Aug. 31 -- Two Iraqis

Aug. 31 -- Two Iraqis and two Saudis are among 19 men arrested by police in connection with the bombing of the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf.

Two Iraqis and two Saudis grabbed shortly after the Friday attack gave information leading to the arrest of the others, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. They include two Kuwaitis and six Palestinians with Jordanian passports with the remainder Iraqis and Saudis, the official said, without giving a breakdown.

Initial information shows the foreigners entered Iraq (news - web sites) from Kuwait, Syria and Jordan, the official said, adding that they belong to the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam.

"They are all connected to al-Qaida," the official said.

Colour me not surprised.

(Via On The Third Hand.)

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Aug. 31 -- Pursuant to

Aug. 31 -- Pursuant to this claim by Ret. Gen. Clark that the White Huse tried to get him thrown off CNN, he admits that he has no proof but heard rumours. I sense a vast. right-wing. conspiracy.

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Aug. 31 -- This is

Aug. 31 -- This is an insightful, satiric account of the Great Blog War between Monkey Boy and Darth Puppy Blender from Anger Management:

Part I
Part II
There is no Part III yet. (Big whopping hint, AG)

(Via Classical Values.)

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Betancourt appeal aired in Columbia

Aug. 31 -- Ingrid Betancourt, the Columbian woman kidnapped by Columbia guerillistas while campaigning for election as president has made a video appeal:

The video, broadcast Saturday night, was the first sign that Betancourt might still be alive since rebels released a different tape in July 2002.

There was no way of confirming when the tape was made.

"A rescue, yes, definitely, but not just any rescue," said Betancourt, who appeared in good health in the video shown by Noticias Uno. "It's important that it be the president who directly makes this decision," referring to Colombia President Alvaro Uribe.

It was on her behalf that French Foreign Min. Dominique de Villepin made a unilateral attempt to secure her freedom last July without informing either the Brazilian, Columbian and possibly even French governments of his plans. It is still a bit of a mystery what de Villepin intended to trade for her freedom, although it is suspected that money, weapons, or both were to be used.

Hmm, the Reuters links to the French caper have disappeared, but here one from Free Republic.

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Aug. 31 -- Remember the

Aug. 31 -- Remember the attack on the Indian Parliament in Dec., 2001? The man accused of being the mastermind and several of his terrorist associates were killed in a shootout with Indian police.

That attack nearly propelled India and Pakistan into war. Good riddance to Ghazi Baba, and sincere condolences to the familes of the slain policemen.

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Trying to sort stuff out

Aug. 31 -- I'm going to do a somewhat lengthy preface before I get to the meat of this post, so please just bear with me because I could easily be misunderstood in this matter and don't want to be.

Even as events were unfolding on Sept. 11, I tried to hold onto my reason against paranoid thoughts and counselled myself to breathe deeply and think. I know that both irrational fears and intense fury can turn us into lynch mobs to the point that we later reflect and ask ourselves My God, what have we done.

But, even knowing all this, I confronted a steel within myelf that day which has never left me: I am willing to kill to protect my land and my values. I know how to aim, load and fire. On Sept. 10, I would have hesitated to pull the trigger. On Sept. 12, I would have fired several times.

Never, never underestimate the intense debt we owe to the passengers and crew of Flight 93. I may die, but I'm taking you bastards with me before you can murder my people.

Yeah, I scare me. My countrymen scare me. I know us; I know that even in the most timid there is a fire that has never been quite extinguished and try as they might, the transnationalists have never succeeded in making us forget that we're here in America because we didn't want to stay there wherever there was, and we don't want to go back there. It's a simple corollary from that to why would I listen to those fools in Europe now when I already ran as fast as I could away from them?

When I've confided all that to Canadian friends, many look patronizingly comforting and think she'll get over it. Well, I haven't. I won't. Until Canada is attacked, no one here can state with absolute confidence what they'll do and think. Somehow, however, I believe that whatever the Feds say, most Canadians will revolt at being told to Pay Tribute and Move On.

Yesterday, The Canadian posted "Islam Uber Allies" which linked to this article on Front Page Magazine and I'll admit that, although I wasn't entirely dismissive, I was a bit skeptical because I wanted to be. It violates my world view, you see, because I believe that people emigrate to a new country because they wish to be remade, not because they wish to remake their new homes.

