Peter Arnett has his work

Peter Arnett has his work cut out for him: despite front pages like this, which I doubt even the Iraq Daily would run, a new poll suggests that 49% of Mirror readers support the war with Iraq, while 38% are opposed. (Most of the major British newspapers have a significant number of regular readers opposed to its stance on the war, but no other paper is as out of touch with its readership as the Mirror.)

This is beyond parody. Update:

This is beyond parody.

Update: Pilger's Arnett's first Mirror front page says he was "fired by America for telling the truth". Yes, folks, he's now a free speech martyr, just like, uh...Bill Maher.

AAAAUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

The AIPAC web site (AIPAC

The AIPAC web site (AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, aka the dreaded, omnipotent Jewish lobby) has been hacked. It might be fixed by the time you read this, but here's how it reads at 8:45PM EST:

!termCREW owned some jews!

LET YOUR FREEDOM RING ELSEWHERE

Stand by for the inevitable claim that the Jews did this to themselves, to discredit the anti-war movement, which is merely "anti-Zionist" and would never, ever say anything bad about Jews.

(via LGF)

Shock! Sexy separatist siren seduces

Shock! Sexy separatist siren seduces Tex into supporting socialist soversigntist slate Normally reliable Oz-blogger Chris Textor is banging the drum for Quebec separation, mainly because it may allow him to bang a Quebec separatist:

Anne-Sophie is one of my best friends. She is a hottie. She loves her hometown of Québec City.

Oh, and she said she'd sleep with me if I helped make another referendum happen, so you'd be doing me a favour too. Pleeeeeease, I mean, you should just see this girl's ass.........

Hey, I'll be blunt: there's not a single Canadian outside of Quebec who, at least once in his or her life, hasn't wanted to see the friggers just go away and stop bothering the rest of us. (Want to have some fun in a crowd of Newfoundlanders? Ask us about the Churchill Falls agreement.) But supporting separation because the rest of Canada is "run by neo-European idiots who seem determined to destroy the economy, increase bureaucracy, apologise to terrorists and spend all their time squealing about Americans"? Yikes. That's like supporting the Nazis in the 1933 German election, because the other parties were too anti-Semitic.

I hate to break this to you, Tex, but Quebec is the most left-wing province in Canada by a noticeable margin, and a succession of separatist PQ governments since 1976 is primarily responsible. No other province sees so much government interference in the economy or, more notably, so much opposition to the war in Iraq. (According to the Globe and Mail and CTV, public opinion outside of Quebec is split almost evenly on the war, but the Quebecois are opposed by a wide margin.) And don't get me started on the PQ's language laws, which have driven about half the province's anglophone population away since 1976. (In any other context, this would be the world's first example of non-violent ethnic cleansing. In Canada, it's multiculturalism in action. Or something.)

Put it this way: there's a reason radical socialists support Quebec independence, Tex. Anne-Sophie's ass notwithstanding, you don't want to be on their side, do you?

Public service announcement: be on

Public service announcement: be on the lookout for a cranky-looking rhymes-with-witch in a white Mercedes-Benz.

You might be a left-winger

You might be a left-winger if...you find this more offensive than this.

Disgraceful. Absolutely fucking disgraceful. (via

Disgraceful. Absolutely fucking disgraceful.

(via Kathy)

Peter Arnett has been canned

Peter Arnett has been canned by NBC and National Geographic. Don't fret, Peter. I'm sure Al-Jazeera could use a man with your unique talents.

Here's how the inevitable Reuters photo caption will read: "Award-winning journalist Peter Arnett leaves NBC headquarters after being fired for giving an interview critical of American foreign policy to a competing station. Human rights around the world have been a casualty of the US-led 'War on Terror' since September 11, 2001, when Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden allegedly ordered the crashing of two planes into the World Trade Center, allegedly killing over 3,000 people."

(via the Prof)

CBC Radio's Paris correspondent -

CBC Radio's Paris correspondent - I could look up her name, but I don't want to give her the attention - has produced some reports on Parisian "peace" protests which have been fawning even by CBC standards. They're not really anti-American, she tells us, and they certainly don't have anything against the Jews. It's all very peaceful and idyllic and happy with the rainbows and the singing and the dancing and the joy and the bliss and the glaben!!!

From the International Herald Tribune:

On Saturday, as tens of thousands of protesters against the U.S.-led war took to the streets in Paris, 5,000 police officers and a team of marshals were stationed alongside them.

Both boys and girls wore the Palestinian scarf known as the kaffiyeh. One Moroccan-born man stepped on an image of the Israeli flag. Another French Arab pointed to a group of protesters from a Jewish student association and said: ‘‘They are targets. They are not welcome here, because of what they did to our Palestinian brothers.’’
[...]
Politicians and intellectuals of all leanings have condemned the anti-Semitic tone of the protests, which have included chants of ‘‘Vive Chirac! Stop the Jews!’’

Hey, maybe the Jew-haters just shut up when they know there's a diligent CBC reporter around. Yeah, that's it.

The increased tension comes as a government watchdog organization released a report Thursday that there had been an ‘‘explosion’’ in anti-Semitic incidents in France in 2002 as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and military preparations for a war in Iraq.

In a second category of racist acts — threats, graffiti and insults — more than 70 percent of the nearly 1,000 incidents were aimed at the Jewish community, while most of the rest were aimed at the North African immigrant community, the report said.

Lileks has some interesting observations

Lileks has some interesting observations about last night's exceptionally mediocre Simpsons episode - particularly, how some of the gags (involving British masculinity, or Principal Skinner being put through a paper shredder) seem inappropriate now that the (British-supported) war with Iraq is going on. To be honest, I never really thought about this while I was watching it. I was too busy thinking, "man, this is hopelessly lame." Last night was the closest I ever came to turning off the show halfway through and reading a book or something.

The really frustrating part is that Fox has given up on Matt Groening's Futurama, a show with all the energy and wit of The Simpsons during its peak years. They were good enough to give us an episode last night (with almost no promotion), but production on the series has shut down, and Fox is simply burning off the episodes they already had in the can. At least we can be thankful the show stayed on the air as long as it did. Had Groening not been involved, it almost certainly would have gone the way of Undeclared, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Action, Greg the Bunny, or any other great Fox show which didn't get CSI-level ratings in its first month.

Some say The Simpsons went into deep decline when Groening began concentrating on his new show, and now that Futurama is finished, there's hope that The Simpsons might regain some of its past glory. Well, maybe. But these days, I really think the best thing it can do for itself is fade away after a historic run.

Highlights from Peter Arnett's Iraqi

Highlights from Peter Arnett's Iraqi television interview:

"I'd like to say from the beginning that the 12 years I've been coming here, I've met unfailing courtesy and cooperation. Courtesy from your people, and cooperation from the Ministry of Information, which has allowed me and many other reporters to cover 12 whole years since the Gulf War with a degree of freedom which we appreciate. And that is continuing today."

"I've been here many times and in my commentaries on television I would tell the Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces, the determination of the government, and the willingness to fight for their country. But me, and others who felt the same way were not listened to by the Bush administration. ...That is why now America is re-appraising the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and re-writing the war plan. The first war plan has failed because of Iraqi resistance now they are trying to write another war plan."

You know the worst part? When the controversy really takes off in America, the Wanker and other leftie rags will be full of stories about the "crushing of dissent" in America, because those unsophisticated Yanks got so upset about a reporter for an American network giving a fawning interview to the totalitarian enemy's propaganda station. Maybe they'll get John Sutherland to write it. Maybe he'll say the whole thing was faked by the Mossad, to discredit Arnett. Yeah, that's it.

(via LGF)

I'm so shocked this morning

I'm so shocked this morning I can hardly type. The Wanker has sunk to a depth I didn't think possible, even by the low standards of England's left-wing press.

You've all seen the photos of pro-Islamic Jihad "peace" activist Rachel Corrie, her face contorted with rage, burning the American flag in Gaza just a few weeks before being crushed by an Israeli bulldozer. The Wanker's John Sutherland writes that these photos might have been faked by the Mossad:

Two days later a contrary photograph of Rachel appeared, first in the Seattle Times (the article accompanying it has since been removed). It depicts her snarling, shawled and in a Palestinian street demonstration, tearing up a paper US flag. The provenance given for the photograph (a mysterious snapper called "Khalil Hamra") led nowhere. Where, then, had it come from? Paranoia suggested the Israeli secret service, which monitors such events. This picture also looked, to some expert eyes, doctored.

Keep in mind that this isn't 'whatreallyhappened.com' or any of the other sites which blame the omnipotent Mossad for faking stories which portray the Palestinians and their supporters and radical and violent. This is the freaking Guardian, circulation 375,000, the newspaper of Britain's intellectual elite. And, as Charles Johnson notes, with all these journalistic resources at his disposal, Sutherland somehow failed to note that the controversial photos came from the Associated Press and Rachel Corrie's own organization.

Sutherland also notes the following:

Pictures had accompanied the news reports of Rachel's death, megaphone in hand, standing in front of the menacing bulldozer. A pose inescapably reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. Another picture showed her fallen in front of the murderous blade. Questions were asked as to whether the images had been "manipulated".

Sutherland, of course, doesn't actually list any of the reasons so many bloggers believe the images were "manipulated," such as the minor, insignificant detail that the bulldozers in the two photos look completely different. (Zach Cohen has the details - go to his blog and scroll down to "More Photo Twisting.")

By the time you finish this miserable piece of trash, it's obvious that Sutherland is motivated not just by complete loathing of Israel, but by morbid fear of the blogosphere:

What have we come to? The speed with which this kind of devil's advocacy can now (thanks to the net) be mounted, its sheer unbridled violence and its moral irresponsibility are, to the thoughtful mind, more frightening than any of those WMDs for whose (dubious) existence Britons are, at this moment, laying down their lives. Stop the world: I want to log off.

Of course he thinks blogs are more frightening that weapons of mass destruction. Were it not for the blogs, people might still think the Wanker was a respectable newspaper.

Fuck the Guardian. Fuck 'em. I used to tolerate its radical left-wing bullshit because of some occasional good reporting, but this time they've crossed the line.

Update: Bill Herbert found nearly two dozen photos by the "mysterious" Khalil Hamra through a LEXIS-NEXIS search. More ominously, he writes that Sutherland appearently lifted his arguments straight from a neo-Nazi website.

The comments section at LGF

The comments section at LGF is going crazy with news that MSNBC's Peter Arnett is slamming the Americans on Iraqi state television.

I have a feeling we haven't heard the last of this.

This is just part of

This is just part of the plan, Jonah!

The crushing of dissent continues.

The crushing of dissent continues.

Another Newfoundland blog. We're takin'

Another Newfoundland blog. We're takin' over.

