Rosa Parks and Dr. King

Oct. 25 - Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat to a white man sparked the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, passed away yesterday at the age of 92. What words can possibly express the immense respect and admiration due this woman who, by a simple act of dignity, brought national attention to a deep injustice in our country thus prodding at and eventually awakening the conscience of that nation?

There was an additional layer to the issue: Mrs. Parks was a woman and it was considered a decent courtesy for a man to give up his seat for a woman, yet she was supposed to surrender her seat to him. It was impossible not to recognize that Mrs. Parks had been denied a common courtesy which her gender should have accorded her - if one considered her to be human. And, of course, that was the ultimate question.

I was too young to be fully aware of the boycott but as I grew older and learned more about Jim Crow laws (those laws mandating "separate but equal" facilities) I was incredulous - as perhaps only a child could be - when I learned that there were states that had laws requiring that, e.g., schools, hotels, drinking fountains, swimming pools, beaches and washrooms be segregated: there must be separate facilities for white people and "colored" people. Anyone's sense of fair play was further outraged when it was recognized that the reality was that there was not necessarily a duplication of services; for example, African-Americans were not allowed to drink out of water fountains marked "For Whites Only" but that did not necessarily mean that there was a water fountain nearby marked "For Coloreds Only." (The indignity worsens when we recall that the same lack of facilities held true for washrooms.)

Those times are thankfully in the past. They may be part of our history but they are past history, and although there are still racists in our midst they no longer have the acquiescence of the state. Which, again, brings us back to Rosa Parks.

The biography which CNN offers in the above link is adequate, but a better one is available here. Both articles note her involvement in the NAACP, but did you know that it was founded in 1909? (read the time line at that last link - you may find some surprises.)

There will likely be a great many public tributes over the next few days but I'd like to think that the better ones will be those many of us will be paying in our hearts to this woman who, with Dr. King, challenged us to be better Americans and better Christians and Jews.

Thank you, Mrs. Parks, and God bless you. You made us better.

Posted by: Debbye at 12:59 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1 I just had a complete Rosa Parks post eaten up and lost by mu.nu, but Rosa Parks is worth dpoing it all over again. [I'll save before posting this time]. Getting on a bus in Washington DC, cira 1962, I was rivited by the furtive behavior of a nice fortyish black lady. She got up from her mid-bus seat and moved to the back so that my seating choices would be wider. I sat down behind the bus driver and looked out the window to conceal any emotion showing. Being from Montreal where everyone respects everyone regardless of race colour or even Martian heritage, this behaviour was a shocking intro to southern social conditioning in the USA. Just knowing that Rosa Parks contributed to earasing that condition is enough to make her a peerless hero to me. I do not want to ever see any person of any heritage give up their bus seat to me with that scared look in their eye, ever again. TG

Posted by: TonyGuitar at October 25, 2005 04:12 PM (rmMzv)

2 I'm truly amazed (humbled perhaps) at the effect one decent person can have on society. Mrs. Parks, you have left the world a better place. Thank you.

Posted by: John B at October 26, 2005 10:23 AM (ju7Wp)

3 I just finished adding 512 Mb to my Compaq Presario computer and I am delighted with the results. The three, [always on top], performance bars really tell the story too. Top real time bar is CPU demand, middle is memory and the third is virtual memory. The two memory reserve bars are giving me more than double the head room I used to have and of course everything is quicker. Should have done this as soon as I got the Presario. For a step by step of how to easily add memory , there is a pretty clear account of what I did at: http://Anchorpin.Redpin.com So you can see how easy it is if you have not added a memory module yet. The active graph bar that clearly shows how the computer has improved is called Cool Beans and it’s a perfect freeware program. It’s small, yet it gets all your computer specs and tells you how good your computer is as well. TG http://my.Opera.com/T-G/

Posted by: TonyGuitar at October 27, 2005 03:22 AM (rmMzv)

4 You gotta hand it to Rosa Parks. It took a middle-aged black woman with tired feet to show America what a dungpile it is, and if America was ever even half of what it so obnoxiously claims to be nobody would've ever heard of Mrs. Parks because her noble effort would have been totally unneccessary.

Posted by: Terrence at October 27, 2005 11:37 AM (6/LqO)

5 You gotta hand it to Rosa Parks. It took a middle-aged black woman with tired feet to show America what a dungpile it is, and if America was ever even half of what it so obnoxiously claims to be nobody would've ever heard of Mrs. Parks because her noble effort would have been totally unneccessary and thus would've never happened.

