped to Europe while awaiting sentencing.

America's New Political Class - the Idiocracy

When I watch news clips of the Birthers or the Teabaggers or the typical Limbots or Beckerheads I'm left with this feeling I've witnessed something rarely seen outside of really awful places like North Korea. I realize these nutjobs make up just a minority, although a sizeable minority, of the American people but how many does it take before one of them does something truly horrifying.

It's not like America simply emptied its asylums. If these people were merely running aimlessly through the fields and forests like feral cats it wouldn't be so bad. It's just that they haven't been released, they've been harnessed, mobilized. Perhaps the genius of the Hannitys and Limbaughs and Becks has been to realize that there are enough gullible, unquestioning dimwits to be had and infuriated and scared silly, on the cheap to boot, that they don't have to compete for the hearts and minds of thinking Americans. There's always enough booze left in the empties that if you don't mind tipping back enough of them you can still get hammered.

As America's middle class was slowly choked to death, a new group rose to take its place, to claim its influence - the American Idiocracy. These are people who, for most of their lives, have been economically and politically shackled to their own stupidity, insecurity and superstitions who suddenly find themselves courted by the unscrupulous hucksters who have come to recognize their coarse utility. To these connivers, also known as Republicans, the Idiocracy was the low-hanging fruit, the malignancy of "one man, one vote."

What must they think of their followers, their faithful, as they spoonfeed them the most outrageous lies and watch them swallow them whole until they bloat with hatred and fury. They must hold their constituents in horrible contempt.

Fortunately the Idiocracy's influence may be peaking. They're not powerful enough to form their own party and they're simply too odious to be tolerated for too long amid mainstream parties. Like their religious extremist counterparts, the Idiocracy has served its purpose as far as the conservative Republican movement is concerned and is becoming much more of a liability than an asset for the future. FOX News and open mouth radio will be their mainstay for these media are addicted to the Idiocracy. Morons are their bread and butter and they haven't got religion to fall back on. But, fortunately, the Idiocracy has a limited shelf-life on the national stage, unless this is true:


Idiocracy - Opening Sequence - Amazing videos are here

Krusadin' in Kandahar?

Is our paramount ally, the United States military, boosting our image as Crusaders in the Muslim world, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan? Chris Roda, in a piece in today's AlterNet, makes the case that our ally is shoving Christianity down Muslim throats, providing invaluable propaganda to Islamist extremists.

One clip from Roda's article is this video of a fundamentalist preacher in Iraq praising the Lord for meeting his soldiers' prayers for bibles in Swahili. Really, Swahili.




Now it should come as no surprise that Swahili is not a language indigenous to any part of Iraq. In fact, here is a map of just where Swahili is spoken:

And The Winner Is:

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.Here are the 2009 winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7.. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer, right?

12. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido : All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

Don't Blame Hummer Drivers - They're Not Quite Right In The Head

Maybe you like the sight of a Hummer negotiating the supermarket parking lot but probably you don't. To most of us the Hummer personifies the sort of unrestrained overconsumption that afflicts today's world in so many ways.

So what entices a motorist to sport about in this military surplus behemoth? Many, it seems, do it because they're not quite right in the head. A trio of researchers representing the University of Innsbruck, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and York University set out to find out what's on the minds of Hummer owners.

They investigated various Internet expressions of anti-Hummer sentiment, but they were equally interested in the ways Hummer owners framed themselves as "moral protagonists" in the ongoing debate over consumer values. They conducted in-depth interviews with twenty U.S.-born and raised Hummer owners and found among these consumers an equally strong current of moralism.

"As we studied American Hummer owners and their ideological beliefs, we found that they consider Hummer driving a highly moral consumption choice," write the authors. "For Hummer owners it is possible to claim the moral high ground."

The authors explain that Hummer owners employ the ideology of American foundational myths, such as the "rugged individual," and the "boundless frontier" to construct themselves as moral protagonists. They often believe they represent a bastion again anti-American discourses evoked by their critics.

"Our analysis of the underlying American identity discourses revealed that being under siege by (moral) critics is an historically established feature of being an American," write the authors. "The moralistic critique of their consumption choices readily inspired Hummer owners to adopt the role of the moral protagonist who defends American national ideals."

