Off to work

May 30 - I have to go in to work this afternoon but should be back around 1 a.m.

I do have the secret to working the night shift: endure (aka just do it.) Sigh. More later.

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Al Qaeda claims responsibility for Khobar Towers attack

May 30 - Saudi Hostage Siege Ends.

Those killed in the 25-hour shooting rampage and subsequent hostage crisis included an American, a Briton, an Italian, eight Indians and three Filipinos ... The Egyptian boy who was killed was the son of an Apicorp employee, ...

According to the CNN story,

A man believed by authorities to be the top al Qaeda figure in Saudi Arabia later purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.

A voice attributed to Abdel Aziz Muqrin posted on an Islamist Web site said he and his group managed to "slaughter" people from various countries, including the United States, Britain, and Italy.

The man, who called Saturday's attack "victorious," vowed to continue attacking Westerners until all had left the "Arab peninsula."

He called his group "al Qaeda in the Arab peninsula." Muqrin and other suspected al Qaeda operatives have used the term "Arab peninsula" to refer to Saudi Arabia, whose government they want to overthrow.

The attackers reportedly desecrated the bodies of their victims and dragged one body behind a car. I guess that's supposed to scare us.

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Mark Steyn on Memorial Day

May 30 - The great one marks Memorial Day by pointing to the ubiquitous victimology that dominates our senile Old Media and elites in Recalling a time when setbacks didn't deter us recalling the turmoil of the Civil War:

But that's the difference between then and now: the loss of proportion. They had victims galore back in 1863, but they weren't a victim culture. They had a lot of crummy decisions and bureaucratic screwups worth re-examining, but they weren't a nation that prioritized retroactive pseudo-legalistic self-flagellating vaudeville over all else. They had hellish setbacks but they didn't lose sight of the forest in order to obsess week after week on one tiny twig of one weedy little tree.

There is something not just ridiculous but unbecoming about a hyperpower 300 million strong whose elites -- from the deranged former vice president down -- want the outcome of a war, and the fate of a nation, to hinge on one freaky jailhouse; elites who are willing to pay any price, bear any burden, as long as it's pain-free, squeaky clean and over in a week. The sheer silliness dishonors the memory of all those we're supposed to be remembering this Memorial Day.

There's another difference too: after the Civil War, it was the victors who "waved the bloody shirt" in order to justify the imposition of harsh conditions on the defeated South. It became as tiresome and a sure sign of hypocrisy as, well, "it's for the children."

Today it's those opposed to the war who wave the bloody shirt, presumably to prove they support the troops although they oppose the mission, and they too have become tiresome.

I'm a little out of the newsloop. Every time I turned on CNN we were back to old photos out of Abu Ghraib with a brief foray which tried to depict disgraced Gen. Kapinski as a victim or attempts to paint the situation in Najaf as failed negotiations even as they report the numbers of more dead al Mehdi thugs. Evidently Old Media failed to draw some lessons about strategy from events at Fallujah. As for Fallujah, it's off the map now, which tells me things are going according to plan.

CNN dutifully reported on the discovery of more sarin and mustard gas but the commentator (David Ensor, I think?) said that they were old, pre-Gulf War I, but still "technically" WMD. Usually the death-quoted "technically" is followed by an explanation of what something "really" is, but the pundit left it there. Nice spin. Do "old" WMD not indicate the violation of the ceasefire agreement that halted Gulf War I and several subsequent UN resolutions? Do "old" WMD not kill?

The goal posts were moved after Dr. Kay's report which said that although they had not found stockpiles of WMD they had found active weapons programs and numerous violations of the ceasefire and UN resolutions.

Now it seems nothing will do but finding a huge cache of WMD with a sign that says "Saddam's Personal Stash."

I'm still an unreconstructed optimist: every dead Medhi fighter is one more reason to be optimistic about the June 30 handover. Iran's withdrawal of support for Muqtada al Sadr is another reason to be optimistic.

The question in November is becoming, increasingly, the extent to which the American public can read past the propaganda and spin put out by Old Media and use their common sense.

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The terror threat and Canada

May 30 - Both Canada and the USA face national elections soon. The March 11 bombing attack in Madrid and the impact it had on the national elections there produced a lot of theorizing and speculation and Wednesday, US Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller (ref. 'Clear and present danger') went public with their concerns about the potential for a terrorist attack in the USA given the upcoming US elections.