Posted by: Terrence at October 27, 2005 11:37 AM (6/LqO)

6 New Trojan: Public Service Mention: [Canadians who sign on for Afghanistan soldiers of fortune army.] Hey, Drug addicts will sign up. There they can walk about in Heroin Heaven, carrying a lethal weapon and wearing Canadian government permission. Poppyfield nirvanna. Oh deliver me please.. eh? Webroot just proved itself this morning. It caught 11 reporter cookies and one Back-door Trojan. Not a bad find, when you consider Bill Gates scans for stuff here every am around 2. Google Webroot. It's just a few bucks or they may still have a free version. I thought someone was poking about in my Compaqy1. Zapped him now! Posted the Webroot screen [ small thumbnail] on http://My.Opera.com/T-G/ Terrence, don't worry about paying tribute to Rosa twice. She deserves it. Some times a comment goes the long way around, pausing for a breath in China or random scanning in the Brock Mountain Security complex. Then it shows up a little after your second post..eh?

Posted by: TonyGuitar at October 27, 2005 02:46 PM (rmMzv)

7 Nice tribute. Isn't it just like our Liberal government to remain silent about the death of Rosa Parks?

Posted by: Al Gordon at October 28, 2005 11:45 PM (xIUY7)

8 Ha! Nice one, Al! What was Pierre Pettigrew doing instead - getting his hair styled in Paris by a limp-wristed cheese-eating surrender monkey?? If only more people had Rosa Parks' bravery, the Palestinians would be defeated.

Posted by: Joan O'C at October 29, 2005 12:06 AM (xIUY7)

9 Completely OT, but, Debbye, you might want to check your e-mail... Just saying, is all...

Posted by: Paul Jané at October 31, 2005 04:52 AM (W1E5O)

10 Must be on one of those french vacations.

Posted by: Jay at November 01, 2005 11:09 PM (PIbeE)

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Oct. 25 - Last May British MP George Galloway scornfully challenged Sen. Norm Coleman to produce evidence that he had received oil vouchers from Saddam Hussein during the former's testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations which at the time was investigating the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program. Well, the evidence been produced (Senate panel accuses British lawmaker) and the U.S. Department of Justice will be asked to consider charging Galloway with perjury and obstruction of congressional proceedings.

The British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, proclaims Galloway's wife 'received £100,000 from Iraqis':

The Palestinian-born wife of George Galloway, the Respect MP, is accused today of receiving $149,980 (about £100,000) derived from the United Nations Iraqi oil-for-food programme.

A report by an investigative committee of the United States Senate says the money was sent to the personal account of Amineh Abu Zayyad in August 2000.

[...]

The report includes bank records showing a paper trail from Saddam's ministries to Mrs Galloway. It states that the Iraqis handed several lucrative oil-for-food contracts to the Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat, an old friend of the Galloways. A month later, on Aug 3, 2000, Mr Zureikat allegedly paid $150,000 minus a bank commission of $20 from his Citibank account number 500190207 into Mrs Galloway's account at the Arab Bank in Amman.

The senate team also says that a $15,666 payment had been made on the same date to a Bank of Scotland account belonging to Mr Galloway's spokesman, Ron McKay. Last night Mr McKay said he had no recollection of the alleged payment.

[...]

Senate staff said at a press conference yesterday that they would send their report to Britain and Jordan for possible action against the Galloways and Mr Zureikat.

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Oct. 24 - I wish I could report on official Canadian reaction to the Mehlis Report but thus far there hasn't been any. The rest of the world isn't waiting for Canada, though, and Detlev Mehlis, who was commissioned by the U.N. to investigate the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, will be addressing the United Nations Security Council tomorrow. It seems likely that the imposition of sanctions on the Assad government will, at the very least, be brought up (U.S., Britain press for action against Syria) :

Diplomats at the United Nations and in Washington said U.S. and French officials have been talking with Russia and other nations about anti-Syria resolutions to put before the Security Council, including the possibility of punitive economic sanctions.

It's not really so surprising that Canadian officials haven't commented yet, especially as you'd never know the Mehlis Report was all that damning if you read the CBC webpage today (nor would you find a link to an earlier story on that report.) But you can trust the CBC to emphasize the anti-American element in the following story: pro-government demonstration in Syria today:

In a country where protests are rare, a rally in support of the Syrian government virtually shut down central Damascus Monday.

Among the hundreds of thousands of people at the rally – and a similar event in the northern city of Aleppo – there were government employees let off work for the occasion and students released from classes with the government's blessing.

They chanted anti-American slogans to protest a United Nations report released last week that said Syria and Lebanon played roles in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14. (Emphasis added)

The CBC fills us in on more items from the report:

The same report also scolded Syria for its less-than-full co-operation with the United Nations investigation.

[I deleted intervening paragraphs which are not about the report's contents but the CBC report is copied in full in the extended entry for your reading pleasure.]