I guess it goes without saying that had I read something like this two years ago I would have rolled my eyes, muttered some liberal stuff, and clicked onward to other web sites.

Had I read this article one year and eleven months ago I would have bookmarked it for future reference but retained some skepticism and filed it under future considerations.

On the one hand we have the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Canadian Muslim Congress and their shrill, racist-baiting responses whenever anyone is detained. On the other we have Muslim residents of Dearborn Michigan who took to the streets to celebrate the fall of Baghdad, and the Muslim community in Rochester, NY, who contacted the FBI because of some odd behaviour it had noticed among those who were ultimately convicted.

I believe in the depth of my heart that many of the breakthroughs we've had in tracking down and rounding up those in terrorist cells have come from tips from the Muslim communities in North America and Europe. I can't prove it; it's just something I chose to believe.

Today I don't know what to think about things like the article in Front Page Magazine, but I do know that I can't stop trying to work this out and trying to find a new world view that accomodates both my basic confidence in my fellow humans and my willingness to defend those things which I cherish.

There is in this, as in all things, a balance, and it is finding the balance that is our biggest challenge and could be our greatest triumph.

I say all that as a preface to the following link to Australian news Pacific plot in book of terror that contains some rather frightening aspects of Jemaah Islamiya, the group accused of bombing Christian churches in 2000, the Bali bombings of Oct. 2002, and the recent bombings in Jakarta.

It's difficult to read, as was the Front Page Magazine article, because it violates some truths we've always held dear. What is striking, though, is that Australia is confronting many of the same problems as Canada in that they embrace values of inclusion and diversity yet have drawn a line in the sand against terrorism, and I suspect a lot of Australians are reading this article (or, did, given the time difference) with much the same discomfort level as I.

TERRORIST group Jemaah Islamiyah has drawn up plans for a suicide bombing campaign designed to transform Asia and the Pacific region into Islamic provinces.

The scheme is revealed in a 40-page manifesto - the Pupji book or General Guide to the Struggle of JI - which also shows that Jemaah Islamiyah is a well-formed organisation with a constitution, rules of operation, and leadership structure.

The book refers to "love of Jihad in the path of God and love of dying as a martyr" as one of the group's 10 guiding principles.

It shows that JI is not just a loose amalgamation of extremists which can be paralysed by the arrests of senior figures.

Events since the Bali bombing also demonstrate that the group has moved to embrace suicide bombings as a preferred method of achieving its aims.

Until Bali, JI had not adopted suicide bombings, despite its constitution approving them.

It has now carried out at least two, including the bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta.

The book was secretly used in the trials of the Bali bombers to draw out evidence about the organisation behind the murders of 202 people, including 89 Australians.

But prosecutors did not reveal that the source of their apparent insights into JI came directly from the organisation's own manifesto.

The Pupji book refers to the education and training of members in physical fitness and weapons.

Written in a combination of Bahasa Indonesian and Arabic, the book was discovered by police during a raid on a Solo home in central Java last December.

In that raid, men now known as the "Solo Group" were arrested for helping to shelter alleged JI leader and accused Bali bombing controller, Mukhlas.

Prosecutors have used contents from the book to help them question Mukhlas in his ongoing trial.

Information from the book also was used at the Jakarta trial of alleged JI spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir.

A verdict in Bashir's treason trial will be handed down tomorrow.

High-ranking JI members have told the court they have read the Pupji which is said to have been written by co-founder of JI, the late Abdullah Sungkar.

The book includes flowcharts of the JI hierarchal structure and illustrates how the organisation works. It does not include names of any members.

It reveals the group is led by an amir or supreme leader.

The amir appoints leadership councils, the advisory council, edict council and legal council. Under them are regional groups known as Mantiqi.

All members must swear a compulsory oath of loyalty to the amir.

The Pupji says funding for JI comes from contributions, donations and acceptable sources.

While the book does not refer specifically to bombing operations or violent campaigns to kill westerners, oblique reference is made in the section on "strength development operations".

This talks about combat operations in which education and training is imperative in subjects such as physical fitness and weapons training, tactical thinking, strategic thinking, leadership and vision.

(I've copied the entire text because I know that the required Java console can be a pain for loading pages.)