HA! This doesn't say much

HA! This doesn't say much for the journalistic integrity of Fox News, but it's still pretty friggin' funny:

Fox News had its own response to [demonstrators who organized a "die-in" outside their building]. The news ticker rimming Fox's headquarters on Sixth Avenue wasn't carrying war updates as the protest began. Instead, it poked fun at the demonstrators, chiding them.

Still another read: "Attention protesters: the Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street" - a reference to the film maker who denounced the war while accepting an Oscar on Sunday night for his documentary "Bowling for Columbine."

Kesher Talk has a feature

Kesher Talk has a feature called "Peace Troll Taxonomy 101," which outlines the different species of troll who clog up our comments sections.

My favorite troll on any blog has to be the immortal Zarko, who regularly posts on Zach Cohen's Exposing the Exposer blog. The rhetorical and logical knots into which he ties himself are shocking and hilarious, even by troll standards. (Scroll down to Zach's post titled "Those Power-Hungry Jews!" - the permalinks are screwed up, I'm afraid - and watch Zarko deny a Russian textbook which called Jews "power-hungry and greedy" is anti-Semitic, since all people are power-hungry and greedy.)

Another shocking example of how

Another shocking example of how the heroic Iraqi people, flush with nationalism in the face of the Amerikkkan imperialist onslaught, are fighting to throw out the hated Yanks:

Iraqi civilians fleeing heavy fighting have stunned and delighted hungry US marines in central Iraq by giving them food, as guerrilla attacks continue to disrupt coalition supply lines to the rear.

At one camp, the buses stopped and women passed out food to the troops, who have had to ration their army-issue packets of ready-to-eat meals due to disruptions to supply lines by fierce fighting further south.
[...]
Khairi Ilrekibi, 35, a passenger on one of the buses, which broke down near the marine position, said he could speak for the 20 others on board.

He said Iraqi civilians living near him were opposed to Saddam Hussein and that most were hiding in their homes and were extremely tired.

Don't expect to see that on Al-Jazeera.

The Toronto Star's only readable

The Toronto Star's only readable columnist, Rosie DiManno, has filed a terrifying report on an "anti-war" demonstration in Amman, Jordan. If these demonstrations really reflect majority sentiment in "moderate" Arab nations like Jordan and Iraq, we're in serious trouble. Odious and anti-Western these governments may be, they aren't nearly as radical as the people they represent, who want blood. Preferably Jewish and American blood.

Most have been glued to their televisions, following events in Iraq and urging on the fierce resistance that has been portrayed in quite admirable terms by the various Arab satellite stations. "I watch Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia, because they're the only ones who tell the truth," said Abdullah. "Americans are deliberately attacking hospitals and homes and civilians. The resistance they're facing has made them crazy."

(From a Canadian Press report on March 27:

In a war where spectacle is taking precedence over information, Judy Rebick, a teacher of media democracy at Ryerson University, says she can barely watch the U.S. TV coverage.

Rebick says the public can understand more about this war, however, than the '91 Gulf War thanks to Al-Jazeera - the Arab TV network - and a more advanced Internet.) [emphasis added]

Back to the demonstration:

Asked about the Iraqi militiamen who are reportedly using Shiite civilians as human shields in Basra, Isam, a Sunni, says it's all American propaganda. "None of this is true. Sunnis, Shiite, Kurds, we are all one people when our country is invaded."

When it's pointed out that most Kurds would disagree with that assessment, having been gassed by the Saddam regime in the past, Isam shrugs but does not deny that such a thing occurred. "That was different. They were causing a lot of trouble."

It might be depressing to contemplate these people being given the vote. But Victor Davis Hanson, for one, still believes the United States should promote democratic reform in the Middle East as a means of defusing criticism that it hypocritically supports autocratic regimes, and building a true civil society in the Arab world:

Realists, of course, would only shake their heads at all this. They sigh that should democracies sprout up in the Middle East, the situation would only worsen, given the furor of the Arab street. They believe that we would only see something like the reign of terror in Iran — as Hitler-like fundamentalists or autocrats like Arafat captured one election, then dismantled democracy.

But then it might turn out that a free Palestine's biggest enemy would not be Israel — but governments like Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, who could not stomach such dangerous democrats right on their borders and who themselves would no longer have a convenient scapegoat to help vent their own unfree people's growing frustrations.

HELLO KITIMAT!!!

HELLO KITIMAT!!!

Profs for Saddam You've undoubtedly

Profs for Saddam You've undoubtedly read about Columbia University professor Nicholas DeGenova, who told students at an indoctrinate-in that he wanted the Iraqis to beat the Americans and openly wished for "a million Mogadishus", a reference to the death of 18 American soldiers in Somalia.

Now, the invaluable Marduk has uncovered another American professor who openly calls for a U.S. defeat at the hands of Saddam Hussein. To be fair, this guy, Curtis Doebbler, teaches at the American University in Cairo, so he'd probably be lynched if he said anything otherwise.

In Friday's USA Today, a certain Curtis Francis Doebbler wrote the following letter:

I salute them."

"The Iraqi people"...that's my favorite part. It's not Saddam's most loyal troops or Uday's fedayeen terrorists who are fighting the Yanks. It's the "Iraqi people," rising up to repel the invaders and keep the country safe for 30 more years of repression and torture. I guess Doebbler hasn't read the recent reports of Iraqi "paramilitary forces" firing upon civilians trying to flee Basra, because he almost certainly would have added a snide remark about how the evil corporate media is spreading rumors and lies about the brave Iraqi armed forces.

Someone once said you have to be extremely well-educated before you can believe something so morally and intellectually bankrupt. Here are Exhibits "A" and "B".

you're the manager! what band

you're the manager!
what band member are you? brought to you by Quizilla

(via Pejman, who just redesigned his site)

I don't normally advocate heavy

I don't normally advocate heavy drug use on this blog, but if you are a heavy drug user, I highly recommend you see The Core, which must be a friggin' riot when you're hopped up on goofballs.

It's entertaining enough when you're sober. The Core is so horrendously awful, in the most over-the-top way, that it actually qualifies as a genuine, good bad movie. It's not an unsufferable piece of crap like Armageddon, with all its speechifying and cheap sentiment; it's more like Hudson Hawk, in which the filmmakers and cast realized they were making a total mess, so they might as well have some fun doing it. This is a movie that cries out for running commentary by Crow and Servo. It's so staggeringly bad, I can't recommend it highly enough. (Though they could have easily taken out a good 20 or 25 minutes. What is it about expensive blockbusters these days, which almost never clock in at less than 130 minutes? I thought our attention spans had gotten shorter?)

Not everyone will appreciate a film like this. But if you can find a soft spot in your heart for a movie involving a space-shuttle crash landing in the L.A. drainage canals; horrified tourists taking cover from crazed pigeons in Trafalgar Square; Stanley Tucci playing Carl Sagan as possessed by the spirit of Dennis Hopper; a computer hacker who agrees to control the flow of information over the entire internet*, in exchange for an endless supply of Hot Pockets; and the Golden Gate Bridge collapsing, complete with detailed shots of the cars tumbling into the bay...I think you'll like this one.

*Note to Mikey Rivero: the guy who controls the internet in this movie is not a member of the Elders of Zion high council, as you may have surmised, but a guy with really bad hair who wears garish shirts and spends all his time surrounded by 3 or 4 computers. I hope it doesn't hit too close to home.

A shopping mall in Kuwait

A shopping mall in Kuwait City was struck by an Iraqi missile a few hours ago. Mercifully, the mall was closed at the time, and there were no serious injuries.

CNN says the missile was a "Faw", a modified version of the Chinese-built "Seersucker". If China really built this missile, and sold it to the Iraqis after 1991...it won't be pretty.

The missile can have a range of 70-200 kilometres. If it's not illegal under the post-1991 disarmament agreement, one has to wonder why - considering that one of the purposes of this agreement was to make sure the Iraqis couldn't reach Kuwait City.

Sully links to this heartbreaking

Sully links to this heartbreaking article by a Minister who travelled to Iraq on a "peace" mission - and was shocked to find out that most ordinary Iraqis wanted the war to start. This is the third peace activist or "human shield" I've read about who decided to support the war after visiting the country, but it's by far the most detailed. Here's the most important passage:

But what of their feelings towards the United States and Britain? Those feelings are clearly mixed. They have no love for the British or the Americans but they trust them.

'We are not afraid of the American bombing. They will bomb carefully and not purposely target the people. What we are afraid of is Saddam Hussein and what he and the Baath Party will do when the war begins. But even then we want the war. It is the only way to escape our hell. Please tell them to hurry. We have been through war so many times,but this time it will give us hope'.

Concordia liberated! Former Concordia student

Concordia liberated! Former Concordia student Sari Stein has excellent news about her old school: a moderate slate of candidiates has won a majority of seats on the CSU, replacing the ultra-leftist, ferociously "anti-Zionist" wingnuts who once controlled the council.

Well, whadaya know? It turns

Well, whadaya know? It turns out Canada does have troops in Iraq after all. They just aren't serving under Canadian command:

Defence Department sources and a British officer have confirmed Canadian exchange officers have been deployed in the war zone, but the government has refused to be pinned down on the issue. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said that just because Canadians might be with coalition units in Iraq, it doesn't make them combatants in the war any more than the Canadian navy's presence in the Persian Gulf does.
[...]
The federal government has been under fire for opposing the U.S. intervention - which does not have UN backing - while at the same time allowing 31 Canadian exchange officers to serve with coalition units.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his top cabinet ministers have refused to confirm that any Canadian troops are actually in Iraq. They have also denied that any Canadians are in combat roles, saying the troops would fire their weapons only in self-defence.

So, we're actually putting troops in harm's way, in a war we've made a very big show of not entering, thereby angering our largest trading partner. Someday, psychiatrists will study this, to try and figure out how the Prime Minister's mind works. (And the Foreign Affairs minister, too. "Just because Canadians might be with coalition units in Iraq, it doesn't make them combatants in the war"? WTF?)

Gotta love George Jones: "Country

Gotta love George Jones:

"Country music is like a religion to me ... It stands for something. (It's depressing) to think your grandkids won't be able to hear the real type of country music."

"All my friends and colleagues, a lot of them who have passed away, they are turnin' over in their graves 50 times a day."

Pray for Iraqi blogger Salam

Pray for Iraqi blogger Salam Pax.

Update: we're all wondering why Salam hasn't posted anything these past few days, but this may explain it. If you've read Lileks today, you've seen the picture of the Iraqi communications building which allows Salam to get internet access.

Here's what might be the same building, from this morning's Globe.

Jeffrey Simpson, in a column

Jeffrey Simpson, in a column titled "Fifty million Frenchmen can't be wrong" (uh-huh), describes a country dominated by groupthink and a near-total lack of debate or dissent over the Iraq war:

Jacques Chirac has just set a record. A poll published yesterday gave him the highest approval rating ever accorded a French president. Other polls reveal that most French citizens back his government's Iraq policy. The two are obviously linked.