Syria vigorously denies the allegations in the U.N. report, dismissing its contents as politicized gossip.

Imperative No. 1 at the CBC is to suppress any news that makes the U.N. look bad or, failing that, downplay it. (Imperative No. 2 is to hype news that makes the U.S.A. look bad; note the lead picture on their Indepth Lebanon page!) That's part of the reason why some of us are somewhat cynical when CBC reporters are named to the Senate or appointed Governor-General. When your job as a reporter includes tainting the news or even failing to report the news, The News Canadians Trust isn't very trustworthy and neither are its reporters.

Although the news report says that there have been calls for U.N. sanctions, no specific country was named (the article does quote President Bush's response to the report, though.) I think it odd that the CBC completely ignored the involvement of both the French and the British not only because of the shared British and French heritage of Canada but also because the two countries are permanent members of the UNSC. Some might think that when 3 out of 5 permanent members are attempting to build a U.N.-based response against Syria that such an event would be newsworthy.

Same old, same old. For the CBC, it's always All. About. America. and not about, say, the Lebanese (or the Iraqis, for that matter) unless it's about a Syrian response which is All. About. America.

The CBC was so anxious to be even-handed that it didn't even mention the response in Lebanon to the report, unlike the AP, Michael Totten and Expat Yank Robert (and the latter has posted some very moving photos of the commemorative ceremonies at Hafrik's grave that were held last Friday.)

14:25: This CTV report on the Syrian demonstrations contains considerably more information about the Mehlis report although no names of suspected perpetrators are mentioned nor is the revelation that the report was altered to removed key names.

There's also a sobering analysis over at Canada Free Press by J. Grant Swank, Jr.: Syria: Murder & mayhem, but who cares? in which he expresses why he believes the Syrians will not be rising up to oust Assad. He makes several good points and, when you come right down to it, this isn't really about internal matters in Syria but that country's behaviour in Lebanon over the past few decades as well as their support of terrorist groups that attack Israel and (I suspect) Iraq. more...

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Oct. 24 - More "religious" riots. So are Egyptians rioting over the release of a DVD of a Christian play or in preparation for elections next month?

According to information gleaned from this CNN account, Four die in DVD-fed Muslim rioting, the rioters have won a partial victory because one of the two Coptic candidates, Maher Khalah, has withdrawn from the parliamentary elections.

But they didn't win the big concession, namely an apology:

"We're not going to apologize because we don't want it to become a precedent," said [Kamil] Sediq of the Coptic Community Council, a secular body of prominent Copts established in 1874 to oversee affairs of the community. "We did nothing to apologize for."

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Oct. 24 - I'm glad I persevered in reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It was becoming more chore than pleasure until Gail Wynand was introduced, and I found him to be so interesting that I continued to read it by standing beneath the street lamp as I waited for my bus this morning.

Even Dominique was beginning to make sense.

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Oct. 24 - Many thanks to Kevin of Boots on the Ground for recommending Nadz Online.

This is extemely funny.

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Oct. 23 - John B. was right on the money. From Newsbusters, Stephen Dupont, the Australian Journalist Who Filmed Burning Taliban Bodies Suggests Media Got it All Wrong and that "the bodies were burned purely for reasons of hygiene when the local villagers refused to retrieve them, and that the American soldiers didn't do anything wrong." (My bolding.)

I sympathize with the villagers who refused to pay any honour to the dead Taliban. I doubt somehow that they are among those who are expressing how shocked, appalled, offended and humiliated they feel - at least now that the Taliban has been removed from power.

There is also some discussion about the psy-ops strategy which I like to call "Come out and play if you have a pair."

Am I take this too lightly? Maybe it's just my way of establishing a defensive perimeter so as to better withstand the expected battery of vapidly moralizing journalists who won't be able to refrain from running and re-running this story into the ground.

Do members of the news media actually fail to grasp what happens when terrorists detonate bombs? The blackening of the body parts is not due to the intense cold.

(Via Neale News.)

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Oct. 23 - Michael Yon's eagerly awaited article on the Iraqi referendum vote All Quiet on the Baghdad Front in online.

Great read. Michael Yon has the uncommon ability to speak to us - not around, through, over, or beyond us - and reflect those private doubts and fears we allow ourselves to experience only after the fact. He begins by writing about the January elections:

There were bombs exploding, mortars falling, and hot machine guns. The fact that the voting was going great despite the violence was something few people expected. Until that day, I'd been skeptical about Iraq. Not fashionably cynical, merely skeptical. ..But nobody really knew what the Iraqi people had in mind, and the Iraqis were the people who counted most.

The millions who voted sent a message: Serpentine lines of ebullient Iraqis risked their lives--dozens died--to have a say in their futures. ..