Their findings shouldn't come as much of a surprise. In a nation that worships gun ownership, it's not a big stretch to see a Hummer as the embodiment of American ideals.

Does Canada Need a Conservative Government Plus a Conservative Government in Waiting?

It seems to me that one Canadian conservative government is enough. Iggiphiles may see the transformation of the Liberal Party of Canada into a mild copy of the CPC as no great problem but what matters aren't Ignatieff backers but Canadian voters. As The Globe's Jeffrey Simpson points out, to many voters Iggy is just the "same old, same old" they've been getting from Harper:

...rhetoric aside, a convergence between the two parties is noticeable, as the Conservatives become big-spending middle-of-the-roaders and learn more about foreign policy, and the Liberals seem incapable or unwilling to present anything terribly arresting.

Both parties agree, for example, on how to eliminate the federal deficit – slowly and largely by counting on economic growth to spare them from making too many hard decisions. They are obviously content to let debt pile up because they fear being honest with voters that without tax increases and spending cuts, the debt burden will be passed on to their children. Both have ruled out increasing taxes on individuals, businesses and spending. Both insist they will protect Ottawa's massive transfers to provinces. Neither dares touch big federal transfers to individuals, such as pensions. Neither has mentioned slowing down the increase in defence spending.

What do these exemptions leave? It's simple mathematics: cuts to other government programs.
But which ones? Neither party will say, fearing political controversy. All the Liberals argue is that if they must cut, their cuts will be more compassionate.

...As for the... ...Liberals' foreign-policy critique, it is astonishingly thin for a party led by a man who lived so long abroad and visited so many other countries, including failed and failing states. Framing a foreign policy based on that experience ought to have been an Ignatieff high card; instead, his speech last week revealed something much lower down the deck.

A secretariat for the G20. A peace institute. These sound good, but are really quite silly. The return of Team Canada missions? Harmless. A new approach to India and China? See above. Complaints that Mr. Harper's government hasn't worked hard enough against U.S. protectionism are simply wrong. On Afghanistan and the Arctic, the Liberal policy is essentially the government's policy.

The one area of true disagreement comes in the Liberal promise to go to bat for Canadians facing death sentences abroad, or languishing without charge in foreign jails. That's a fair point for debate, but it hardly constitutes a different foreign policy, writ large.

The rhetoric infecting these speeches suggests wide differences and new ideas. Strip the rhetoric away, and the differences narrow and the search for interesting new ideas shrivels.

For those of you who think the mere name Liberal is a more than compelling reason to vote in support of the party, Simpson's comments will seem irrelevant or wrong-headed. But for those who believe that Liberal actually means liberal, there's a great depth of meaning in Simpson's observations.

I think Iggles would have been more comfortable running the CPC than the LPC. In fact I think Canada would have been much better off with a Conservative government led by Ignatieff than with a Liberal opposition led by that same man.

Obama's War

Barack Obama's greatest problem might just turn out to be George w. Bush's second term in office.

In his last four years, Bush ran pretty much on auto-pilot, not doing much beyond fending off his critics while letting his south Asian wars slowly degrade. Bush was so swept up in his Iraq fiasco and so distracted from the Afghan War that he permitted, even unwittingly empowered the destabilization of neighbouring Pakistan. Incurious George massively grew the war he would bequeath to his successor.

Here's something to mull over. These dire warnings and alarms coming today from General Stanley McChrystal truly beg the question of why his predecessors, including the supposedly great Petraeus, weren't raising these warnings four years ago when the AfPak dilemma wasn't so intractable, when there might still have been time to straighten out the central government in Kabul? Why did Petraeus and his underlings stand mute? Were they intimidated by Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney? Were they more interested in their careers than in speaking truth to power?

Why did Canadian generals follow the same path in Kandahar? Why weren't they standing up for their troops to denounce this incompetently waged war? Why have they let Ottawa use their soldiers as political footballs?

The bravest, best trained, best equipped and most highly motivated soldiers cannot overcome weak military and bad political leadership. Maybe, just maybe, Barack Obama can make good America's political leadership deficit from the Bush days but can even a great general overcome the enormous damage caused by eight years of hapless military leadership in Afghanistan?