A week in France talking almost non-stop to politicians, intellectuals, journalists, public servants, and foreign policy experts reinforced the polls.
[...]
But even those who offer [criticism of Chirac's anti-war position] still support the French bottom line: the U.S. war is illegal and unwise, and the Bush administration's "unilateralism" is dangerous for the world and unacceptable to France and Europe.

These assumptions are so widespread as to be almost incontestable. They are reflected hourly on television and daily in the leading newspapers. Here and there, someone takes aim at the assumptions, but they are as helpless as Iraqi anti-aircraft fire against cruise missiles.

Reading the column as a whole, I have to wonder whether Simpson is really visiting France, as opposed to another planet. One of the few groups dissenting from the official line is "left-wing intellectuals with strong affinity for Israel"? And the people of France, in response to America's "freedom fries" silliness, "have responded with remarkable sang-froid" and "have not returned the invective"?

And France is "a country where the political and media classes are vastly better informed about world events than their opposite numbers in Canada"? Excuse me? Isn't this the same country where a book claiming 9/11 was a government conspiracy topped the bestseller lists?

Now that so many members

Now that so many members of the media have already declared the Iraq war an unwinnable "quagmire," Stephen Glover's latest "Media Studies" column in The Spectator is essential reading: "Anti-war journalists hope for the worst – because the worst will prove them right":

There were lots of reasons for opposing the war against Iraq. But even anti-war people would always admit that Saddam Hussein is a dictator who has tortured and killed many people, and impoverished his nation. They worried about legality and fretted about whether it was right to invade a country which had not made a declaration of war. I shared these anxieties. The anti-war brigade has also been sustained by anti-Americanism. Now that the allies have embarked on war, it is natural that many of the opponents in the media should want to be proven right. This helps to explain why the BBC and the anti-war press have seized on every small setback as potentially a vast misfortune. There is the war between the allies and Saddam Hussein, and there is the other, hidden war between the opponents of war in the media and those in the field who seem to be prosecuting it with remarkable success.

A friend of mine said to me the other day that he hoped lots of Americans were killed because the United States would be brought down a peg or two. I suspect there are many people, otherwise decent and enlightened, who would like this war to be prolonged and bloody. They may even in a twisted sort of way want lots of Iraqi civilians to be killed because their deaths will vindicate the anti-war arguments. If we did not care about our reputations, if we did not in our silly, selfish way wish always to be shown to be right, we would all ardently hope for the war to be ended as soon as possible with as few deaths as possible, and with Saddam Hussein safely under lock and key. This is, in truth, what every person and every journalist should wish for, whatever their opinions on the war. But I am not sure it is what the Daily Mirror or John Pilger or the (admittedly brilliant) Robert Fisk of the Independent wants.

"Admittedly brilliant"? Yeah, I know. But read the whole thing.

The New York Press has

The New York Press has compiled a list of the 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers. Ted Rall, Mikey Moore and Ann Coulter are second, third and fourth, respectively, behind the editor of Maxim.

Just how scummy must a person be to be considered more loathsome than Ted Rall?

(via Moorewatch)

British military investigators say Al-Qaida

British military investigators say Al-Qaida members are fighting alongside Saddam's men in southern Iraq.

I've been burned by "blockbuster" stories like this ever since the war started (remember last Friday, when I breathlessly announced that the Americans had marched into Basra with little resistance?), so I'm going to try and maintain a healthy skepticism about reports like this. But only a fool would still say, "Islamic fundamentalists would never join up with Saddam Hussein, the Arab world's most secular leader" at this point.

And there's no shortage of fools out there, right?

(via InstaPundit)

Victory is assured! Scott Ritter

Victory is assured! Scott Ritter says the U.S. is going to lose the war with Iraq.

Oh, well. I have to admit, he was good on Three's Company. Or am I thinking of someone else?

The Globe and Mail's Geoffrey

The Globe and Mail's Geoffrey York reports that people in Umm Qasr are still clinging to their portraits of Saddam Hussein, out of fear that the Iraqi dictator will return:

Five days after the Pentagon boasted that it had captured Umm Qasr, the people of this port city are still clinging to their portraits of Saddam Hussein.

"There are still lots of pictures of Saddam all over the place. They won't take them down until they are genuinely convinced that the regime is dead. They've been under this regime for a long time. In the last gulf war [1991], they were advised to rise up; they did, and they were killed."

Reason's Ron Bailey, always worth

Reason's Ron Bailey, always worth reading, says the risks of Depleted Uranium have been seriously overstated by critics. Like any heavy metal, it's certainly not harmless, but you'd have to ingest a very large amount of the material before detrimental health effects show up. Here's the money quote:

...some of the opposition is the result of a successful Iraqi disinformation campaign claiming that exposure to DU had caused thousands of cancers and birth defects to innocent civilians. When the WHO offered to investigate the claims, Iraqi officials flatly refused the offer. Other than trying to gain international sympathy, Pentagon officials argue that one of the real aims of the Iraqi campaign was to get DU munitions outlawed internationally so they would not have to face them again.

"Peace" activists' willingness to swallow the official Iraqi line - while constantly complaining about our "censored" media and American "disinformation" capaigns - never ceases to amaze me.

(via Colby Cosh)

Who says CNN doesn't have

Who says CNN doesn't have a sense of humor? Yesterday, they showed footage of an anti-war demonstration in San Francisco, and focused on a placard showing dead Iraqi civilians and the caption, "You won't see this on CNN."

A fascinating discussion is going

A fascinating discussion is going on over at LGF: "are any of you losing friends over the Iraq war?"

In general, I find myself trying to avoid bringing up this whole issue, in spite of my obviously strong feelings on the subject. So far, I haven't gotten into any serious arguments about the war - I've had a couple of heated discussions, but they've been relatively civil - but I just know some of my friends and colleagues harbor sentiments that I'll find not just wrongheaded but downright offensive. ("George W. Bush is much, much worse than Saddam Hussein.") The worst thing I've heard so far: a leftie friend of mine said he hopes the Iraqis can give the Americans "a surprise" before the US inevitably wins the war. I held my tongue.

Urgent captioning alert! This is

Urgent captioning alert! This is the photo Tex posted with the anti-Pilger rant I mentioned earlier today:

That's John Pilger on the left (of course) and his buddy on the right. Caption away!

Update: "Why caption," asks Michael Peckham, "when you can Photoshop?"

Yikes! As if Detroit didn't

Yikes! As if Detroit didn't have enough problems...

"Whackingday.com" is a fine blog,

"Whackingday.com" is a fine blog, but I really, really wish Tex would stop beating around the bush and start telling us what he really thinks.

Let's tell the truth:

Pilger is a traitor and a menace to the human race.

The photo which accompanies this rant should be framed.

There's a massive fire at

There's a massive fire at the recycling depot here in Corner Brook. Believe me, when you've been writing about war for so long, it's pretty unnerving seeing a black column of smoke rising over the city.

The recycling center is pretty close to McDonald's, and my first thought was that anti-globalization activists (who protested a bankers' meeting in St. John's yesterday, proving that no city is immune from the scourge of the sandalistias) or "peace" activists had firebombed the place.

You know, I think this blogging thing is making me paranoid.

Marduk is running an excellent

Marduk is running an excellent new caption contest. You have to see it - the caption practically writes itself.

A team of Canadian peace

A team of Canadian peace activists has just entered Baghdad, according to Canadian Press:

At Iraqi checkpoints, the group presented a letter in Arabic to Iraqi soldiers, explaining that its members "believe God has sent us to be with the Iraqi people at this time."

"You should have seen the look on these people's faces," Mr. Havard said. "They were stunned."

I'll say.

Canada's position on the war,

Canada's position on the war, outlined in two simple quotes.

Lenny Kravitz has teamed up

Lenny Kravitz has teamed up with Iraqi pop star Kadim Al Sahir to record an anti-war song available on the internet as a free download. In a Daimnation exclusive, I've uncovered a copy of the lyric sheet:

"We Want Peace" (Kravitz/Al Sahir)

Kravitz: We want peace
We don't want war
We don't understand
What all this fighting's for

Al Sahir: Our glorious leader Uncle Saddam
President of the Republic of Iraq, leader of its armies and direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammed
Will smite the Zionist Yankee infidels
And smear their entrails upon the gates of Baghdad

Kravitz: Why can't we love?
Why do we hate to hate?
Is it something I did?
Is it something I ate?

Al Sahir: The Holocaust didn't happen
The Israelis are Nazis
Hitler was a great man
But he didn't go far enough

Kravitz: We may have our differences
But that's what makes us human

Al Sahir: What the fuck...you're a blooducking Jew?!?
Die, you descendent of pigs and monkeys!

Computer hell update I won't

Computer hell update I won't get my machine back until tomorrow at the earliest. Good thing the Iraq war is turning into the most catastrophic military quagmire in history, or it would be over before it's fixed.

(Oh, by the way, I was being sarcastic.)

In the meantime, I'm in the market for a digital camera. If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations, pass 'em along. (Or if you want to donate to my Digital Camera fund through the PayPal button, that would be nice, too.)

Yanks-as-fundamentalists watch Alright, who's the

Yanks-as-fundamentalists watch Alright, who's the wise guy who thawed out Eugene McCarthy?

McCarthy, renowned for speaking his mind and dishing out quips, blamed President Bush for using religion to wage his war. "This is a faith-based war," McCarthy said. "The worst thing is faith-based religion."

Go back to Woodstock, pinko.

Update: I forgot to give Kathy Shaidle credit for finding this one.

Yet another must-read "Impromptus" column

Yet another must-read "Impromptus" column from Jay Nordlinger. Come to think of it, that phrase it pretty redundant, since every "Impromptus" is, by definition, essential reading.

If I were antiwar, but retained my essential nature, I might oppose the Iraq effort for one or more of several reasons: because I was a pacifist; because I was devoted to the U.N. Security Council, whose approval was paramount to me; because I believed in perpetual sanctions and inspections; because I thought that Saddam Hussein could be contained.

We're all supposed to respect dissent. It is, indeed, part of the American Way! But I must confess that I perceive very, very little to respect in the current armies of dissent. Henry David Thoreau is dissent; this is madness and meanness.

From our friends in Oman...

From our friends in Oman...

Don Cherry is in trouble

Don Cherry is in trouble again. In 1991, he berated anti-war protestors on "Coach's Corner" ("kooks burning the flag"), after which I named him as my "Idol" in my high school yearbook. This past Saturday, he delivered a pro-American rant during Hockey Night in Canada, much to the chagrin of CBC management.

If you Yanks have never seen "Coach's Corner", it's worth your while to check out the video clip (RealPlayer format) on the CBC web page. I'm not sure Cherry is the best spokesman for this war, but you'll see why the ratings for HNIC go up during the first intermission.