The courage of the Iraqi people that January day planted a seed of confidence. These were not timid or cowering souls. ..The voice of the Iraqi people had risen above the clamor of insurgent violence.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I expect that everyone will read this article and I don't intend to do much more than highly recommend it, but I must note the honesty about uncertainty as to "numbers" with which Yon concludes:

Next morning, I got information from the Army that there had been 19 attacks on polling sites throughout Iraq, and in January there had been 108. There may be some garble in the numbers (there usually is). There had actually been somewhere between 300 and 350 total attacks on the January election day. And the army would later say that there were 89 total attacks during the voting last week. Who knows? I know that it was quiet from my perch, and that the guns had been silenced long enough that we could hear the Iraqi voice speak for a second time. The voice was louder, stronger, and prouder than it had been in January.

I've been criticized for using terms like terrorist and enemy in my dispatches. Most critics are a safe distance from the battleground. Up close, its more than a matter of taking sides. There's no value in using imprecise language in a futile attempt to appear objective. There is a difference between Coalition soldiers and Iraqi police officers and the terrorists and criminals they confront. Whether you call them insurgents or resistance fighters or terrorists, the people who wake up in the morning plotting how to drive explosives-laden cars into crowds of children have to be confronted.

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Don't forget that you can listen to Michael Yon This Sunday, 9 p.m. ET, on Pundit Review Radio.

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Oct. 23 - Seems the LA Times actually has a piece on the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, and I'm sure it's not solely because it was a Texas Tycoon Charged in Oil-for-Food Indictment.

The article says that

... Oscar S. Wyatt Jr., [aged 81,] the founder and former chairman of Coastal Corp., [whom] prosecutors in New York alleged ... had used secret bank accounts and other shadowy tactics to funnel millions of dollars to Hussein to obtain the right to pump millions of barrels of oil from Iraq between 2000 and 2003.

Two Swiss business executives and three others who were first charged in April were also named in the indictment.

The indictment of Wyatt — a Texas wildcatter and political donor known for his sometimes flamboyant dealings with dictators — is the latest in a wide-ranging investigation into the oil-for-food program run by the U.N.

[..]

Wyatt has denied wrongdoing. ...

The indictment alleges that Wyatt and his associates lobbied the U.N. to set an official selling price for the oil they bought — a price that would allow them to pay the kickbacks allegedly demanded by Hussein and still make a profit. It alleges that Wyatt conspired in the scheme with David B. Chalmers [Jr.], the owner of another Houston oil company, Bayoil USA.

I find it perversely funny that a writer in LA would consider it bad that someone is a "political donor," and by the omission as to whom and what he donated, I wonder if he donated to the Democrats. If the allegations are correct, Wyatt was involved as late as 2003 which would tend to make one think he was anti-war, no?

The article also claims that Wyatt is "known for his sometimes flamboyant dealings with dictators" but the only thing offered to support that contention is that "[he] may be best known for using his corporate jet to rescue 21 Americans being held hostage by Hussein a month before the Persian Gulf War began."

Well researched article, dude, including the failure to note that Chalmers' correct name includes the appendage "Jr."

Personally, I'm all for throwing all the books at any American who is found to have partipated in Oil-for-Food kickback schemes, and I only wish we could also charge them with treason.

(Via Newsbeat1. Free registration may be required to read LA Times articles.)

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Oct. 22 - It is becoming increasingly evident why corrupt governments (like that under the Liberals in Canada) are so comfortable with the workings of the U.N. They have so much in common: lack of transparency, lack of proper accounting controls over expenditures, no whistle-blower protection, a patronage system that rewards corruption, and a brazen willingness to cling to power no matter what the cost - even when it means tampering with their own reports. But covering up a murder? That may be a new low even for the U.N. (as we don't actually know that there is a Rwandan flight recorder in Kofi's safe.)

I wrote yesterday about shame and cited the CNN article that alleged that members of Bashar al-Assad's family were involved in the assassination of Lebanese statesman Hafrik Hariri, but it has now emerged that those allegations were supposed to be suppressed by the office of the U.N. which is yet one more indication of how very unworthy the U.N. is of the esteem many hold for it - unless of course they're thieves or thugs.

Those who doubt the allegations of tampering with the Volcker Report on the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program have another fine mess to rationalize away. From the [London] Times Online: UN office doctored report on murder of Hariri:

THE United Nations withheld some of the most damaging allegations against Syria in its report on the murder of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, it emerged yesterday.

The names of the brother of Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, and other members of his inner circle, were dropped from the report that was sent to the Security Council.

The confidential changes were revealed by an extraordinary computer gaffe because an electronic version distributed by UN officials on Thursday night allowed recipients to track editing changes.