The inclusion of two Canadians, including the notorious Jdey, forces the thought that Canada may well be the target. (There will be a national election here June 28.)

Shortly after Sept. 11, I asked Mark what he thought the public response would be in Canada if there was a terrorist attack here. He replied that people would complain about gas prices (he's a dyed-in-the-wool cynic.)

Well, Canadians are already complaining about gas prices, so I raised the question again last night, and he responded that Canadians are finally "getting" it and would correctly aim their outrage at the terrorists even though Old Media would use the attack as another plank in their anti-American campaign.

The one thing Westerners (civilisationally, not regionally!) still have had difficulty grasping is that al Qaeda doesn't care which party rules a country: their aim is to destablize and terrify, period. How do I know that? Because al Qaeda told us so.

We also have trouble accepting what al Qaeda says at face value, even though their track record indicates that are stating the unvarnished truth.

That's why appeasement is as fruitless now as it has always been, why US withdrawal from Saudi military bases and the ending of UN sanctions on Iraq (remember bin Laden's justification for jihad against the US?) resulted in an increase of armed confrontation in Saudi Arabia and their open alignment with the Ba'athists in Iraq even though it was Saddam's corruption of the U.N. Oil-For-Food program that caused the deaths of Iraqi babies.

There is an additional complication: the full-blown, outright anti-Americanism led by the Toronto Star and CBC is bound to cause a reaction from Americans. The outpouring of American solidarity with Spain - then an ally - after the March 11 may not be matched if Canada - not an ally - is hit. The fact that Canada's military and security forces are already over-extended and the unfortunate circumstance that an idiot (Anne McClellan) is in charge of Canadian security puts the ruling Liberal Party in a bit of a briar patch: if PM Martin choses to use Opposition leader Stephen Harper's support of the US effort in Iraq as a weapon during the electoral campaign, he further exacerbates relations between the US and Canada but if a terrorist attack happens up here and he calls upon the US to help Canada, more than a few Americans will say "Call France."

It saddens me, but I'll be one of them, or at least I'll be conflicted. Is a docile Canadian citizenry worth the lives of America's sons and daughters? Or are Canadians less docile than they themselves have been led to believe?

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, and it will be sadder this year than in years past. We've lost some outstanding men and women in Iraq and will lose more. We knew going in that the losses would deprive us of the kind of people that make our country strong and could only pray that their sacrifices would inspire others much as President Lincoln articulated in his Gettysburg Address: so "they not have died in vain."

It's hard to keep perspective up here in Toronto, and hard to remember that, despite it's pretensions, Toronto is not the Center of the Universe much less Canada.

But (and this may seem contradictory) there is a different Canadian that co-exists with that portrayed by the media. The hockey game last night is a case in point: Jerome Iginla scored a Gordie Howe hat trick: a goal, an assist, and a fight.

Is a country that cheers Canadians like Iginla truly passive? I don't think so. But then, it's not me that has to get it, it's Canadians themselves who could be on the brink of defining themselves in something in terms other than unlike Americans.

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Is Joe Clark delusional or unscrupulous?

May 30 - A real question mark has been raised about former Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark in this Greg Weston column Clark, McLellan: They had it made. Read the whole thing.

I don't know if it's true; certainly it would explain some of the odd behaviour by the old Progressive Conservative party leadership, but it's based on "unnamed sources" which leaves it short of total authenticity.

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Fix Bayonets

May 26 - Ghost of a Flea sent me this link to a Steyn column in the Chicago Sun-Times, Don't give Iraqis self-rule all at once.

Mark refers to events from a Sun (UK) leader (since expired) (UPDATE: link to article in the Scotsman on the engagement here) which Flea had referred to here about a group of Argyll and Sutherland highlanders who fixed bayonets and charged after coming under fire in Amara.

As always, Mark gets it:

If you're used to smart bombs, unmanned drones and doing it all by computer back at HQ, you're probably wondering why a modern Western army is still running around with bayonets at the end of their rifles. The answer is that it's a very basic form of psychological warfare.