As soon as Donald Rumsfeld

As soon as Donald Rumsfeld announced that Iraq's treatment of American POWs violated the Geneva Conventions, I knew people would bring up Guantanamo Bay, where the Americans are holding Afghan prisoners who they refused to classify as "Prisoners of War" pursuant to the same treaty. Here's what they're saying on the CBC.ca "Talkback" page:

I wonder how Bush and Rumsfeld would feel if Iraq chose to shackle and blindfold US prisoners of war and place them in "chicken shacks" in a camp based in another country all the while declaring them as "unlawful combatants" as they have done at Guantanamo Bay. After all many would claim that the US is defying international law by attacking Iraq and therefore any personnel captured should not be offered the rights applied by the Geneva Convention.

Suddenly Rumsfeld is accusing the Iraqis of violating the Geneva Convention........what would he call Guantanamo Bay? Isn't it strange how Donald Rumsfeld doesn't seem to get it? The present US administration set the rules, just check out reports of how prisoners are treated at Guantanamo Bay, that ought to give us a clue as to what to expect in Iraq.

So, how are Taliban fighters being treated at Guantanamo Bay? Here's a report from GlobalSecurity.org about 'Camp X-Ray', the makeshift "enemy combatants" camp set up just after the Afghan war started:

Though DoD officials stressed that the holding conditions at Guantanamo would be humane and in accordance with the Geneva Convention. The validity of that claim was questioned by some following the release by the DoD of pictures of the detainees at Camp X-Ray and amid concerns that the United States was applying international law selectively. Foremost among these issues was the question of the legal status of the detainees with many papers feeling the men ought to be granted the status of Prisoners of War, which gives them certain rights under the Geneva Conventions, including legal representation. The U.S. was steadfastly refusing that designation, referring instead to the men as illegal combatants.

Detention units are separated by chain link fence while razor wire and watchtowers surround the compound. Guards inside the compound carry no weapons, to prevent detainees from possibly capturing weapons. The guards outside the compound are armed, however.
[...]
In addition, in response to health concerns about the detainees at Camp X-Ray, Navy service members began construction in late January of a temporary medical facility capable of providing medical attention that ranges from dental exams to major surgery. The aim of the hospital was to provide the detainees with medical care similar to that given to US troops.
[...]
The medical facility takes up approximately 1½ acres and has a 36-bed capacity. It has three wings with the first wing housing a pharmacy, a lab, an x-ray, and mobile utility modules (akin to a head facility). The second wing is a medical suite which has the casualty receiving and operating room. The third wing is an intensive care unit wing.

If you believe that this is even worse than what the Iraqis have done, you might as well give up reading this website, because you're too far gone. I simply can't help you.

Lone Dissenter is a new

Lone Dissenter is a new blog by a high-school student in the San Francisco area, which chronicles her daily struggles against far-left teachers and classmates. If you believe the educational system is meant to turn the kids into hyper-conformist non-thinkers, this blog proves you're right - though probably not the way you thought.

Beautiful!

Beautiful!

Tony Blair says coalition forces

Tony Blair says coalition forces are 60 miles from Baghdad.

Why I'd never attend an

Why I'd never attend an anti-war march even if I opposed the war, reason #784: amazingly, this photo was taken in New York.

A much-needed diversion from the

A much-needed diversion from the war: the incredible Kimi Raikkonen won his first F1 race yesterday. And it won't be his last.

Did anyone catch Speed Channel's David Hobbs referring to Jarno Trulli as "that little twerp"?

Doesn't this old has-been have

Doesn't this old has-been have some coke to snort?

Everyone up here is complaining

Everyone up here is complaining about the war coverage on American television, on the premise that it's too "jingoistic" and "hollywoodized". Presumably they'd be happier if NBC hired Noam Chomsky as a military analyst ("Tom, as is well known, the Americans are trying to create a silent genocide in Iraq"), and if these CNN graphics of weapons showed them shooting into crowds of schoolchildren.

Seriously, the coverage on the American networks has been more pro-American than on CBC, for obvious reasons. But what about coverage in Europe? The International Herald Tribune's John Vincour says French and German state-controlled TV stations have been desperately trying to spin the war as a genocidal, bloody quagmire. The article really puts complaints about "biased American coverage" in perspective.

Buried in the story was this tidbit, about a video clip of a wounded Iraqi child which has been shown all over the world:

TF1 viewers also got a closeup shot of a child with a bandaged head screaming with fear in Baghdad hospital. At virtually the same moment, France 2's audience saw a much wider angle showing the child in a hospital room filled with newsmen, lights, and microphones and the station's reporter - beware of reporters actually on the scene - saying that the child was screaming in terror at the commotion in what was an Iraqi propaganda set up.

I haven't seen this video, but I'll bet any money it's the same kid featured on the cover of today's Mirror.

(via InstaPundit)

A new poll says a

A new poll says a clear majority of Britons now support the war in Iraq:

A YouGov poll released Sunday shows 56% of 2,116 respondents feel Britain and the United States were right to take military action to force Iraq to disarm, while 36% disagree — the exact inverse of a similar poll taken before the war.

By contrast, more than 700,000 turned up for a similar protest here before the war. The scaled-down turnout at protests here was echoed across Europe.

It must be noted that most of the respondents almost certainly gave their opinions before this weekend, which say increasingly fierce fighting and the deaths of more British troops in a "friendly fire" accident. But the consensus seems to be that there's no way the war can be stopped now (even anti-war protestors here in Canada seem to have accepted this), so people might as well back "their boys."

Here in Canada, a Toronto Star poll notes that 60% of Canadians oppose the war, but 35% support it. To all of you Americans who are thinking about "boycotting" Canada because of our government's refusal to send troops to Iraq, please note that these figures show that Canadians are much less opposed to the war than are most Europeans. In nations like Spain, Italy and France, opposition to the war is hovering at 80-90%.

Matt Drudge has a graphic

Matt Drudge has a graphic description, and some stills, from the Iraqi TV video showing American POWs who have been captured and killed.

Now that the families of all American soldiers featured in the video have been notified by their government, I think the U.S. television networks are doing a grave disservice in not showing the video to their viewers (though I would blur the faces of any Americans who are shown). It is nothing less than dishonest to cover a war without showing the gruesome scenes which make up the reality of war, and to show what allied soldiers are going through. If CNN and MSNBC fear making their viewers "uncomfortable," they should probably switch over to an all-entertainment-news format.

All in all, this was not a good weekend for American and British forces. I mean that in a relative sense, of course; this war is still hopelessly one-sided, but it has not been the cakewalk which we had so confidently predicted. At least some units of the Iraqi army are putting up a serious fight. But I can't help thinking of the early stages of the Afghan campaign in the fall of 2001, when it didn't look like that war was going very well, either. The Americans marched into Kabul just when the New York Observer's hapless Nicholas Von Hoffman predicted the war was lost.

Maybe we can convince Von Hoffman to write another column, telling his readers that Iraq has been lost as well. If that won't guarantee American victory, nothing will.

One more thought: to those of you who still demand that the Americans and British pull out right now, think about the people in southern Iraq, where coalition troops have been met with open arms. Think about what Saddam will do to them, should he somehow survive this thing and keep control of his country.

My computer is still getting

My computer is still getting patched up, but hearing some of the garbage they're broadcasting on CBC Radio, I had to come to the office and write this letter. Hopefully it will be read on the air and/or posted to the "Talkback" section of their website.

I support this war. I think Saddam Hussein is a danger to his people and to the rest of the world, and it is a badge of shame for the United Nations that they have repeatedly gone back on their resolutions to do something about his tyrannical regime. I support the American and British governments' decision to do take out Saddam once and for all, and in response to the commonly-repeated
allegation that this shouldn't have happened without UN backing, well...forgive me for not putting my trust in an organization that just elected LIBYA head of its Human Rights Commission.

When people say they're proud of Jean Chretien and the stand Canada has taken on this issue, I want to scream, "WHAT stand?!?" I know we aren't committing troops because there was no "second" (more accurately, 19th) UN resolution authorizing force, yet Chretien has also publicly stated that Resolution 1441 does give the Americans authority to take this military action. Just after he announced that we wouldn't send soldiers to Iraq, he told reporters that he still thought the US and UK were right to go in. He seems to change his position every day, and frankly, even if he came out foursquare against the war, it would be preferable to this nonsense. At least we'd be standing for something.

I was very disappointed to hear CBC Radio interviewing the editor of Saudi Arabia's 'Arab News' yesterday afternoon. The 'Arab News' has published a disturbing number of blatantly anti-Semitic articles over the past few months, including an essay by former KKK leader David Duke (later hurriedly removed from their website) and a reprint of Ben Franklin's mythical warning to the Continental Congress that the Jews cause trouble everywhere they go and that they should be expelled from the United States. And compared to most other (government-controlled) media sources in the Arab world, this is mild. The Muslim world has been consumed by an anti-Jewish hatred comparable to that which engulfed Germany in the 1930s, and I'm absolutely disgusted by the West's refusal to confront this phenomenon. I agree with those who say we have to understand what the people of the Muslim world are thinking, but I have a real problem with the implication that their perspectives are automatically right. As distorted as our picture of Arab society may be, it doesn't even come close to the distorted picture they have of us. The big, bad United States is not responsible for everything that goes wrong in that region, contrary to popular belief.

One more fact which deserves more mention: the role of FRANCE in the rise of Saddam Hussein and the building of his armies. It's well known that the US once backed Hussein, and the Americans would do wonders for their cause if they'd just come out and admit they made this mistake, and that they feel they now have a responsibility to correct it today. But during the 1970s and 1980s, Saddam bought even more armaments from the French. That's where he got many of his fighter jets and it's where he sent his pilots to be trained. In 1975, he even signed a deal with the French to buy a nuclear reactor - a deal which mandated that no Jews could work on the project, even in France. (This was the Osirak reactor, mercifully destroyed by the Israelis in 1981.) However morally questionable the American activities have been, they aren't nearly as disturbing as those of France, which now seems to want to keep Saddam in power at all costs. (By the way, the French, these great defenders of the UN, have intervened in 37 countries since 1960, never once getting authorization from the Security Council.)

This is a time that calls for more than sloganeering on either side. Everyone has to think very hard about why they feel the way they do, and have a responsibility to learn as much as they can. In conclusion, let me say that supporters of the war have to remember the civilians who will be hurt and killed by American bombs, but opponents of the war must account for the people who will die at the hands of Saddam Hussein, should he remain unopposed.

Thank you,

Damian Penny
Corner Brook, NL
http://damianpenny.blogspot.com

My computer was taken in

My computer was taken in for emergency surgery today, so there won't be any regular posting until Monday at the earliest.

Perfect timing, huh?