[...]

But the furore over the doctoring of the report threatened to overshadow its damaging findings. It raised questions about political interference by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary- General, who had promised not to make any changes in the report.

One crucial change, apparently made after the report was submitted to the UN chief, removed the name of President al-AssadÂ’s brother, Maher, his brother-in-law, Assef al-Shawkat, and other high-ranking Syrian officials.

The final, edited version quoted a witness as saying that the plot to kill Mr Hariri was hatched by unnamed “senior Lebanese and Syrian officials”. But the undoctored version named those officials as “Maher al-Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleyman and Jamal al-Sayyed”. (Emphasis added)

Hmm, I wonder where does Annan's deputy assistant, Louise Frechette, was at the time? One's second-in-command plays many roles and not all of them are above-board, as anyone who's ever tangled with bureaucracy can attest, and the second-in-command is often deemed expendable when scandal explodes beyond any possible level of containment.

The big question is why would officials at the U.N. tamper with the report? and at who's behest? It's easy to assume that there was a quid-pro-quo at work, but who stood most to gain?

The easy assumption is that, in the name of stability, the U.N. does not wish to see Assad's government fall. That argument was used during the lead up to the Iraq War but, as was later revealed, there were far more persuasive economic reasons (which included billions of dollars collected by the U.N. itself for "administrative fees") to prop up Saddam than a reverence for stability, mass graves and human rights violations notwithstanding. But Assad does not have the same degree of international protection as did Saddam, and even though Arab states may wish to protect him they would surely be wise enough by now to recognize when it's best to leave a sinking ship.

This is only a blog and I'm allowed personal pique, so I vote for France as the ones who stand most to gain by protecting Assad - in part because I really hate those bastards, and in part because I really don't trust them. All the strong words coming out of France about their determination to track down the murderers of Hariri and their support for Lebanon were very nice and made for great press so long as unnamed persons were suspected but now the dots connect all the way to Assad's immediate family (I guess it would be a cheap shot to point out here that France does have a history of collaboration with fascism, so I'll forbear.)

Words really can come back to haunt us. France has been forced into a corner from which all the nuancing in the world cannot extricate them (although I suspect they'll try) so they may now have to actually live up to their promises.

Who says history is dead?

As an aside, the computer "gaffe" itself is very interesting, no?

(Free registration may be required to read the Times Online. I really don't remember at this point which online periodicals required my registration and which were quickly accessible. Sorry about that.)

(Via Neale News.)

Oct. 22 - 01:06: Michael Totten reports from Lebanon on the response there to the Mehlis Report and has some great photos. I find the one of someone scrawling on a wall "And the truth shall set you free" to be particularly apt.

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Oct. 21 - On the one hand researchers claim that working women are too stressed to to add frozen vegetables to boiling water, and on the other hand someone who said that proper child-raising and rising to the top ranks in the advertising industry are incompatible goals has been forced to resign (Top ad guru quits amid sexism furor.)

Mr. [Neil] French confirmed yesterday that he has quit as worldwide creative director of WPP Group PLC, the world's second-largest marketing company where he oversaw famous agency networks including Ogilvy & Mather, JWT, Young & Rubicam and Grey Worldwide.

But Mr. French -- famous both for his brilliant work as a copy writer and his politically incorrect views -- stands by controversial comments he made in response to a question from the audience at a Toronto event sponsored by ad industry Web site ihaveanidea.org. The comments circled around the world after being reported last week in The Globe and Mail's Nobody's Business column.

"The woman asked why there are so few women creative directors. I said because you can't commit yourself to the job. And everyone who doesn't commit themselves fully to the job is crap at it . . ," Mr. French said yesterday in an interview.

"You can't be a great creative director and have a baby and keep spending time off every time your kids are ill. You can't do the job. Somebody has to do it and the guy has to do it the same way that I've had to spend months and months flying around the world and not seeing my kid. You think that's not a sacrifice? Of course it's a sacrifice. I hate it. But that's the job and that's what I do in order to keep my family fed."

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Oct. 21 - Lots of people should feel shame these days for things that have been done, things that have not been done or said, and things that should be done but most likely will not be done.

'Omran Salman has written about the continuing extermination of Shi'ites in Iraq and attacks the silence of Sunnis there and that of Arab journalists and statesmen throughout the Mideast: "Aren't the Arabs Ashamed When Some of Them Massacre Iraqi Citizens?":

"What can we say in light of the attitude of the Arab media [in general] and the Arab satellite channels in particular, which report the killings, the slaughters, and the suicide bombings among Iraqi citizens coolly, treating them as routine events [and] as part of what has been termed 'the series of [acts of] violence in Iraq?'