I don't believe they can and here's why. As McChrystal's report points out, the West isn't just fighting a Taliban insurgency any longer. It's morphed into something quite different with the addition of Haqqani's and Hekmatyar's militias and their ranks may soon be swollen further by dissident nationalists infuriated by Karzai's fraudulent election win. As I've said for some time, I think what was a simple insurgency when Bush was sworn in again in 2005 has now evolved into a genuine civil war. This isn't about terrorism any more, it's about nationalism now and which of two sides will be strong enough to rule Afghanistan.

Humpty Dumpty - make that Hamid Dumpty - has fallen off the wall and all of our horses and all of our men can't put that bugger back together again and we know it. Since we know that legitimizing the Karzai government is a lost cause, can't be done, won't be done, how much sense is there in continuing a losing battle to prop him up? We can always toss him but then who do we find to take over? Dostum, Fahim, Gul Agha - they're worse than Karzai! Abdullah Abdullah? Maybe but then you add Dostum, Fahim and the others to the enemies column.

This is what happens when you allow a warlord state to evolve. In Afghanistan a warlord's loyalty depends on which way the wind is blowing on any given day. History has shown that it won't take much to swing "our" warlords over to the other side. An ominous sign is how miserably we've failed in winning back Taliban allies like Hekmatyar. Evil as the old bastard is, we have tried and so has Karzai. Old Hek is with his historic enemies, the Taliban, for a reason. He's taken a look at the cards on the table and he doesn't see that we're holding any winning hand.

Unfortunately for Obama, leaving Afghanistan is the hard option, simply staying is much easier. If you think a great many Americans are too dumb to grasp the healthcare issue, ask how many don't understand the difference between a military war and a political war? Reagan restored in these people the myth of American military invincibility. Bush Sr. put it on display in Desert Storm and his halfwit son sort of did the same when he toppled Saddam. The real lesson is that America can positively triumph in quick wars but its qualitative edge degrades rapidly in long wars. That's because quick wars are almost always military wars but protracted wars evolve into political wars in which firepower supremacy is often rendered irrelevant or even counterproductive.

In the wake of the Vietnam War the American people were utterly traumatized by the outcome. How could their America lose that war when it won every battle, when it was never defeated in the field? With that, of course, they launched into a witch hunt to identify scapegoats and, of course, settled on those who had criticized the war. To hear them talk back then, Jane Fonda had sabotaged the Pentagon. Magical thinking! What no one wanted to accept was that the decisive struggle in Vietnam was a political war, not a military war. Military victories were not going to win the Vietnam War. At best they could simply prolong it, postpone the inevitable. When America lost interest, as it inevitably must, the issue would be decided by a conventional tussle between north and south, a winner-takes-all civil war.

Back to Obama. Is Afghanistan truly a war that America cannot afford to lose? If so, is that because of this particular war and its geopolitical consequences or is that because America just can't bear losing? If it's the first, Obama must find some way to diminish the adverse consequences of leaving. Since we're the foreigners, the Infidels, maybe bringing in all the neighbours - Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan would be a good start.

Afghanistan may not be well suited to strong, central government. It may just be better off as a loose federation of five or six semi-autonomous states reflecting its marked ethnic or tribal diversity. It's painfully clear that if the West insists on an effective, central government model with provinces ruled by governors answerable to Kabul, we're going to have a tough challenge finding a leader who is up to the job, one man (and yes it will be a man) who will be able to command the support of these unruly tribes.

I think the Kabul government model is a proven loser. It didn't work under the Communists. It didn't work under the Taliban. It's not working under our guy Karzai either. Why do we keep pursuing this failed experiment? Isn't that the definition of madness? Are we trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole?

McChrystal is urging Obama to start again and it's becoming apparent he may have a point. However it's not starting the war anew that's the answer, it's a wholesale political restructuring of Afghanistan that may be the key. That might be Obama's only option to extract at least a draw in the political war underway today in Afghanistan.

Will China, India Shame the US (Canada) on Climate Change?

China and India seem poised to place the United States (and Canada) in a "put up or shut up" position on fighting climate change. The UN's top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, expects Chinese president Hu Jintao to surprise tomorrow's summit in New York by unveiling a series of climate change initiatives that will leave the US trailing badly behind. From The Guardian:

The Chinese and Indian measures — if fully realised — could represent a breakthrough in bringing them into a global climate change deal at a UN summit in Copenhagen in December. Almost all observers say the Copenhagen talks are danderously stalled.