About 40 anti-war protestors just

About 40 anti-war protestors just marched down Corner Brook's West Street, right outside my office window. A couple of them have bongo drums. The "War for Oil - Will Canadian Water be Next?" sign made a return appearance.

Thankfully, I don't know any of them. Even more thankfully, they aren't staging a San Francisco-style "vomit-in".

Update: and now they're marching back again. In a distinctly Newfoundland touch, one of the "bongo drums" is a salt beef bucket.

Another classic sign: "Ain't gonna study war no 'mo". So how are we supposed to learn how wars were started in the past, and how we're supposed to prevent them in the future? I guess that's just hegemonic patriarchial male thinking on my part.

Good riddance "Chemical Ali," the

Good riddance "Chemical Ali," the Iraqi official who masterminded the gassing of the Kurds in 1989, was killed in Wednesday's "decapitation strike" on Baghdad.

No matter how painful and horrible his death, it didn't even come close to the horrors he inflicted upon his own people.

The CBC does it again:

The CBC does it again:

As part of its steady stream of reporting on anti-war activities, CBC Radio's Anthony Germain interviewed a London war protester. The protester admitted that in these opening stages of the war, Prime Minister Blair was getting more public support. Germain then asked (I don't have the exact quote, but this is quite close): "But we've already heard about helicopters crashing and killing British soldiers. Does that give you hope that public opinion will swayed against the war?"

Catchphrase alert! The subject line

Catchphrase alert! The subject line for a spam e-mail I recieved, advertising a porn site: "Shock and Awe!!"

Quote of the day: "I

Quote of the day:

"I find it hard to reconcile claims that Saddam is a dictator with the reality that Iraqi people have far more gun freedoms under Saddam than US citizens do in this country."

- Mikey Rivero

Who really created Saddam Hussein?

Who really created Saddam Hussein? The anti-Pilger reports that Jimmy Carter flew a team of surgeons to Baghdad to operate on Saddam's back during the late 1970s.

But Sari Stein finds shocking evidence that the worldwide Jewish conspiracy allowed Saddam to be born in the first place!

85-year-old Nassima Karush [ . . . ] relates how Saddam's mother, Subha, had watched her first-born son die of what doctors said was cancer. Depressed from the death, she didn't want to live and tried several times to kill herself and her unborn child, Saddam.

Karush, who immigrated from Iraq to Israel in 1951, said Wednesday she remembers her sister-in-law's husband, Sallim Zirha, convincing Saddam's mother not to commit suicide.

Alert Mikey Rivero!

John Pilger is a paranoid,

John Pilger is a paranoid, mean-spirited asshole with a major persecution complex. But you already knew that.

(via the anti-Pilger)

The Guardian has a report

The Guardian has a report on the liberation of Safwan, near the Kuwaiti border. The people are overjoyed to be free of Saddam - but they still fear he'll come back again while American forces stand by and watch, just like in 1991:

As the passengers spotted European faces, one boy grinned and put his thumb up. The other nervously waved a white flag. The mixed messages defined the moment: Thank you. We love you. Please don't kill us.

"For a long time we've been saying: 'Let them come'," his wife, Zahara, said. "Last night we were afraid, but we said: 'Never mind, as long as they get rid of him, as long as they overthrow him, no problem'." Their 29-year-old son was executed in July 2001, accused of harbouring warm feelings for Iran.
[...]
Safwan yesterday was a place where people were constantly taking you aside to warn in veiled terms that it was necessary to be careful. Everywhere was the lingering fear that the revenge killings that swept the area in 1991 - a product of US encourage ment and then abandonment of the southern Iraqi revolt - could happen again.

Safwan is a crumbling, dead-end place, full of poor, restless young men, and reliant on the tomato trade for its income. Farmers were panicking yesterday as they asked journalists, in lieu of anyone better, how they were supposed to sell their tomatoes.

I don't like tomatoes. But if I ever see any tomatoes from Safwan in the supermarket, I'll buy some.

Watching the "shock and awe"

Watching the "shock and awe" bombing yesterday, and wondering about the civilians on the ground, made me think seriously about my support for this war. No matter how evil Saddam and his regime may be, the people of Iraq don't deserve this, do they?

And then I come across something like this:

A group of American anti-war demonstrators who came to Iraq with Japanese human shield volunteers made it across the border today with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told UPI the trip "had shocked me back to reality." Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny. They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."

I've read about this kind of sentiment in many reports, submitted by (often left-leaning) journalists like Johann Hari, who've been able to get away from their Iraqi government "minders" for a few moments and find out what the people are really thinking. And the sentiment seems overwhelming: the people of Iraq are desperate to be rid of Saddam Hussein, so much that they're willing to put up with another war. One can only imagine how bad Saddam's tyranny must be, to make people feel this way.

I'm still deeply uncomfortable watching this war. But when Iraq is liberated and the celebrations begin, I think we'll all agree that it was a worthy cause.

You can't say Saddam doesn't

You can't say Saddam doesn't have his priorities straight. The Americans just bombed the hell out of his capital city, they've captured his main port, they've advanced 100 miles from the Kuwaiti border, and his soldiers are falling over themselves to surrender.

And he's still handing out cheques to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Then again, maybe his men haven't gotten the order to divert Iraq's resources. The leader could be, um, incapacitated right now.

Sky News: the centre of

Sky News: the centre of Basra has been taken, with relatively little resistance.

"Shock and Awe" is under

"Shock and Awe" is under way. We have no TV in the office, so I've been going nuts trying to find working video on the internet. I finally found it at the CBS News website, which is running awe-inspiring, terrifying footage from Al-Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV and Sky News. The latter station's crawl says Basra has fallen, though these reports are unconfirmed.

What strikes me about the video is that the entire city of Baghdad is still lit up. Maybe I'm still stuck in WW2-era thinking, but I assumed the Iraqis would have blacked out the entire city. The fact that the power is still on is astonishing, and the CBS military analyst says this is because the Americans are targeting military installations, government buildings and Saddam's palaces, rather than basic infrastructure. I hope he's right. If Saddam's government can be forced to surrender with only a minimum of civilian casualties, it will be a true miracle.

Still, seeing the footage makes me think about those poor souls on the ground. When Iraq is liberated, I hope the US and Britain keep their promises and rebuild the country, better than before. If the Iraqis have to put up with this - not to mention the everyday horrors of Saddam's regime - they deserve it.

Damn! US intelligence officials confirm

Damn! US intelligence officials confirm that it really was Saddam Hussein on Iraqi television the other night.

Until we know otherwise, we have to assume he's still alive.

CNN is quoting a senior

CNN is quoting a senior Pentagon official as confirming that this is "A-Day" - when the vaunted "shock and awe" bombing campaign in begins. We shall see. Let's hope the innocents are spared, the Yanks and Brits make it back alright, and that a MOAB lands right on Saddam's ass and takes his sons with him.

And then there's Smithers. Whatever happens to Tariq Aziz, I hope it's particularly painful. In Saddam's defence, you can say he's been driven mad with power. You can say Uday and Qusay have never known anything but sadism and brutality, and had no chance of turning out any other way. But Tariq Aziz? He's chosen his own road to hell, and I hope he's riding it before the night is through. That visit to the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi won't save your soul, asshole.

Lileks says his daughter, the

Lileks says his daughter, the famous Gnat, said "Unca Bush" when Dubya came on television yesterday. You just know some extreme leftist is going to link this to a story about Iraqis who are forced to call their dictator "Uncle Saddam," and use it as an example of how Bush and Saddam are the same! The only difference is the name!

No, scratch that. They'd never say Saddam is as bad as Bush.

Dear God: please, please, please

Dear God: please, please, please let this story be true...

Intelligence sources now say there were eyewitnesses at the scene where Saddam Hussein's complex was bombed on the first night, ABC reported Friday morning.

"They are interpreting that as meaning that there is some problem with his health. So they are optimistic that something has happened to the leader of Iraq, but they are still extremely cautious about what his condition is."

Michael Ledeen says the person

Michael Ledeen says the person killed during initial missile strikes against Baghdad was a member of the Palestine Liberation Front, best known for hijacking the Achille Lauro and killing a wheelchair-bound American Jew in 1986.

It's still listed as a "civilian death" on the Iraq Body Count.

By the way, Zach Cohen

By the way, Zach Cohen (yes, Mr. Buchanan, I know he's one of them) has been all over the Rachel Corrie story. His permalinks are screwed up, but scroll down to his Wednesday posting showing how Reuters (who else?) swallowed some blatantly misleading propaganda about her death.

Salon has a profile of

Salon has a profile of Rachel Corrie, the pro-Palestinian...sorry, "peace" activist killed by an IDF bulldozer last week. "In her green hometown," reads the sub-heading, "the young activist is remembered as an idealist who loved life."

In her diary, Corrie wrote this passionate paean to suicide bombers who target Israeli civilians:

I would also like to ask you, and those to whom you pass this on, to think about the relative positions of the fighters and occupiers in this monumentally unequal struggle. While the huge force of Israelis have every technical aid invented by the US war machine, the few young fighters have NOTHING BUT THEIR WEAPON (and this not the most modern) - no helmet, bullet proof vest, radio contact or other protection. No back-up, no plane, helicopter, tank, APC, searchlight, dogs, flares, ambulance or refuge - put all the Israeli/American propaganda aside for a few minutes and try to imagine, please, the courage it requires to do what these youngfighters do, knowing that the odds are against escape and that, every time they do succeed in evading death, the odds against a further survival are shortened. Even if the operation is a success the price is always high.

Guys, you can go sit through the 15-second commercial for "The Well" and read the whole Salon article if you want. I have a very busy day coming up, and I don't need something like this right now.

First Jean Chretien is against

First Jean Chretien is against the war. Then he's for it. Then he's against it. Then he's for it. Then he's against it. Then he's for it.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien closed ranks with the United States against its critics yesterday, saying the Americans had the ''privilege and right'' to begin the military conflict with Iraq.

Mr. Chrétien made the remarks days after announcing Canada would not send troops to Iraq.

I wish Chretien would just take one position - even if it's firmly against the war - and stick with it. This is just silly.

Habs fans booed "The Star-Spangled

Habs fans booed "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the Canadiens-Islanders game in Montreal last night. And then the Islanders handed the Habs their third straight loss, pushing them eight points out of the final playoff spot with only seven games remaining.

"Duh, Bush shore iz stoopid"

"Duh, Bush shore iz stoopid" watch

The latest war-related e-mail gag.

The latest war-related e-mail gag. And it's actually funny!

(Sigh) You knew this was

(Sigh) You knew this was coming. And our ol' buddy, Marc Herold, is responsible.

Alas, his methodology has not improved since he first started running a similar "body count" in Afghanistan. The "Iraq Body Count" of civilian deaths stands at 16, dating back to the first of January. This includes the one person who was killed in last night's air strikes against in Baghdad - who, of course, could have been a soldier. Or a high-ranking government official. Or Saddam. The point is, we don't know who died last night - but it's already listed as a civilian death. So are the other fifteen, most of whom were killed during US-led strikes in the southern "no-fly" zone, and many of whom were certainly Iraqi military personnel.