The basic reason, I think, that this is hard to take seriously is because we became much too dismissive during the Cold War about allegations of communist plots and spies. It was all propaganda, you know, forgetting that the Soviet and Chinese blocs were also spinning propaganda.

Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist, and there's been too many conspiracy theories about the assassination of JFK for anyone to be certain anymore about his guilt or innocence.

Sen. Joe McCarthy had nothing to do with the House of Un-American Activities because duh, it was a House committee and he was a Senator. When Ann Coulter pointed that out, I gasped in humiliation that I'd missed so obvious a breakdown in logic.

Two things we did learn after the fall of the Soviet Union is that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were guilty, and Alger Hiss was a communist who maintained relations with the USSR.

I was a useful idiot in the 60's and 70's.

You can look it up.

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Aug. 30 -- The verdict

Aug. 30 -- The verdict has been delayed to allow lawyers to make final arguments in the case of Canadian evangelist Bruce Balfour who is in a Lebanese jail charged with collaborating with Israel. The Lebanese government had received information that Balflour had travelled between Lebanon and Israel in a way that aroused suspicions.

Court is to resume on Monday.

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Aug. 30 -- Two Steyn

Aug. 30 -- Two Steyn columns, and one especially for the downtrodden Canadian and American masses (that's us!)

This Labour Day weekend, I find myself thinking about the working class, the masses.

No, honestly, I do. Okay, I'm on the beach, but the folks around me lying on the sand have jobs they'll be getting back to on Tuesday. They work. They would be classed as workers. But they're not a homogeneous "working class," they're not conscripts in Karl Marx's "masses." The transformation of Labour Day, from a celebration of workers' solidarity to a cook-out, is the perfect precis of the history of Anglo-American capitalism.

The second is classic Mark Steyn. He takes a look at the wrangling between the Blair government and the BBC and manages to get it in one sentence:

And then we move to the Hutton Inquiry for a clip of the BBC chairman launching an extraordinary attack on the Government for its extraordinary attack on the BBC for its extraordinary attack on the Government."

He has to get a little help from Abbott and Costello, though.

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Why you should live in each province

Aug. 30 -- I was inspired to search through my mailbox to retrieve this gem sent by some dear friends on Cape Breton Island.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN EACH PROVINCE!

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

1. Weed.
2. Vancouver: 1.5 million people and two bridges.
3. The local hero is a pot-smoking snowboarder.
4. The local wine doesn't taste like malt vinegar.
5. Your $400,000 Vancouver home is just 5 hours from downtown.
6. A university with a nude beach.
7. You can throw a rock and hit three Starbucks locations.
8. If a cop pulls you over, just offer them some of your hash.
9. There's always some sort of deforestation protest going on.
10. Cannabis.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN ALBERTA

1. Big Rock between you and B.C.
2. Ottawa who?
3. Tax is 7 percent instead of approximately 200 percent for the of the country.
4. The Premier is a fat, alcoholic who is easy to make fun of.
5. Flames vs. Oilers.
6. Stamps vs. Eskies.
7. You can exploit almost any natural resource you can think of.
8. You live in the only province that could actually afford to be it's own country.
9. The Americans below you are all in anti-government militia groups.
10. You can attempt to murder your rich oil tycoon husband and get away with it.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN SASKATCHEWAN

1. You never run out of wheat.
2. Ten months of winter and 2 months of poor skating.
3. Cruise control takes on a whole new meaning.
4. Your province is really easy to draw.
5. You never have to worry about roll-back if you have a standard shift.
6. It takes you two weeks to walk to your neighbour's house.
7. YOUR Roughriders survived.
8. You can watch the dog run away from home for hours.
9. People will assume you live on a farm.
10. Buying a huge John Deere mower makes sense.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN MANITOBA

1. You wake up one morning to find you suddenly have beachfront property.
2. Amusing town names like "Flin Flon" and "Winnipeg".
3. All your local bands make it big and move to Toronto.
4. The only province to ever violently rebel against the federal government.
5. Hundreds of huge, horribly frigid lakes.
6. Nothing compares to a wicked Winnipeg winter.
7. You don't need a car, just take the canoe to work.
8. You can be an Easterner or a Westerner depending on your mood.
9. Because of your licence plate, you are still friendly even when you cut someone off.
10. Pass the time watching trucks and barns float by.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN ONTARIO