''If you're defending a position and you see someone advancing with a bayonet, you may be more inclined to surrender,'' Col. Ed Brown told the British newspaper the Guardian. ''I've never been bayoneted, but I can imagine it's pretty gruesome.''

Resolve in battle and politics means using all the tools in your box.

Of course, the column is about more than the use of a bayonet charge in modern warfare (it is Steyn, after all) and looks at something very basic to the future of Iraq:

There are some 8,000 towns and villages in the country. How many do you hear about on the news? For a week, it's all Fallujah all the time. Then it's Najaf, and nada for anywhere else. Currently, 90 percent of Iraqi coverage is about one lousy building: Abu Ghraib. So what's going on in the other 7,997 dots on the map?

The "news we trust" is curiously silent on that point, but probably because it's hard to report much news when one's views are filtered through a poolside perch in the Palestine Hotel.

In the Shia province of Dhi Qar, a couple hundred miles southeast of Baghdad, 16 of the biggest 20 cities plus many smaller towns will have elected councils by June. These were the first free elections in Dhi Qar's history and ''in almost every case, secular independents and representatives of nonreligious parties did better than the Islamists.'' That assessment is from the anti-war anti-Bush anti-Blair Euro-lefties at the Guardian, by the way.

President Bush made much the same point in his speech Monday night (see Towards a Free Iraq below) and the theme is the same: grass roots democracy is the well-spring from which consensual government is nourished and protected.

The best bulwark against tyranny is a population that knows the benefits of freedom, as the Iraqi Kurds do. Don't make the mistake of turning Iraq into a dysfunctional American public school, where the smart guys get held down to the low standards of the misfits and in the end they all get the same social promotion anyway. Let's get on with giving the Kurdish and Shia areas elected governors and practical sovereignty, province by province.

And then fix bayonets and stick it to the holdouts.

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Towards a free Iraq

May 26 - Monday night, President Bush made the first in a series of speeches in which he will lay out plans for implementing the goals of Operation Iraq Freedom, the role we are playing, and the steps to transfer power to the Iraqi people (Troops Are in Iraq to Make It Free.) The text of the speech is available here.

Our coalition has a clear goal, understood by all -- to see the Iraqi people in charge of Iraq for the first time in generations. America's task in Iraq is not only to defeat an enemy, it is to give strength to a friend — a free, representative government that serves its people and fights on their behalf. And the sooner this goal is achieved, the sooner our job will be done.

The president laid out five steps for achieving this goal. The first is the transfer of power to Iraqis. U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi will be working with Iraqis to set up an interim council including a President, two Vice-Presidents, a Prime Minister, and 26 Ministers. 12 government ministries are already under the control of Iraqis.

All along, some have questioned whether the Iraqi people are ready for self-government, or even want it. And all along, the Iraqi people have given their answer. In settings where Iraqis have met to discuss their country's future, they have endorsed representative government. And they are practicing representative government. Many of Iraq's cities and towns now have elected town councils or city governments - and beyond the violence, a civil society is emerging.

The foundation for a free society comes from the bottom - grass roots democracy - and establishing Iraqi control over local, day-to-day government is what will build the confidence of Iraqis that they can take control of their country and build it for the betterment of their and their children's futures.

The second step is to establish security and stability. I think that is the most difficult and most exciting of the tasks at hand, because implementing that step will ultimately involve a transfer of power as well, although it now takes the shape of partnership, itself a signficant if risky endeavour. Referring to the steps taken in response to events at Fallujah:

We want Iraqi forces to gain experience and confidence in dealing with their country's enemies. We want the Iraqi people to know that we trust their growing capabilities, even as we help build them. At the same time, Fallujah must cease to be a sanctuary for the enemy, and those responsible for terrorism will be held to account.

Somebody referred to the failed uprisings fomented by the Sunnis and Muqtada al-Sadr as "the dog that didn't bark," referring to the things that haven't happened as more indicative of the state of affairs in Iraq than those things that have happened and which have been reported.

The Sunnis have not revolted in significant numbers. Shi'as have not joined Muqtada al-Sadr. The indignation over Abu Ghraib has been exploited everywhere but with noticeable silence from Iraq itself.

Only the future will be able to adequately judge the steps taken by the US and her allies to establish consensual government in a Mid-east country. I doubt the debate will end soon, but I remain committed to the cause.