I don't have time to check all of Herold's sources right now - I'm sure some enterprising blogger will get around to it before long - but I did a google search on two of his entries (six killed in Basra on March 2, three killed in Al-Anbar on March 5). In both cases, the Iraqi military alleged that these numbers of civilians were killed, and the media reports clearly labelled them as Iraqi government estimates. Most of us would question their reliability. Marc Herold will not. (He believed the Taliban's civilian casualty reports, too.)

The last thing I want to do is downplay the fact that innocent Iraqis will almost certainly die in this war. As a supporter of this action, it fills my heart with dread. But that's no excuse for such shoddy metholology - especially when it's going to be unquestioningly cited by the "alternative" media.

Update: Herold lists the AP and Reuters as sources for his allegation that a civilian died last night. The AP report does not mention whether he/she was a civilian, while Reuters quotes the Iraqi information minister as saying it was a civilian.

He could be telling the truth. But forgive me for maintaining a degree of skepticism. If it turns out the Information Minister was lying, will Herold correct his mistake?

"Saddam" addresses the nation. Either

"Saddam" addresses the nation. Either this is one of his body doubles, or he looks a lot wussier than we thought. Jeez, he looks like something Jim Henson created.

Update: according to Drudge, American officials are pretty suspicious, too. Can you imagine if they actually got the fucker last night? I still think it's a longshot - even if this guy was a lookalike, it doesn't mean Saddam is dead - but it would change the situation almost beyond recognition.

Memo to The Smoking Gun:

Memo to The Smoking Gun: please, please, please put a sound file of this radio-station prank on your website.

(via InstaPundit)

More on the Scuds: a

More on the Scuds: a good summary, written last December, from the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. The Iraqis claimed they destroyed 'em all by 1995 (of course) but UN officials believe they still have about 40, half of which are capable of reaching Kuwait or Israel.

Without chemical or biological warheads, the Scuds are a joke. And you know what that could mean.

Funny. When Joe McCarthy and

Funny. When Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon did something like this, it was "wrong."

I got a rare opportunity

I got a rare opportunity to see Fox News last night, when the regular Fox network began showing special coverage of the war on Iraq. And their special correspondent is...Oliver North?!?

If they'd shown that on The Simpsons, I probably would have said they'd gone too far. Who's next? Ann Coulter?

It's on. I woke up

It's on. I woke up this morning to CBC Radio special coverage of the attack on Iraq. As you all know by now, the US launched cruise missiles at Baghdad last night in a long-shot attempt to kill Saddam in a pinpoint strike, and it's now being reported that Iraq has retailiated by launching two Scuds at Kuwait.

It appears the notoriously inaccurate Scuds were not equipped with chemical or biological warheads, thank God. But CNN notes that they have a range of 185 miles, which is beyond the range the Iraqis were permitted persuant to the 1991 ceasefire agreement. Hey, you don't think they were having us on, do you?

By the way, let me add a disclaimer to my blogging from here on out: the US and its allies are now at war, and as the overused cliche has it, the first casualty of war is truth. Many of the reports I'll be using as sources until the fall of Baghdad will be subject to the usual confusion, chaos, and official restrictions on both sides. It's going to be a scary few days. (Which, to be sure, is all I believe it will take.)

The deadline has passed. Strictly

The deadline has passed. Strictly speaking, US and British planes have been hitting targets in southern Iraq for quite some time now, but I guess the invasion will begin in earnest before long. The 17 (not 15) Iraqis who surrendered earlier today are being treated as defectors, not prisoners of war.

It's an uneasy feeling. Which is a good thing, I guess. Call me "bloodthirsty" or a "warmonger" if you wish, but I take no pleasure in these anxious moments. If Saddam and his regime could be taken out without war, I'd be thrilled. But I don't think it's gonna happen, and that's why I support this war.

If I didn't feel at all nervous right now, that would be cause for worry. (Does that even make any sense?)

Did Kim Dae Jung buy

Did Kim Dae Jung buy a Nobel Peace Prize? The South Koreans are now investigating whether their former President approved multi-million dollar payments to North Korea on the eve of his historic summit with Kim Jong Il in 2000.

I don't know how the South Koreans see this, but to me, it doesn't look like a mere financial scandal. It looks like treason.

"Talking to Townies" My Canadian

"Talking to Townies" My Canadian readers are all familiar with Rick Mercer's Talking to Americans, in which he exposes the Yanks' ignorance of Canada. Now a young filmmaker here in Newfoundland has produced a hilarious short film (Windows Media format) in which clueless residents of St. John's are asked questions about the rest of Newfoundland. The comments about Stephenville Airport are the best.

Here's the official website, on which director Amy Martin freely admits ripping off Rick Mercer. (But, Amy, in the movie business it's called homage.)

The next logical step, of course, is "Talking to Mainlanders" in which Torontonians are asked stupid questions about Newfoundland. One of my law school classmates was amazed to find out we had McDonald's out here, so I bet you'd get some real winners.

Aside from the highest elites

Aside from the highest elites in the Republican Guard, there's not a single Iraqi soldier who isn't asking himself, "yes, I know the Yankee Zionists are pigs, but do I really want to lay down my life for Saddam?" 15 Iraqis - surely the first of thousands - have surrendered in Kuwait without a shot being fired.

I don't think they're cowards. I think they're smart.

Update: The Times reports that up to 75% of some Iraqi regiments have deserted, and that the Kuwaitis were turning back Iraqi soldiers at the border - on the premise that shooting has to begin before they can take prisoners of war. (via InstaPundit)

So, if they're now accepting surrenders...you do the math, folks.

Godspeed.

Aussie Tim Mate reports that

Aussie Tim Mate reports that we might not have Tariq "Smithers" Aziz to kick around anymore.

He also links to this Reuters story about a crackdown against dissidents in Cuba, undoubtedly to the hearty cheers of the Ashcroft-is-the-new-Hitler crowd. But note the Reuters headline: "Cuba Cracks Down on U.S.-Backed Dissidents" (emphasis added). The official Cuban line is that Castro's opponents - all of them - are American stooges, and I guess Reuters agrees. (The dissidents in question actually met with officials from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Traitors!)

Update: Smithers called a press conference today to announce that, yes, he's still alive. Interestingly - and I didn't have this in mind when I gave Aziz this new nickname - he really does look a little like an older version of Monty Burns's lickspittle. (I could take this opportunity to say something about his sexuality, but that would be mean. Not as mean as shilling for a genocidal maniac, but mean nonetheless.)

The Independent's Patrick Cockburn, who

The Independent's Patrick Cockburn, who no one can possibly accuse of being a pro-American propagandist, reports that the Iraqis have already fired the first shots of the war - against Kurdish villages in northern Iraq.

Two Iraqi helicopters fired machine guns and rockets into three Kurdish villages on the front line north of Kirkuk yesterday, in the first shots intended to kill in the coming war.

''Maybe they fear that the Iraqi soldiers want to flee, so they did this to raise their spirits," said General Nasrudin Mustafa, the Kurdish commander for this sector, who had driven up from his headquarters to inspect the front line moments after the strafing took place.

My biggest worry is that Saddam is going to order something much, much worse before this war is over.

The Globe and Mail says

The Globe and Mail says the invasion of Iraq could begin tonight, but it could be delayed until Friday or Saturday, when the moon is no longer full. American planners fear a full moon could diminish the Americans' advantage in night-vision technology.

All that expensive, sophisticated equipment, yet the moon could still have an impact on something like this. Incredible. (By the way, I still think it's going to start this evening.)

Yanks-as-fundamentalists watch: "We are told

Yanks-as-fundamentalists watch: "We are told that President Bush is a deeply religious man, and as we know, it is indeed a dangerous and volatile cocktail when religion and politics are mixed...We must ask ourselves why a deeply religious man refuses to listen to the pleas from the world's religious leaders and the prayers of millions of protesters across the planet, including the prayers coming from the lips of American citizens."

- Toronto Liberal MP Karen Kraft-Sloan

38 year-old Mark Edwards, a

38 year-old Mark Edwards, a native of Edmonton, was shot dead at the Yemeni oil facility where he worked earlier today. A Yemeni and an American were also killed before the gunman, also a native of Yemen, turned the gun on himself.

It's almost impossible to believe this wasn't an act of retaliation for the looming war with Iraq, but the CBC says the killer "was reported to be angry and had battled depression." Just like so many people who've carried out these attacks in North America. I dunno. I'd be very surprised if Islamic militancy and/or anti-American anger wasn't at least a contributing factor.

Update: the Canadian who was killed was William Seville, a native of Saskatchewan. Mr. Edwards was only injured. My mistake.

I'm nervous about the looming

I'm nervous about the looming war, yet I'm relieved that the situation is no longer in the hands of this man:

Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix said on Tuesday he doubted Iraq would use chemical or biological weapons in a war with a U.S.-led coalition, or world opinion would turn against Baghdad.

Asked if the government of President Saddam Hussein would care if it were about to be abolished, he said, "Some people care about their reputation even after death."

Wow. I mean...wow. I'm speechless.

The Oscars (which are starting

The Oscars (which are starting to look like a rout for Chicago, by the way) are still going ahead as planned on Sunday. And so they should.

I don't want to go

I don't want to go overboard with the France-bashing, but I found this in the Daily Telegraph's excellent pre-obituary of Saddam Hussein and just couldn't let it pass:

In 1975, he visited France and Jacques Chirac, then prime minister, took him on a tour of Provence. M Chirac went on to sell Saddam a nuclear reactor for £2 billion and signed a Nuclear Co-operation Treaty.

M Chirac insisted that the nuclear reactor and technical help were for civilian purposes. Saddam was more honest. "The agreement with France is the first concrete step toward production of the Arab atomic bomb," he said.

Another gem: Saddam didn't bother meeting with Austrian neo-fascist Jeorg Haider last year, and sent one of his doubles instead.

HA! (Funny thing is, TBS

HA! (Funny thing is, TBS has been running Ghostbusters incessantly these past few weeks. It's surprising how well that movie holds up. Ah, the days when Dan Ackroyd was funny...)

I told you something like

I told you something like this was going to happen:

France has announced it could assist any US-led military coalition if Iraq uses chemical and biological weapons.

Mr Levitte said a decision on any French participation in the war would be made by French President Jacques Chirac, if and when biological or chemical weapons were used.

You mean they wouldn't go to the UN for permission to join in? What unilateral-minded bullies!

I just made a few

I just made a few new additions to my Amazon wish list. (A thousand blessings to whoever bought me the Peter Egan books, by the way.) I was going to add The Threatening Storm, Kenneth Pollack's highly acclaimed book-length argument for deposing Saddam Hussein, but I expect it'll be available at a deep discount in a couple of weeks.