1. You live in the center of the universe.
2. Your $400,000 Toronto home is actually a dump.
3. You and you alone decide who will win the federal election.
4. There's no such thing as an Ontario Separatist. Separate from what? You are the centre of the universe.
5. Your grandparents sold booze to the States during Prohibition.
6. Lots of tourists come to Toronto because they mistakenly believe it's a cool city.
7. The only province with hard-core American-style crime.
8. Much Music's Speaker's Corner - rant and rave on national TV for a dollar.
9. Baseball fans park on your front lawn and pee on the side of your house.
10. Mike Harris: basically a sober Ralph Klein.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN QUEBEC

1. Everybody assumes you're an asshole.
2. Racism is socially acceptable.
3. The only province to ever kidnap federal politicians.
4. You can take bets with your friends on which English neighbour will move out next.
5. Other provinces basically bribe you to stay in Canada.
6. The FLQ.
7. Your hockey team is made up entirely of dirty French guys who can't skate.
8. The province with the oldest, nastiest hookers.
9. NON-smokers are the outcasts.
10. You can blame all your problems on the "Anglo bastards".

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN NEW BRUNSWICK

1. You are sandwiched between French assholes and drunken Celtic fiddlers.
2. One way or another, the government gets 98 percent of your income.
3. You're poor, but not as poor as the Newfies.
4. When listing the provinces, everyone forgets to mention yours.
5. The economy is based on fish, cows, and ferrying Ontario motorists to Boston.
6. No one ever blames anything on New Brunswick.
7. You have French people, but they don't want to kill you.
8. Everybody has a Grandfather who runs a lighthouse.
9. Just as charming as Maine, but with more unemployed fishermen.
10. You probably live in a small seaside cottage with no television.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN NOVA SCOTIA

1. The only place in North America to get bombed in the war by a moron who set ammunitions ship on fire. (Halifax Explosion)
2. The province is shaped like the male genitalia.
3. Everyone can play the fiddle. The ones who can't, think they can.
4. If someone asks if you're a Newfie, you are allowed to kick their ass.
5. The local hero is an insane, fiddle playing, sexual pervert homo.
6. The province that produced Rita MacNeil, the world's largest land mammal.
7. You are the "only" reason Anne Murray makes money.
8. You can pretend you have Scottish heritage as an excuse to get drunk and wear a kilt.
9. The economy is based on lobster and fiddle music.
10. Even though it smells like dead sea animals, Halifax is considered Canada's most beautiful city.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE ON PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

1. Even though more people live on Vancouver Island, you still got the big ass bridge.
2. You can walk across the province in half an hour.
3. You were probably once an extra on "Road to Avonlea".
4. This is where all those tiny red potatoes come from.
5. The economy is based on fish, potatoes, and CBC TV shows.
6. Tourists arrive, see the "Anne of Green Gables" house, then promptly leave.
7. You can drive across the province in two minutes.
8. It doesn't matter to you if Quebec separates.
9. You don't share a border with the Americans, or with anyone for that matter.
10. You can confuse ships by turning your porch lights on and off at night.

TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN NEWFOUNDLAND

1. The poorest, drunkest province in Confederation.
2. If Quebec Separates, you will float off to sea.
3. In the rare case when someone moves to the Rock, you can make them kiss a dead cod.
4. The economy is based on fish, seafood, and fish-related products.
5. If you do something stupid, you have a built-in excuse.
6. You & only you understand the meaning of Great Big Sea's lyrics.
7. The workday is about two hours long.
8. You are credited with many great inventions, like the solar-powered flashlight and the screen door for submarines.
9. If someone asks if you're from Cape Breton, you are allowed to kick their ass.
10. It is socially acceptable to wear your hip waders on your wedding day!

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Aug. 30 -- Former Pres.

Aug. 30 -- Former Pres. Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev are set to narrate a "wolf-friendly" version of the children's classic Peter and the Wolf.

The duck (portrayed by an oboe) was unavailable for comment, presumbly because he is too securely ensconced in the wolf's tummy.

This is yet another blantant example of ignoring a victim's righteous plea for justice, unless the arrogant bastards also intend to revise the score. (Yeah, I know, don't give them any ideas.)