Read the president's speech and judge for yourself. As we have said so often, the ability to read the documents ourselves rather than rely on the filter of others is one of the most exciting gifts of the internet.

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Sporadic posting alert

May 26 - Sorry for the silence, I'm back on midnights and trying to duck the garlic and pointed wooden thingies ... oh yeah, and trying to sleep while everyone is determined to be really, really noisy.

Posting will be somewhat sporadic over the next couple of days while I work on being awake and coherent simultaneously.

The good news is that I am supposed to be on this shift until the end of June, which means some kind of internal routine should kick in. (I have no proof this will happen, but it just seems logical.)

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Reads that make you go "hmm"

May 23 - When you live in Ontario, aka the Center of the Universe, news from Canada tend to end at the borders of the GTA (although some information about the national government does trickle down from Ottawa, we hear or read little about the doings in Ottawa itself.)

As for the west, if it isn't sports-related it just isn't important, right? Uh huh.

I have to get off to work, and am still wading through Bill's latest essay (see below) but if you already got through it here's a bit more:

Terror in the Heartland? by Shafer Parker and some thoughts on the defeatism of Old Media, a David Warren essay, both from the Western Standard.

Belmont Club has Trivial Pursuit and The Wedding Party 2 and Winds of Change has Why is Israel in Gaza. I'm having Jenin horror stories flashbacks. Did you really believe disinformation was a unique Western practice?

I should mention Winds of Change more often because the group puts out an incredible amount of interesting, multi-linked information. There's a number of posts on the Sufism branch of Islam and are starting a regular Hatewatch briefing.

Warning: reading Winds of Change and following their many links can become a (good) habit.

On a lighter note, Rocket Jones has a neat story about the payload aboard an amateur rocket that achieved space.

I'm off work tomorrow for Victoria Day, but looking forward to the Angel marathon running on Space: The Imagination Station (they better show Hero and Lullaby. I'm just sayin' ...)

The big news is that Philly is O-U-T of the playoffs. Boo hoo. I've got family in Tampa, but too bad, cuz. Time for the Cup to come back North.

Go Calgary! and everyone have a good weekend with lots of fireworks and fun. Hopefully the clouds will lift from Toronto for tomorrow night's bash.

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Strength

May 22

Honor and shame trump everything in that world. A pithy sentence, eh? So instead, think about what it would take for you to kill your own daughter with a knife, with your bare hands, because she was seen in the company of a man not her husband or a relative? Think about that. Think long and hard.

Moreover,

What would it take for you to murder your daughter with a knife, or a knotted cord – with your own two hands and against her pleading, her protestations, and her begging for her life? If your response wasn’t “there is nothing that could make me do that,” then stop reading right here and get the hell off my property.

From Bill Whittle's latest essay, Strength, (part 1). (part 2 is here.)

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UK Envoy injured in terrorist attack

May 22 - From The Telegraph (UK), Envoy injured by blast:

The British high commissioner to Bangladesh and his bodyguard were among 50 people injured yesterday when a bomb was thrown near a Muslim shrine.

Two people were killed in the blast from the bomb which struck Anwar Choudhury, 43, in the stomach before rolling away to explode.

[...]

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said he was "deeply shocked" adding: "Details of exactly what happened and the nature of the injuries are not clear."

The shrine has been attacked before and it was not clear if the diplomat was the target.

A senior doctor who treated Mr Choudhury said he had soft tissue injuries in his right leg, but was "in good health". Mr Choudhury and his bodyguard, who was also lightly injured, were flown to Dhaka on a Bangladeshi air force helicopter sent by Begum Khaleda Zia, the prime minister.

There's a bit more information in this item in the Australian news.

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The New Reactionaries

May 21 - Roger Simon, in The New Reactionaries, comments on his conclusions after reading Congress, Media Could Talk U.S. Into Iraq Defeat

Meanwhile, the Zarqawis of the world are winning this war. And I can promise you one thing -- it's a lot more important than George W. Bush, John Kerry, anybody in Congress and the Media and any one single person. It's about civilization versus a death cult. Make a choice!

RTWT.