How to spot a conspiracy

How to spot a conspiracy freak: it's as obvious as the hair on their faces.

In almost any other context,

In almost any other context, this would be called "war profiteering" Now that we're on the verge of war with Iraq, writes Scott Rosenberg, there's never been a better time to subscribe to Salon Premium. But let's get real: how can anyone use the words "profiteering" and "Salon" in the same sentence?

Great candidiate you've got there,

Great candidiate you've got there, Roger In the upcoming provincial election, the Liberal candidiate for the Northern Peninsula riding of St. Barbe will be Ralph Payne, who served 64 days in jail after a fraud conviction in 1994. (No link - it was the top story in yesterday's Western Star.)

Payne was convicted in 1994 of falsifying employment records for his forestry company on the Northern Peninsula.

"I'll go to my grave saying I never done anything wrong," he says.

"Differing interpretations." I like that one. Payne has no chance of beating Tory MHA Wally Young, but I actually don't think this fraud conviction is going to hurt him that much. Here in Newfoundland, it's an open secret that many companies defraud the EI system in the same manner, and many Northern Peninsula voters may simply percieve him as having tried to put more federal money in his employees' pockets. Alas, no one has ever lost votes in Newfoundland by bringing in more federal booty, regardless of the circumstances.

Here on the West Coast, the Conservatives are having a problem of their own. The Ron Dawe story - Dawe won the PC nomination in St. George's, but Tory leader Danny Williams refuses to sign his nomination papers - isn't going away, and several people in the district have been holding "democracy" rallies demanding that he be allowed to run as a Conservative. Of course, the "democracy" aspect is complete bullshit - Williams has a right to decide who will serve as a candidiate for his party, and nothing is stopping Dawe from running as an independent. (That said, Williams has hurt himself somewhat by failing to explain why Dawe wouldn't be an acceptable candidiate.)

Len Muise, a PC candidiate in the last provincial election, has an opinion piece in yesterday's Star which could explain where the "democracy" push is coming from. (Again, no link.)

I was the PC candidiate in the last general election and am amazed at the number of previously hibernating PC supporters rallying for the cause of democratic fairness in the nomination process.
[...]
I made the decision a year ago not to become involved in the upcoming election (on any level) because I wanted to complete my degree. However, in the past several months, I have been verbally attacked on numerous occasions by these democratic minded, born again Tories who are pressing for the acceptance of Ron Dawe by Mr. Williams. What upsets me the most is that many of these people supported other parties in the recent past.

My theory is that most of these people are in a political jam. They want to stay in political favour. They fully understand the political points just mentioned realizing that the Red Machine is being replaced by Tory Blue. Their vicious attack on the PC Party in general and Danny Williams in particular is a last ditched effort to stay in control.

Is this controversy being stirred up by desperate Liberals who want to embarass the PC party? It shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with politics in this province. If only the Western Star would do some investigative reporting for a change, and find out who's really responsible for this one.

The European Union: taking the

The European Union: taking the moral high ground, as usual...

A proposed visit to Brussels by Taiwan's president has been blocked by EU foreign ministers for fear of upsetting Beijing.

A Belgian government spokesman said the decision to refuse the visa was taken with the full backing of all EU members and the European Commission.

(via The Corner)

H.D. Miller makes a pretty

H.D. Miller makes a pretty convincing case that "Mohammed," purportedly an Iraqi who confronts a peace activist on the audio clip I posted yesterday, isn't really an Arab. His accent is all wrong.

If the show's host, Bryan Suits, knew it was a set-up, he has a responsibility to come clean as soon as he returns to the show. (He's presently serving in the Persian Gulf with U.S. forces.) That said, it still doesn't make the peace activist's non-answer any less vapid. Whether "Mohammed" is Iraqi or not, his question - how would keeping Saddam in power advance the cause of peace and justice? - is a valid one, and it deserves an answer.

Michael "Politburo" Moynihan, presently on

Michael "Politburo" Moynihan, presently on assignment in Sweden, has photos of an anti-Saddam demonstration by Kurds and Iraqis in Stockholm. The Swedish state broadcaster, naturally, ignored the protest in favor of a (smaller) anti-Israel demonstration carried out by young Communists (or, as they were called on the news, "anarchists").

Arrrgh.

The Speech: First Impressions Okay,

The Speech: First Impressions Okay, so it's going to be 48 hours, not 24. As you all know by now, that's how long Saddam - and his sons - have to leave Iraq. Then again, the Iraqis rejected that ultimatum before Bush even made the speech this evening (I'll bet the French rejected it even sooner), so they could go in by tomorrow night. We shall see. As we speak, they're probably dropping leaflets on Iraqi soldiers near the Kuwaiti border, telling them how to surrender.

Overall, I thought Bush did a fine job - better than I expected, and as good as this mediocre public speaker has ever done. The two biggest complaints against this war are that America is acting "unilaterally" and that the Yanks are "rushing" to war, so Bush was wise to mention "America and its allies" as many times as he could, and to remind us of the many, many resolutions the UN has passed promising strict action against Saddam Hussein if he doesn't live up to the 1991 disarmament agreement. Bush's strong point is his sincerity, and that definitely came through this evening. Call me naive, but when he tells the Iraqi people that his war is against their dictator and not against them, I honestly think he means it. (The Elders of Zion did a great job teaching him to fake sincerity, obviously.)

I don't know if he changed the mind of anyone who was opposed to war in the first place, but at least we can't say he didn't try.

50 minutes to Bush's speech.

50 minutes to Bush's speech. My fearless prediction: Bush will give the UN officials, inspectors and diplomats 24 hours or so to get out of Iraq, and the bombs will start falling tomorrow night.

Essential listening: an amazing audio

Essential listening: an amazing audio clip (MP3 format) from a talk show on 570 KVI radio in Seattle. Marvel as Andrea Buffa, an anti-war activist, is confronted by an Iraqi caller who asks how keeping Saddam in power would advance the cause of peace.

As this circulates around the web, look out for leftist radicals to claim the caller, "Mohammed," is a phony. I doubt it - and even if he is, Buffa's non-response is still pathetic. (By the way, Mohammed's pretty rude to her, but not as rude as I'd be under the circumstances.)

(via the Prof)

The news is coming in

The news is coming in fast and furious now. Drudge reports that the Turks are going to allow US forces on their soil after all. (Which, hopefully, reduces the chances of Turkey mucking around in Kurdistan after this begins.) I guess they realize the Americans are going ahead with this with or without Turkey, so they're trying to stay on the Yanks' good side.

You know who else is probably going to change their minds over the next couple of days? The French. I'm dead serious. Call me cynical, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Chirac announce he's going to send in a few troops after all, once it becomes clear that the British and Americans are going to win in a rout. Gotta try and make sure there's work for Total/Fina/Elf in post-Saddam Iraq, you know.

Canada, on the other hand, will not play a role in the invasion. No surprise there. And let's face it: our troops are second to none, but with their hopelessly outdated equipment, it's hard to see them doing much anyway. I just hope Chretien, and my Canadian bretheren, remember Dante's famous dictum: The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.

This is unconfirmed, third- or

This is unconfirmed, third- or fourth-hand information from an LGF reader, so there may be nothing to it. But if it's true, the implications are staggering: soldiers reportedly killed and wounded about 300 people in an anti-Saddam protest in Kerbala, Iraq.

The Sunday Telegraph's Con Coughlin referred to this protest march - and several others - yesterday:

Open acts of defiance by opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime have intensified in the past week, with saboteurs carrying out attacks against Iraq's railway system and protesters openly calling for the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator.

The escalation in attacks by Iraqi opposition groups has also been accompanied by widespread acts of anti-Saddam vandalism. Posters of the Iraqi president, which adorn every public building, are being openly defaced and vandalised throughout the country.

We saw this sort of thing in 1991, when confident rebels and protestors were so callously betrayed by George Bush, Sr. (So he could avoid offending the international community, of course.) Fortunately, it looks like his son won't make the same mistake.

I think it's a bit

I think it's a bit extreme for country stations to start hauling the Dixie Chicks off the air just because Natalie Maines thrashed Bush in Germany. But maybe they can replace the Chicks with Lyle Lovett.

Mind you, I felt that way long before the Iraq debate heated up. Or even before 9/11.

Ready to roll Bush and

Ready to roll Bush and Blair have withdrawn their resolution from the UN Security Council, and Bush will address the nation on television tonight. The Americans have also asked UN weapons inspectors to leave Baghdad.

The invasion of Iraq - and the long-overdue end for Saddam Hussein - is finally going to happen, perhaps as early as tonight. Do I think it's the right thing to do? Yes - but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, or even a little scared. The regular Iraqi army will crumble in no time (if you were conscripted to fight for Saddam, wouldn't you surrender?) - but that still leaves Iraq's most elite troops, who remain fiercely loyal to their leader. In the end, they'll be no match for the Americans and Brits, but considering what Saddam did in the last war - setting oil fields on fire, launching missiles at a country which wasn't even part of the conflict - heaven knows what he'll do now that the Americans are coming to get rid of him.

I have no doubt Iraq still has chemical and biological weapons, and I fear Saddam won't go to his death without using them. On the Kurds, against Israel, against invading armies...or maybe even a fateful, last-minute phone call will be made to an Iraqi agent in a major American city, ordering him to go ahead and do the big job. We simply don't know for sure what's going to happen.

I've supported taking out Saddam Hussein for a long, long time. I think he is a threat if left unchallenged, and that Bush and Blair are doing the right thing. But now comes the time when all we've talked about, all we've written and argued about, finally goes forward. I'm not a very religious man, but I'm praying for American and British soldiers. I'm praying for the Kurds and Israelis, for Qataris, Kuwaitis and Saudis, and for Iraqi civilians who could be just days away from liberation - but some of whom will almost certainly die at the hands of Anglo-American bombs. I'm praying that it all comes to an quick, decisive end, before Saddam can do something desperate and dangerous. I'm praying that the idealists in the Bush administration - the so-called "hawks," who want to make the Iraq a model for a new, democratic Middle East - carry the day. I pray that the international community, which has put so much faith in the hopelessly corrupt UN, will finally get serious about reform. (Wouldn't it be poetic justice if the invasion begins on the same day that the UN Human Rights Commission begins its first session under Libyan chairmanship?)

The talking and debate is over. The war is about to resume.

Let's roll.

Yeah, I know NASCAR is

Yeah, I know NASCAR is a redneck sport without the sophistication of Formula One, blah blah blah. All I can say is, when was the last time you saw an F1 race where the margin of victory was two-thousandths of a second?

Update: here's a mind-boggling photo taken at the line. I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the '88 Pepsi 400 in Daytona, when Bill Elliott (who started 38th) beat Rick Wilson by something like 11 inches. But this one was even closer.