"This suite of policies will take China to be a world leader on addressing climate change, and it will be quite ironic to hear that expressed tomorrow in a country (the United States) that is firmly convinced that China is doing nothing to address climate change," De Boer said.

...Ed Miliband, the [British] climate change secretary, said that recent moves by India, China and other developing nations had improved the chances of a comprehensive global warming deal at Copenhagen. But, writing in tomorrow's Guardian, he warned that a new kind of diplomacy was needed: "We must be in this together rather than looking for who to blame. The fate of every nation on earth hangs on the outcome of Copenhagen. It is too important to play the cards close-to-your-chest poker games that marked diplomacy of the 20th century."

Let's hope it isn't just Washington that's embarassed tomorrow. Steve Harper's Ottawa also needs to eat a big helping of humble pie.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/21/china-india-climate-change

Afghanistan Can't Afford to Win

We hear a lot of talk about how if Afghanistan just had 400,000 military and security forces it could defend itself against the spreading insurgency.

Just 400,000, that's all. This is a country of between 28 and 33-million people with a life expectancy in the mid-40's with a literacy rate barely exceeding one in four. The country stands 219th in GDP at about $700 per capita. The government has revenues of about $890-million against expenditures of $2.7-billion. It already spends three times what it makes.

How in hell is a country so poor, so weak, so beset with so many problems, going to field - and pay - a 400,000-strong security force? Here's a hint - it's not. Afghanistan is never going to train, equip and deploy a force that size and, if it did, they would have to prey on the public just to survive. Sort of like what they're already doing on a lesser scale.

The only way that could work is if we treated these forces as surrogates for Western troops, if we paid for their training, equipment and deployment. Of course that might give rise to a military command that sees itself as independent of the central government in Kabul and history shows that doesn't always work out too well. Maybe in Afghanistan though a coup would be a real plus.

McChrystal Demands More Troops to Fight Wrong War in Afghanistan

He doesn't get it. He never got it. And that's why president Obama should either refuse his Afghan commander's demand for more troops or find someone else who does understand the war the West is fighting in Afhganistan.

In a 66-page report, General Stanley McChrystal warns (warns Obama of course) that if he refuses to send a lot more troops to Afghanistan, the war will "likely result in failure" (and that would, of course, be "Obama's failure"). It's sort of saying, "give me everything I want or you'll get tagged with losing this fiasco." Blackmail.

The infuriating part is that McCrisco wants more troops to continue to fight the wrong war in Afghanistan. That much is apparent from this statement. “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

Stan wants to "gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum" which can only mean expanding the war, increasing the fighting. Isn't this the very same guy who was also talking about fresh American troops to secure the villages and keep them out of Taliban control? So, he wants an expanded combat force plus a new peacekeeping force and he wants them now. Does he think he's going to do all that with another 20,000 GIs?

But the giveaway was in the part about "defeating the insurgency" may become impossible. Does McChrystal really believe that defeating the Taliban and their associated insurgent groups was ever really possible? Western generals have been boasting about defeating the Taliban for eight years while they've steadily lost ground year by year by year. McChrystal doesn't get that the insurgency isn't fighting his war, his military war. It's never fought McChrystal's war and it isn't about to begin now and that's because his war, the war he wants to expand with tens of thousands of additional troops, it doesn't matter. McChrystal is desperate to stave off defeat in the military war when he's actually facing defeat in the war that matters, the other war, the political war - the Taliban's war.

I do have some sympathy for General McChrystal. He was handed the shitty end of the Field Marshal's baton on this one. He's been ordered to Afghanistan to command a military force fighting a military war. The only thing he can think of is to call for more soldiers and fall back on the now hollow lament about "until the Afghan National Army is ready." In other words, never.

I have more sympathy for Obama. He's being blackmailed. More troops or you'll be scapegoated for eight consecutive years of failure in Afghanistan. The Republicans would dance gleefully around the bonfire at the thought of being able to smear Obama with losing Afghanistan.

Oh dear, this is not going to turn out well. Who could've known?