More on the role of the media: this Glenn Reynolds post on some poll results which indicate dissatisfaction with Old Media is becoming more widespread, and Donald Sensing has Duelling Biases and some fed-up Marine Moms who I wouldn't want to tangle with.

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Linky stuff

May 21 - There's a new blog in MuNu called Memeblog. It's your one-stop reference for carnivals and memes in the blogosphere.

Do not forget to check out the Carnival of the Canucks. It's being hosted by Ghost of a Flea and this week's theme is Fat, drunk and Canadian.

Fix bayonets! God bless our British allies. (Read the post and follow the link - it's a shiver moment.)

Today in Canada marks the official beginning of the Victoria Day weekend which is the biggest, bashing-est, drinking-iest, planting-est weekend of the year! Many folks up here will likely spend this weekend talking about the Stanley Cup finals which finally has a Canadian team in it. (Yes, it is spring in Ontario. Yes, it is odd to watch a hockey game in May. We do it anyway.)

Go Calgary!

Today is "Lend Me Your Links Friday" over at West Coast's Absinthe and Cookies, so I'm linking to her link. If you don't visit her daily you should, because visiting her site is much like visiting her at home, curling up up in a chair and chatting about all kinds of different things. It's hard to convey warmth over cyberspace, but she does it. She also gives good advice.

Paul has been busy pointing to the stupid, the atrocious, and the pathetic today. Good. Grief.

Is this really a coincidence? Or this? Now you know why it's Occam's Carbuncle.

Andrew Coyne is still missing, but his commenters aren't. (Must mean something that I keep checking back just to see what the commenters have been up to.) (Update: mystery solved by Trudeaupia.)

Expat Yank is still keeping on top of events from England Today's posts include one about a BBC reporter who was let out unsupervised. (We all hate when that happens ...)

Inside Europe: Iberian Notes also demolishes a reporter, this one from La Vanguardia.

On an intellectual note, Victor Davis Hanson is grading the war in today's post.

I've saved the best for last. Kate of SmallDeadAnimals wrote the ultimate response to that portion of the population that has been leaving comments and speculation and whatnot about that video and all things idiotarian in our comments sections.

Henceforth, I may elect to respond to weirdness in a soft-spoken, Clint Eastwood-y voice "Don't mess With Texas".

We're everywhere, even in Toronto.

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Raid on Chalabi's House

May 21 - Much has been made of the raid on Chalabi's house yesterday (U.S. mililtary raids Chalabi's home, with more here and here) but there was also this CPA briefing.

People will believe what they chose to believe, but I have more faith in real people (with names) than the all too prevalent "sources" that dominate much of reporting these days. An excerpt from that CPA briefing:

Q: Owen Fay, Fox News. Dan, Ahmed Chalabi has just given a press conference in which he said that at least some of the documents seized today were related to the oil-for-food investigation. Could you tell us the primary thrust of the reason behind this raid and how significant a role the oil-for-food is playing?

MR. SENOR: I would refer you to the Iraqi police on that issue. My understanding is they are the ones who seized any documents. It was an Iraqi-led investigation, it was an Iraqi-led raid. It was the result of Iraqi arrest warrants.

The briefing also explains the relationship between the Iraqi police, investigations, and at what point Bremer takes a role.

In today's CPA briefing, Senor said

There was some news reporting last night that in the Iraqi police investigation -- sorry, in the Iraqi police operation yesterday morning, there were officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency involved in the operation. I just want to categorically deny that that occurred. There were no officials from the CIA, there were no officials from the FBI involved in the Iraqi police investigation. I just was hoping to clear that up today. I don't know if it was misreporting or misinformation, but whatever it was, it was incorrect.

And during the questions, this:

Q: Dan, which government agency or which government contract did the American plainclothes civilians, who were armed, who accompanied the soldiers, work for -- in the Chalabi raid?

MR. SENOR: They were -- sure. Well, first, let me say that there were no officials from the Central Intelligence Agency. There were no officials there from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. There were no Defense Intelligence Agency officials there. There were private contractors who work for the Ministry of Interior. And their job is primarily -- my understanding is, their job is the professionalization of the Iraqi police service. So they were there to observe and advise the Iraqi police during this operation, as they do on numerous operations. They are the only non-Iraqis, to my understanding, that were there.