"The war being waged by the Al-Qaeda organization and the terrorists against the Shi'ites in Iraq is among the acts of collective extermination, which is rare in modern history. There has been no case in the past in which somebody has declared a similar war against a race or a group as a whole, except [for the case of] Nazi Germany against the Jews...

"The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq and similar [bodies] in Arab countries have issued dozens of fatwas about current political issues, but have not issued even a single fatwa declaring bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, or Al-Zarqawi to be infidels because of their killing of the Shi'ites."

Since we're on the subject of shame, the media silence about the recent Iraq referendum has been deafening, and Oliver North does some sharpshooting in The purple finger effect:

The same potentates of the press who focused for weeks on hanging chads in Florida five years ago widely ignored one of the most dramatic political events of our time. In the midst of a bloody war, politicians in an Islamic country spent seven months drafting their own constitution and then sent it to their people for ratification.

CNN was able to obtain a copy of the report given Thursday to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Security Council members, which lists the names of the men accused of planning the February 14, 2005, bombing that killed Hariri and 22 other people.

The names were not in copies of the report released for general distribution.

In addition to Maher Assad, the Syrian president's brother, those investigating Hariri's death accused Assef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law; Jamil al-Sayyed, head of Lebanese intelligence; Hassan Khalil, former head of Syrian intelligence; and Bahjat Suleyman, a personal friend of the Syrian president, as participating in planning the assassination.

A witness, who is Syrian but lives in Lebanon, and who claims to have worked for Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon, told investigators that about two weeks before Security Council Resolution 1559 was passed, the officials decided to assassinate Hariri.

"Today, a serious report came out that requires the world to look at it very carefully and respond accordingly," he said. "The report is deeply disturbing."

Bush said he instructed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "call upon the United Nations to convene a session as quickly as possible to deal with this very serious matter."

Lebanon is a member of the agency of "francophonie" as are France, Romania and Benin, nations which currently sit on the UNSC, and thus one would expect them to exhibit some degree of solidarity, right? [As an aside, Canada, New Brunswick and Quebec are also members of the agency of francophonie.]

One group that realistically might be able to exert pressure on Syria is the EU. They were quick to make overtures for increased trade with Syria after the U.S. Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act in 2004 and are thus in a position wherein they could at minimum impose sanctions. Right.

(Memri link via Newsbeat1)

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Oct. 21 - I must be getting old because I thought this was already well known but evidently the issue is that the knowledge has received official confirmation! Or maybe the issue is that Canadians participating in the "insurgency" tends to minimize the claim that said "insurgency" is an Iraqi-based resistance.

Seems that according to the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, James Judd, some Canadians are taking part in Iraqi insurgency. (Gasp!)

According to Keith Boag, the CBC's Ottawa bureau chief, the Prime Minister's Office was "flabbergasted" that such sensitive information could be released by the head of the spy agency. "They didn't know it was being spoken about publicly and for that they [the PMO] are very angry."

"The prime minister never comments on intelligence matters and they were under the impression that CSIS didn't either," said Boag.

Acknowledgment that Canadians are fighting in Iraq raises a number of questions, such as what will their status be if they decide to return to Canada.

"It raises the longer-term question of what do they bode for the future?" Judd said.

The Kitsilano lawyer [Gail Davidson] got the ball rolling against Bush as soon as he set foot on Canadian soil for his November 30, 2004, visit. As a private citizen, she charged him with seven counts of counselling, aiding, and abetting torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at CubaÂ’s Guantanamo Bay naval base. She had her charges accepted by a justice of the peace in Vancouver Provincial Court.

Bush faces prison time if the case goes to trial and he is found guilty.

On December 6, 2004, Davidson was at Provincial Court to fix a date for the process hearing. However, Provincial Court Judge William Kitchen promptly ordered a Straight reporter and other observers from the courtroom and cancelled the charges, declaring them a “nullity”. The meeting was deemed to be “in-camera” and Kitchen concluded immediately that Bush had diplomatic immunity during his two-day visit to Canada because he was a head of state.

(Links via Neale News.)

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Oct. 21 - Okay, I've watched the footage of what appear to be U.S. soldiers standing on a rock under which boots and maybe a human body are burning (available by link at story at CNN.com U.S. State Dept: Video 'very troubling') but what I haven't seen is any evidence that U.S. soldiers set the boots or any body alight.

I heard a U.S. soldier - in a separate shot - reading a statement in which he taunts members of the Taliban to come out and fight like men, but that's nothing new. (I've done it myself.)

I'm trying to think through a lot of possible possibilities, and another thing I can't say I saw was any indication that the purported burning body was that of a Muslim. What if it was that of a Hindu, many of whom are our allies in Afghanistan?