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Why they hate us (who live in Toronto)

Aug. 30 -- Hate Toronto, that is. The Canadian alerted me to an open letter to the PM (which PM?) and Premier published yesterday in the abominable Toronto Star:

Over the last two years, a remarkable civic consensus has been building in Toronto. Business, labour, the voluntary sector, education, and local government have been working ... to create new ways to ensure that the Toronto region remains prosperous and competitive. The Toronto City Summit Alliance released "Enough Talk, An Action Plan for the Toronto Region," in April. We urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to endorse that action plan and set out a timetable for each of your government's contributions to implementing it.

"Enough Talk" is a road map for improving our city region.... The action plan sets out realistic ideas for expanding the Toronto region's affordable housing stock, re-invigorating public transit, and building community services infrastructure in our poorest neighbourhoods.

Translation: send more money to a city that screws up every money-spending project they touch, makes more unworkable plans to spend more money that . . . oh, never mind. You already know all this.

The civic workers (and teachers union) has this city by the nuts. We can't even find a place in Canada willing to take our garbage, at least that portion that isn't strewn on our streets.

Whenever I hear someone opine "If only we had someone like Rudy Guiliani" I choke because Rudy had something we ain't got: a city population behind him with the same resolve to make the hard calls and get things done.

"Enough Talk," SHUT UP. We live in a dysfunctional city because we have the most useless, weak-kneed City Council in the history of All City Councils and THEY LISTEN TO IDIOTS LIKE YOU LOT.

UPDATE (or should that be OUCH!): No less a personage than Colby Cosh has taken Toronto (in the form of Robert Fulford, National Post columnist) to task for a totally different example of its egocentricity (or could that cosmocentricity? patriacentricity?) for failing to notice the substantial bits of real estate to the West that are also Canadian.

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Hillary is pondering her many

Hillary is pondering her many options. Paul already did a fantastic job on this report and, this pretty much sums up my reactions.

Why should I let this report which states she's given it her firm no, ruin my fun? If she wants to test the waters, she'd better know what she is up against both now and in 2008.

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Aug. 30 -- The death

Aug. 30 -- The death toll has risen to 126 from yesterday's bombing of one of Shiite Muslims' holiest shrines. At least 12 people have been detained in connection with the investigation including 2 Pakistanis which has given rise to speculation of a Possible al Qaeda link in the attack.

The UN is doing that which is does best: cut and run.

The United Nations "remains engaged" in Iraq, a U.N. humanitarian official said Saturday, despite the announcement that it will greatly reduce its international staff in the country as a security precaution after last week's truck bombing at the Baghdad U.N. office that killed 23 people.

Currently there are about 400 international U.N. staffers in Iraq -- about 110 of them in Baghdad. A U.N. spokesman in New York announced Friday that after the cuts, only about 40 to 50 essential staff members will remain in Baghdad. He called the reductions a "temporary measure."

As has been previously noted, whoever thought of hiring Saddamites to guard the UN offices displayed the kind of thinking that renders the UN a standing by-word for intransigent, bureaucratic incompetence.

In more serious news, a grenade launcher was used against Bulgarian troops in Karbala but there were no injuries.

The attack was the first against Bulgaria's nearly 500-strong stabilization force since they began patrolling the city earlier this month to help the U.S. restore order in Iraq following a war there.

On Tuesday, military control of Karbala was handed over to a Bulgarian military governor, Lt. Col. Petko Marinov. It was previously run by U.S. Marines.

As well as the 250 Bulgarian soldiers stationed in Karbala, which is 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, Marinov is in charge of Polish troops and U.S. Marines serving in Karbala.

The small Balkan country, which was supported by the U.S. in its bid to join NATO, backed the American-led war in Iraq and is now providing a total of 500 troops for Washington's post-war stabilization force.

Bulgaria's contingent will be under Polish command after the U.S. makes another transfer of control on September 3. This will put the entire south central region, including Karbala, under Polish control.

My Polish grandfather (who emigrated to the US as a teenager between the two world wars, fought in the South Pacific during WWII, and who could never decide if he hated the Russians or Germans more) would be so. damned. proud. This one's for you, Grandpa!

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Aug. 30 -- A 20th

Aug. 30 -- A 20th 'pupil' suspected of al Qaeda connections has been arrested by Toronto police in an on-going investigation (called Project Thread) into those claiming to attend the defunct Ottawa Business College.