There was one woman, an -- who was American, who identified herself as an employee of the Iraqi National Congress, who was there when the police service arrived on the scene.

GEN. KIMMITT: And Dexter, you said, escorted the "soldiers." I know you meant the Iraqi police.

There were U.S. soldiers that were involved in the outer cordon. The only purpose in this operation was that if there was any collateral violence that was associated with this, with their responsibility to maintain a safe and secure environment throughout Baghdad, that's what they were there for. But, however, the actual police operation was one conducted by the Iraqi police.

David Frum has an post on the Chalabi raid and, in fact, Chalabi himself here.

He nails the underlying issue:

It is puzzling to me that the same people who refuse to believe the US government when it says its forces hit a terrorist safe house, not a wedding partner, are all credulity when anonymous sources inside that same government declare that Ahmed Chalabi is the center of a vast sinister conspiracy.

David Frum makes a number of sensible points about all the rumours and unknowns that dominate this story, including those that the raid was connected to seizing documents that related to the Oil-for-Food (UNSCAM) investigation.

I think I'll wait until I actually know something before I pass judgement.

May 22 - 00:02: More thoughts from Adam Daifallah vis this Shotgun post, Roger Simon, and Stephen at Friends of Saddam.

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Angel Finale

May 20 - I guess this my formal good-bye to mainstream media (unless Justice League shows some spark, and I don't mean the 'shipping) as the last program I regularly watch ended last night.

Some posts marking this sad event from Denise Angel Goes Bye Bye and Laughing Wolf It Will Be Alright.

The rabid fan following must seem weird to those who didn't follow Buffy the Vampire-Slayer and Angel, but when you think about it, it isn't the least bit strange.

In the pre-Sept. 11 world, there was little admission in the entertainment industry that "evil" and "soul" existed much less were significant. Those things were canon in the Buffyverse.

Remember how the news media pundits gravely stated that "irony was dead?" That may have been the first thing that made me belly-laugh after Sept. 11, because I was on strictly moderated Buffy and Angel forums that dealt forcefully with spoilers, flaming posts and off-topic discussions.

Buffy in particular told stories within a framework of metaphor and sub-text, so discussions about the sub-text of the show merged sub-textually with discussions about Sept 11 and the existence of evil which had suddenly leapt from the realm of fiction to a gaping hold in Manhatten.

And, at times, it seemed the only one who didn't "get it" was Joss, because Buffy that season focused on growing up, not because we "wanted" it but because we "needed" it. It's no accident fans called it the Season from Hell and regretted that Buffy had been resurrected. And Spuffy. I'll never get over the long season of Spuffy and those three pathetic evil-doers.

I could so clearly see the demise of irony. Oh yes indeed.

Angel, on the other hand, had an arc that seemed tailor-made to a post-Sept. 11 audience. It told of a good man who knowingly lapsed into evil in his fanatic quest for vengeance. I have no idea how Keith Szarabajka regarded his Holtz character, although the name of his official website might be a clue.

The Holtz arc remains and will probably always be an all-time favourite of mine, and along the way we got the MacOracle and one of the best death scenes of all time.

Angel also gave us "Numfar, do the Dance of Shame."

People who want to examine this from an intellectual perspective might wonder why the same fan base seemingly exists with the three Whedon vehicles, Farscape, and Babylon Five. And a fairly good number of posters were overt Gilbert and Sullivan fans before Gunn had his upgrade. (It was an Iolanthe thing over Connor's mixed heritage. Don't ask.)

I'm off to work, but left some mild spoilers and more analysis in the extended section ... more...

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Sept. 11 Commission transcripts

May 21 - The transcripts for the Sept. 11 Commission session of May 18-19 are here in .pdf format (with the exception of Giuliani's testimony.)

Here is the link to the WaPo article Giuliani Directs Blame Solely at 9/11 Terrorists. Hopefully they will post the transcript and link it to that page.

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Australia (Football) Rules

Mah 20 - Ozguru is liable if my fall off my chair resulted in any injury ... he's got two posts that require Hazard to Your Gravity warnings: Insufficient Corruption and Real Footy.

I've seen those men in the white suits on the rare airing of Australian football. It's freaking surreal.