Burning bodies is supposed to be a major no-no for Muslims, yet we didn't hear the same level of aghast horror last year at a bridge in Fallujah so spare me the angst now.

It's hard to burn a human body (but not harder than it is to flush a Koran down a toilet) and I have to wonder why, if this reporter could film a burning body, he wasn't able to film the steps leading up to the burning of said body. Something easy, like tossing a burning match. Something that would be evidence.

There's something very off here.

Oct. 23 - John B. had it right as to hygiene being the reason why the bodies were burned. Read Journalist Who Filmed Burning Taliban Bodies Suggests Media Got it All Wrong.

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Oct. 21 - The Washingto Post had an un-insightful item yesterday: Rice Declines to Give Senators Timeline for Germany South Korea Iraq Withdrawal.

I could have included Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa in the strike-outs, but it was already getting a tad long! (Feel free to add your own favourite "quagmire," but Los Angeles is off-limits!)

I hate to disappoint the Post, but most Americans understood going in that it would be a long-term committment. We also understood that sticking this through would meet our long-term objectives far more than cutting and running.

Having said that, it also grieves me that some of our best men and women are being killed and maimed over there. It just seems wrong that the intelligent idiots in their ivory towers babble on while those who many - including me - consider their betters are on the front lines.

Where are all those human shields, anyway? They would protect hospitals and electrical stations under Saddam's rule but not under Iraq home rule? Couldn't they at least protect the defense lawyers for Saddam's trial? (No link yet, but word has it that he has been found dead.) [07:45 - link now available here.

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Oct. 21 - David Dingwall explains his expenses and in one respect he is entirely correct: his expenses were approved by the Canadian Mint's Board of Directors.

But that's the point! The fact that those "expenses" were "approved" is a real scandal as much as is the appointment of political hacks who feel it necessary to pad their income by lobbying for contracts for which lobbying is forbidden.

So why is Dingwall getting severance pay instead of jail time? (I know why; just let me emote!)

Patronage appointments lead to corruption. The resistance by the political parties to legislate having such appointments be made strictly on merit and qualifications is why many are indifferent or even hostile to politics, and when the argument devolves to "give the other side an opportunity to appoint their own thieving cronies" then we are well past cynicism and apathy and into a level of contempt that can kill the heart of a country.

Shoot. For. The. Stars. Demand competence, accountability and honesty from all appointed officials. Taxpayers deserve no less.

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Oct. 21 - Operation Rudolph - as in guiding Santa's team to deliver packages to Canadian Forces personnel in Afghanistan (link via Newsbeat1.)

There's no nice way to say this: public support for Canadian troops up here is all talk and no show. Yes, everyone shows up at the local Cenotaph once a year on Remembrance Day, stands around solemnly and intones "Never Again!" but when it comes to actually giving something (and we won't even go into federal funding for the troops) there isn't the kind of personal, local support here as there is in the U.S.A.

No one's asking you to "give 'till it hurts" (that right is reserved for the taxman) but maybe you can send a thank-you note. Or a donation (tax-deductible, no less!)

I'm as guilty as anyone up here of doing little to support the Canadians in Afghanistan, but then my energy and money go to supporting my people in my army in the U.S.A. What's your excuse?

By the way, before anyone sneers at the Canadian presence in 'stan, they might want to read Canadian forces offer first peek at JTF2 mission in Afghanistan from Sept. 21. (Run the complete headline through google for article.)

Also, read Postcard from Kandahar over at Small Dead Animals.

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Oct. 21 - Thanks to Kevin for this heads-up: Pundit Review: Michael Yon This Sunday, 9 p.m. ET, on Pundit Review Radio. Mr. Yon in an embedded reporter (his current affiliation is with the Weekly Standard) and his accounts and photos are markedly different from what we read on CNN or Fox.

If you haven't been following Mr. Yon's dispatches online, you can read them here and you might want to begin with this.

The post linked above at Pundit Review in turn links to WRKO and from there you can click on the "Listen Live" button. (I presume! If I'm wrong please let me know.)

I am supposed to work Sunday night, worse luck. Too bad I can't set something equivalent to a VCR for the broadcast, but I am looking forward to reading the reviews or, better, if anyone knows of a transcript of the interview please let me know.

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Oct. 20 - For reasons beyond anyone's control I'm off work tonight so I'm going to indulge myself by doing more reading than writing.

Okay, I've always tried to be honest here so I'm also watching Stargate SG-1 and will watch the new Smallville episode at 11 p.m. (on the LA W-B station) and a Season 2 episode on YTV at 2:35 a.m.