The investigation has produced the person who is said to have provided the students with fake documents which supported their claims to be attending the college. Read the article: this man sounds interesting (and I mean that in a positive way; he is intelligent and sees the big picture.)

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Another questionable federal contract

Aug. 30 -- I don't get Canada. No, really. We've been bogged down in Toronto over a scandal over computers that cast a lot of doubt on the integrity of civil servants, but it's the elected officials taking the heat because evidently it's a bigger crime to be fooled by civil servants than to do the fooling.

Now there's a similar scandal on the federal level forcing the Feds to reopen bidding on contract to move staff

The unusual decision comes one month after the Canadian International Trade Tribunal determined that public servants evaluating the bids for the lucrative contract drew up the criteria to favour Royal LePage Relocations.

Now I'm already thinking jail time or, at minimum, termination without a recommendation and disallowing Royal LePage from ever bidding on a government contract again but from what I read, the federal government's solution (drawn up by civil servants, no doubt) is to spend several months to draft new criteria for the project and have interested parties re-submit their bids, and if Royal LePage doesn't get the new contract, the feds will pay penalties for cancelling a rigged bid.

I don't get it. See opening sentence of previous paragraph.

I'm not throwing stones here. I am all too well aware that suspicious, smelly things that walk, talk and quack like corruption exist in the US too, but when caught there is this thing called the law that kicks in to at least give an appearance that some integrity is expected from our civil service.

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Aug. 30 -- I'm an

Aug. 30 -- I'm an US Air Force brat and never get tired of the sound of jets as they scream across the city during the annual Air Show at the Ex. (Noisy? You ain't heard noise until you hear the sound of B-52s as they take off and land from an air base, but I digress.)

I was disappointed yesterday when overcast conditions kept most of the planes grounded, but today it is bright and sunny (okay, so there are only patches of blue sky but there's a brisk wind and I'm an optimist!) so listen up Toronto: salute the warriors of the sky, and honour aviation history which reminds us of what a kick-ass breed those courageous, early pioneers of the strata were.

Maybe this will bring things into focus: there's a very real chance that the Snowbirds will be disbanded.

Former Snowbird Dan Dempsey said it will take new jets to save one of Canada's most cherished national symbols. He wants the federal government to lease or buy more CT-155 Hawks, used as training jets, to replace the 40-year-old CT-114 Tutor jets scheduled to be phased out in 2006.

A brand new Hawk, built by BAE Systems, costs about $20 million, but would be "significantly less" without weapons systems, which the Snowbirds don't use, Dempsey said.

The Canadian Forces now lease 28 of the Hawks for training in Moose Jaw, Sask.

He fears it could be disbanded because of costs, and future generations will miss the chance to be inspired -- just as he was watching the RAF Golden Hawks scream past him at an Ottawa air show in 1959.

Given the funding cuts the DoD is supposed to come up with, his fears could be very real.

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Aug. 30 -- US special

Aug. 30 -- US special forces and the Afghan army continues to track down and eliminate the Taliban as it attempts to regroup. An assault on fortified Taliban positions began late Thursday resulting in the non-combat death of one US special forces soldier (from a fall) and several Taliban fighters. Four Afghan soldiers were injured but no fatalities were reported.

11,500 US forces are in the southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan. (There is more detailed information about the recent fighting at CNN.)

Canadian soldiers will get a special treat as Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham plans to travel to Kabul to meet Afghan Pres. Karzai, tour the Canadian base at Camp Julien and attend ceremonies to mark the opening of the first Canadian embassy in Afghanistan.

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Aug. 30 -- Whereas a

Aug. 30 -- Whereas a lot of Toronto newspapers strive to appear intellectual (you know, murky, obfusctating and unbiased,) the Toronto Sun is cheerful, goes for a direct hit and just reports things as they are. Also, their permalinks are more permanent than the National Post.

Take this: North Korean tired of talks. (A headline like that is a sure winner and interactive; it allows millions to respond with "so are we", right?) Excerpts:

BEIJING -- North Korea no longer has "interest or expectations" in further talks on its nuclear program, a spokesman for Pyongyang's delegation to the six-country talks on the subject said today. "There is no need for this kind of talks," said the unidentified spokesman, who made the remarks at the airport to reporters as the delegation was leaving Beijing after the landmark three-day meeting.