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Anti-semitism in Alberta

May 20 - There's an article by Ezra Levant in the Western Standard to which I'm late linking but no one should miss it: A riot, two firebombings and bin Laden graffiti--in friendly Alberta. That's right, in Alberta.

I wasted days before posting it because I was trying to summarize and isolate key quotes; it defied me, and that's a compliment. It just hangs together too well to pick and chose, and the context musn't be lost.

You might also check out this account of some gays who attempted to join a demonstration in support of the people of Palestine. The article saddened me.

Why don't women and gays recognize the danger aimed directly at them by extreme Islamicism? Probably because that kind of thing lies beyond our experiences in the West - the same kind of upside down reasoning that figures the abuses at Abu Ghraib are equal to the abuses of Saddam.

Here, a woman can get angry if a man opens the door for her. When that's the definition of oppression, how does one comprehend honour killings?

Or maybe it's all right-wing propaganda. Yeah! That's it! Right-wing racist propaganda! /sarcasm

Seeing is not necessarily believing, I guess.

Healing Iraq and Iraq the Model are full of excellent posts and provide a lot of common sense that media pundits should heed.

I have to go in to work tonight, so I'll leave you to read those.

And, sorry Sharks fans, but GO FLAMES!!.

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Lileks and Steyn

May 20 - What a glory the internet is: I get to invoke the names of James Lileks and Mark Steyn in one sentence.

From Lileks:

Hello, itÂ’s another Seymour Hersh article on the prison scandal.

Anything on the Berg slaughter? Alas, no. That was a one-off, it seems, an aberration. Move along, nothing to see. Hersh’s article ends: “’We’re giving the world a ready-made excuse to ignore the Geneva Convention. Rumsfeld has lowered the bar.’” Ah. Hereafter the terrorists will be emboldened to saw people’s heads off with dull blades. I’m not going to get into any of that, except to say: 1. the UN Food-for-Oil scandal continues apace. And 2. The first sentence has been handed down in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. A downgrade, a bad-conduct discharge, a year in the pokey.

Questions: is the Oil-for-Food scandal characteristic of the UN, or not? Is the Abu Ghraib scandal characteristic of the US Armed Forces, or not?

Which body acted swiftly to investigate? Which body opened itself to public hearings and condemnations? Which body put the bad guy in the dock, held a trial, and pronounced sentence?

Mark Steyn in UN fetish:

The best rule of politics is this: Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Is the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq perfect? No.
Is it good? Yes.
Was Saddam Hussein's rule perfect? No.
Was it good? No.

[...]

Is the UN perfect? No.

Is the UN good? Well, I'm not sure I'd even say that. But if you object to what's going on in those Abu Ghraib pictures - the sexual humiliation of prisoners and their conscription as a vast army of extras in their guards' porno fantasies - then you might want to think twice about handing over Iraq to the UN.

In Eritrea, the government recently accused the UN mission of, among other offences, pedophilia. In Cambodia, UN troops fueled an explosion of child prostitutes and AIDS. Amnesty International reports that the UN mission in Kosovo has presided over a massive expansion of the sex trade, with girls as young as 11 being lured from Moldova and Bulgaria to service international peacekeepers.

There's a lot more, so you know what to do (besides, it's Steyn!)

Does anyone remember the president mentioning the child sex trade and slavery recently? Yes.
Does anyone remember Kerry mentioning those two issues? How about Chirac? Shoeder? Putin?

Posted by: Debbye at 01:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Think of the children!

May 20 - No, really, that's what the Ontario premier said in defence of the latest budget: It's for the sake of the kids.

"I know we are placing a burden on our families," McGuinty said yesterday. "I'm asking our families to think not only of themselves, but also of their children and the kind of health care system that we long to leave to the next generation." (Emphasis added)

I really wonder at our premier's lack of imagination and good sense to invoke an over-worked phrase which would inevitably provoke so much derision in order to justify tax hikes.

Sheesh, is it too much to ask that they pretend to make an effort? Like maybe try to dress old garbage in a new package? Isn't that what we pay them for?

Damian Penny recently wrote me that Helen Lovejoy is responsible for that phrase:

"Oh, won't somebody please think of the children!!!"

So there you have it folks; the Ontario budget is an upcoming Simpson's episode.

Posted by: Debbye at 01:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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