Here's a couple of worth-while reads:

Relapsed Catholic is on a roll. Just start at the top and keep scrolling and following the links (I spent over an hour there.) If you're short on time, at least read this, which quotes from another:

"Canadian anti-Americanism is, paradoxically, perhaps best expressed in its adulation for one of the US's most infamously unscrupulous and immoral leaders, former president William Jefferson Clinton. .."

I've tried to write about Saddam's trial but can't be dispassionate and the solemn pronouncements of those wonderful human rights sorts would be laughable if their sentiments didn't disguise so total a lack of any respect for human rights. Peter Worthington sums it all up nicely, both in the title of today's column in the Toronto Sun Get it over with: Saddam must die, and in this:

We, in civilized countries that live by law and decency, like to say that the process is more important than the outcome. Certainly that was the case in the first free elections in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With Saddam, however, the verdict is more important than the process: Death for the despot.

A first-class constable -- an officer with at least five years on the job -- earns $66,852 annually.

Wilson complained that the police services board wants to cut benefits, require officers to work an additional 40 hours each year without compensation and to reduce retention pay.

We're so damned enlightened that we imagine ourselves superior to the men and women who put their lives on the line to save our sorry asses.

I said I was going to read more and write less. I didn't intentionally lie ... I'll to back to reading and update this after Smallville. (What? It's one of the funniest shows on TV these days. Every time one of the Kent parental units gives that "exasperated but indulgent look" I crack up. Besides, the episode where Clark met The Flash was wonderful and tonight he's going to meet Aquaman.)

Oct. 21 - 01:50: If you're looking for spoilers on Aquaboy meets Superboy I'm going to disappoint. But if Canadian viewers without W-B access want teasers ... Arthur Currie (Aquaboy) does bring new meaning to the phrase "blew him right out of the water" and there was a cute play on acronyms with Junior Lifeguard Association. Also, Clark gets pissy over some kissy-face at the Kent Farm, which after last week's antics was totally hypocritical.

South Park Does Katrina! Clips for viewing at the link.

Robert has been temporarily stuck at home with an injured foot but it hasn't affected his posting. Annan talks about needing more aid to Pakistan. Maybe Kofi and his "advisors" should read Big Windy In Pakistan dated October 15:

BW has been on the ground here in Pakistan for 6 days now and we have been going non stop. We have 3 Chinooks along with 2 Dco Hooks from Kandahar. In the last 4 days we have hauled thousands of pounds of relief supplies and back hauled well over a 1000 Quake victims. The crews are running from sun up to sun down making turns up into the mountains and back to the airfield of Islamabad. This is the main hub where most of the supplies we pick up are brought in from all over the world. Below are a few photos of operations of the last few days.

Robert also looks at the coverage by some of the British press of Saddam's trial.

You all know that Kate's back, right? Kate's always great, but the Postcard from Kandahar in particular needs to be read and re-read. It reveals a reality that bland reporting and the "La la la Canadian troops are Happy Peacekeepers" fiction obscures. (Yeah, I know I linked it downstream but ... so what? It deserves double-dipping.)

Ith writes on Social Justice and Cultural Competency and poses an interesting question to a scary scenario. For some weird reason the word "brainwashing" leapt to mind ...

Via Newsbeat1, Michelle Malkin reports on the on-going fight over Able Danger. I'm glad she and others are staying on top of this. Why isn't Congress demanding that the Pentagon stop the stonewalling and tell us the truth? (You'd think the Dems would be all over this. Why aren't they?) We already know there were serious intelligence failures leading up to Sept. 11 and we assume (hope) changes have been made. Or haven't they? After all, nothing more typifies the immoveable object than bureaucracy.

Newsbeat1 has some other great links that I plan to read right now, including the newest Rosett investigatory piece about the UN procurement scandal.

Posted by: Debbye at 10:56 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 [waves] thanks for the link! SG1 is of the good

Posted by: Ith at October 21, 2005 01:55 PM (P/TlQ)

2 [waves back] You're very welcome! SG-1 is wonderful, but [sobs] we don't get the see the Ben Browder episodes until November 10 so we have to make do with last season's episodes. We're only up to the re-run of Annubis's takedown by Oma in the greasy spoon place.

Posted by: Debbye at October 21, 2005 08:33 PM (e5BiC)

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(Sent via email by a friend out West.)

Sorry about the no blogging - I feel asleep early and woke up late.

Tim Horton's, for any readers who may not know, is a huge chain of donut shops up here and most have drive-through service. Many a person arrives to work with a Tim Horton's cup in hand.

Tim Horton was a legendary hockey player who, for most of his career, played for the Toronto Maple Leafs and he may have been the strongest man to ever play in the NHL. Story has it that he didn't fight - he just bearhugged 'em. He last played for the Buffalo Sabres and was killed in a car crash on the QEW in the 1974.

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