"We no longer have interest or expectations either," he said. "We are left with no option as it became clear that the United States wants to disarm our nation."

The United States has demanded that the program be stopped immediately, but the North has refused to comply unless it receives economic aid and a non-aggression treaty from the United States.

Kim said North Korea could allow inspections of nuclear facilities, stop missile exports and tests, and finally dismantle its nuclear program -- but only if the U.S. resumes free oil shipments, provides economic and humanitarian aid, signs a non-aggression treaty and opens diplomatic ties.

In Washington, state department press officer Jo-Anne Prokopowicz said the North Korean statement "is an explicit acknowledgment that the (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) has nuclear weapons but the U.S. will not respond to threats or give in to blackmail."

The head of the UN nuclear agency accused North Korea of posturing.

Maybe I've underestimated the IAEA. Despite the fact that both North Korea and Iran continued their nuclear programs right under the noses of UN inspectors, at least the North Koreans couldn't fool them when it came to bluster and bombastic talk, which just goes to prove that you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

A moment of silence for poor North Korea, okay? They came to the talks with the expectation that the US would once again agree to a treaty in which NK only had to make promises and the US quite unreasonably refuses to be fooled again. Worse still, Russia and China won't back their play.

CNN has some cautiously optimistic quotes from the Chinese and Japanese delegates:

"At the same time, the parties have all become aware of the fact that there is a need to consider and address the concerns of [North Korea] in a wide range of areas, including the security concerns," Wang said.

A Japanese foreign ministry official praised the North Korean delegation as engaged and sincere.

"We did not sense any unproductive approach on the part of the North Korean delegation over the 2 1/2 days," he said.

The official added that nothing the North Koreans revealed during the talks set off any alarm bells.

"If you are asking whether what we heard scared us enough to go back to Tokyo and hide behind a bed," he said, "no, there was no such statement."

Maybe he also thinks North Korea is bluffing?

UPDATE: The Sketptician thinks that the lack of progress with the talks was due to squabbles over a game.

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Aug. 29 -- This is

Aug. 29 -- This is truly horrendous: a hospital is saying that at least 75 people have died as a result of the massive car bombing outside the Imam Ali Mosque including the Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim. Read the report; I haven't the heart to quote from it.

There is something so repugnant about targeting people in their places of worship be they in mosques, synagogues, churches or temples. There is something especially evil and twisted about killing people while they are at worship which forces me to pause and know that shaking my head in disbelief just doesn't really cut it and words are inadequate to express the outrage and pain.

I know that targeting innocent people no matter what they are doing or where they are is evil, it's just that an extra degree of evil is added when holy sites are defiled by bloodletting. Maybe it reflects my Western values, but I doubt it. I suspect many Muslims right now are feeling that this latest bombing was an act of pure evil, but somehow I doubt the CBC will be able to locate any of them.

Could we at least take time to grieve before the games commence? No?

The blame game began as soon as the bombing was broadcast early this morning. Props to the CNN desk commentator [I'll enter his name when my brain returns to active duty; he's the other conservative-sounding one] who asked in a very sarcastic voice how this could be blamed on America; that there was a ready answer made me do something I haven't done in awhile: my jaw dropped. Then I realized that, of course, the question was set up so this correspondence could prattle off an answer. Sigh.

UPDATE: Here is the first installment of the blame game but if memory serves me weren't offers of security turned down? Of course, there is something distinctly profane about stationing troops of non-believers (using the term in its pure form) and concrete barricades around a place of worship.

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Aug. 29 -- Victor Davis

Aug. 29 -- Victor Davis Hanson does that which I only aspire to do: weave the threads and connect the dots into a coherent account of events. Read Hoping We Fail. I'm only going to give one excerpt to get you started:

The theocrats all over the region wish us to fail as well. Modernism emanating from Iraq would undermine the strictures of the clerics, in empowering women and eroding the fossilized structures of a tribal society. After all, in the war's aftermath, Arab Idol (dubbed another "American invasion" by Islamists) — a thinly veiled spin-off of the American television show — was suddenly earning a 40-million-viewer market share, as Middle Easterners voted for pop stars in a way that they never could for their own leaders.

See what I mean? Some of us regarded Arab Idol as an amusing anecdote, but Hanson sees what lies under. Go!

(Via On The Third Hand.)

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