Pop quiz: since 1960, how

Pop quiz: since 1960, how many times have the French intervened militarily in other countries, often with the stated goal of "regime change," without even trying to get authorization from the UN Security Council? Click here for the answer, and marvel at the hypocrisy. (via Stephen Pollard)

Meanwhile, the National Post's Gerald Owen says the French don't deserve their reputation for military cowardice, and that World War II was an uncharacteristic fiasco for a country with a long tradition of valour. In particular, he notes that the American Revolution almost certainly wouldn't have been won without the help of the French Navy, which kept the British at bay.

Well, maybe. They're still behaving like opportunistic assholes, though.

Hmmm...I wonder who she's talking

Hmmm...I wonder who she's talking about? Zerbisias in today's Star:

Check some of the thousands of blogs (Web logs) that have sprung up since 9/11 and it's obvious how nasty and polarized things have become. I'd list their URLs but I wouldn't want to give them the ink. Suffice to say that some of the pro-war sites in particular ooze with hate.

Zerbisias says television is "relatively civil" because it's "more moderated and must conform with regulatory standards." A couple of paragraphs later, she calls Jonah Goldberg a "neo-con snot," but I'm sure she meant it in a civil way.

By the way, Zerb's most infamous column, in which she praised whatreallyhappened.com as "carefully crafted" and "compelling" before we nasty bloggers pointed out that it was a festering swamp of anti-Jewish hate, has mysteriously disappeared from her Star column archive, though it hasn't been removed from the server altogether.

Another conspirofreak caption contest! Marduk

Another conspirofreak caption contest! Marduk unearthed this charming photo of Kurt Nimmo, who runs a conspiro-blog at nimmo.blogspot.com. (Sample posting: "Rep. James P. Moran Jr. made a big mistake -- he told the truth...Moran forgot the cardinal law of modern US politics -- never, ever, criticize the Zionist control over Washington. It's suicide." He also links to David Irving's website in that post.)

Let's have some fun!

"The babes will take one look at my Telly Savalas haircut and my moderately priced domestic beer, and...they'll go maaaaad!"

The Guardian reported on a

The Guardian reported on a meeting between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi officials. On February 6, 1999.

This, of course, is absolutely impossible, since a fundamentalist like Osama would never form an alliance with the most secular regime in the Middle East. It is well known that no government in the history of the world has ever teamed up with its ideological opponent to fight a common enemy. Next thing you know, people will say the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression pact!

(via Tim Blair)

Newfoundland blogosphere domination continues apace

Newfoundland blogosphere domination continues apace Rom Knowling is the latest Newfoundlander to set up a blog. A brief perusal suggests I disagree with him on about 96.5% of all major issues, but he seems like a nice enough guy. And any blog that promises more dirt on Newfoundland media wingnut Geoff Stirling is automatically worth reading.

By my count, that's six Newfoundland bloggers, three of whom (myself, Knowling and Trevalyan) actually live on the island. Last Christmas, only myself and globe-trotting David Janes showed up for the First Newfoundland blogger bash at the Duke of Duckworth. This year, we might double that.

British school boards, in yet

British school boards, in yet another attempt to ban anything that could concievably offend any member of a minority culture, have banned the old tradition of serving hot cross buns at Easter. (The schools will continue to celebrate festivals such as Chinese New Year and Russian Independence Day, regardless of the impact this would have on students of Tibetan or Chechnyan origin.)

As usual, the ban has appearently been requested by guilt-ridden white liberals, rather than minorities themselves:

The Muslim Council of Britain called the decision "very, very bizarre". A spokesman said: "This is absolutely amazing. At the moment, British Muslims are very concerned about the upcoming war with Iraq and are hardly going to be taken aback by a hot cross bun.

"British Muslims have been quite happily eating and digesting hot cross buns for many years and I don't think they are suddenly going to be offended."

It's one thing to force students to participate in the sacred rituals of another faith, as some proponents of school prayer would wish. But this is just about deeming any mention of Christianity, regardless of the circumstances, inherently offensive and malign. It's not about sensitivity, but about misplaced shame and guilt.

For the record, the tradition is of Pagan, not Christian, origin. If more people realized that, there's no way it would have been banned.

More from (where else?) Concordia:

More from (where else?) Concordia: "This piece is in no way meant to trivialize the events of Sept. 11. My intent is to create peaceful dialogue within a public arena where people can engage in a conversation around these relevant and immediate issues."

Riiiiiiiight. And the cowboy hat was a really original idea, you miserable skank.

In case you were wondering,

In case you were wondering, Ted Rall is still an asshole. Note his use of "evil" to describe George W. Bush; as far as the radical left is concerned, it's "simplistic" to use the E-word to describe totalitarian dictators like Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il, but it's perfectly appropriate for Bush. Mind you, people like Rall really do believe Bush is more evil than Hussein, Kim, or Hitler.

By the way, Reason's Jesse Walker had a good piece on this the other day. Lest you think this sort of garbage only comes from the left, Walker notes - rightly - that much of the vitriol directed at Clinton was equally insane. (Do a Google search for "Bill Clinton cocaine" and see what comes up.)

Here's that Chretien photo I

Here's that Chretien photo I mentioned yesterday. (Hat tip: Nicholas Packwood)

Time for another caption contest, I think.

Update: interestingly, Chretien's victim, Bill Clennett, is something of a professional protestor. - In 1991, he was caught pelting the Prime Minister's office with paint-filled balloons - and he's helping to organize today's anti-war march at the US embassy in Ottawa.

CBC reports that cable companies

CBC reports that cable companies are seeking CRTC approval to broadcast Al-Jazeera in Canada.

In principle, I have no problem with this. I say, if there's a demand for a channel, let it in. But I'll bet you 10 Euros they'll have a much easier time getting approval for Al-Jazeera than they will for Fox News. (Al-Qaida's chosen media outlet? All part of the Canadian multicultural mosaic, you know. But a Republican news channel? Burn it! Send it to hell!)

(via Bourque)

The National Post reports on

The National Post reports on a couple of firearms enthusiasts (or gun nuts, depending on your position) who wrote their Liberal MP, Peter Milliken, in 1998 to protest the firearms registry. Milliken - now Speaker of the House - responded in a decidedly tactless fashion:

In March, 1998, Gilbert Pinney, an armoured car driver, wrote to Mr. Milliken suggesting that the new Firearms Act was based on faulty statistics and should be reconsidered. Mr. Milliken, MP for Kingston responded less then two weeks later on ''Deputy Speaker'' letterhead.

Mr. Milliken again responded quickly: ''I think the approach that you and Mr. Pinney are urging is responsible for thousands of deaths in this country. I would happily pass legislation banning people from having guns were I given the opportunity to vote for such legislation.''

You don't have to be a radical NRA type to be appalled at Milliken's insulting language. MPs recieve letters much more foolish than this, but it's expected that they must show their constituents at least a little respect in all but the most offensive circumstances. There are letters that would merit such a contemptuous response, but these - which appear to protest the registry on perfectly reasonable grounds - don't even come close.

It's yet another example of the Liberals' belief in their own inherent righteousness and superiority, and their complete lack of tact. It's a lot like Tom Wappel's letter to a war veteran in his riding (to paraphrase, "why should I help anyone who didn't vote for me?"), or an incident described in Daniel Stoffman's Who Gets In, where a Liberal MP (I think it was Joe Fontana, but I can't remember for sure) publicly chided a constituent who criticized Canadian refugee policy, branding him "un-Canadian" and telling him he didn't even want to hear any such criticism. What is with these smug bastards? Who on earth taught them their diplomatic skills?

Well, Chretien choking that protestor a few years ago might have taught them a few things. (Amazingly, even after an exhaustive Google search, I cannot find that picture on the web. If anyone has it, I'm indebted to you for life.)

If you're not regularly reading

If you're not regularly reading teevee.org, you don't know what you're missing. Their most recent entry savages one of the most obnoxious, annoying promotional gimmicks TV executives have ever come up with: animated ads for upcoming programs which take up about 1/4 of your screen during other shows. (Example: 'Joe Millionaire' being chased by women in wedding gowns during The Simpsons.)

MEMRI does it again Last

MEMRI does it again Last May, they prepared a report on PLO Secretary-General Abu Mazen's 1982 Ph.D. thesis, which alleged that "even less than a million" Jews might have perished in the Holocaust, and that the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis to oppress Jews to build legitimacy for the creation of Israel.

Abu Mazen is the "moderate" recently appointed Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority by Yasser Arafat. You'd think a history of Holocaust denial would raise some eyebrows in the media. Like I said, you'd think it would. Not only is he constantly referred to as a "moderate," the BBC - the freaking BBC - called him "a highly intellectual man, [who] studied law in Egypt before doing a PhD in Moscow. He is the author of several books."

Note that he recieved his "revisionist" Ph.D. in the USSR, at Moscow's Oriental College, which tells you all you need to know about the high standards of the educational system Soviet apologists still praise, 12 years after the Soviet experiment ended. The Soviets cynically made all the right noises about "anti-racism," but Jews were (and are) still a target - as Angua, who fled the USSR as a child, knows from bitter experience.

The political views of Rep.

The political views of Rep. James Moran (D-VA), in historical perspective.

OK, this boring blog has

OK, this boring blog has been around way longer than mine.

Remember, kids: Saturday is Eat

Remember, kids: Saturday is Eat an Animal for PETA Day. To really rub it in, I might even go to McDonald's.

Guess what's back Back again

Guess what's back
Back again
The comments section is back
Tell a friend

Everyone get over to Treacher's

Everyone get over to Treacher's blog, right now, and vote in his poll. It's urgent. "Eddle cnanga otwin, snoo faaf" is falling off the board.

Is Day by Day as

Is Day by Day as good as the bloggers are saying? Yep.

I was going to write

I was going to write something about recent Jews-are-leading-America-to-war comments by the likes of Jim Moran and Pitchfork Pat, but Jonah Goldberg (one of them, of course) beat me to it:

Also, their supposedly pliant vassals in Congress aren't so pliant when it comes to war. In 1991, when another war allegedly for the benefit of Israel and their amen corner was on the horizon, the majority of Jewish members of Congress voted against authorizing the use of force while, obviously, the majority of non-Jews voted aye. Last October, a majority of Jews did vote in favor of the use of force, but at a lower rate than the body as a whole. Funny thing about those Jews, they can get 4,000 tribesmen out of the World Trade Center in time, but they can't get them to vote for war when they need them.

Yes, Jonah, but that's all part of your devious plan, isn't it?

Sari Stein comes out as

Sari Stein comes out as a lefty. In the most literal sense.

(In case you were wondering, I'm a righty - except, curiously, when holding a hockey stick, golf club or baseball bat.)

This morning's Guardian reports on

This morning's Guardian reports on Saddam Hussein's continued funding of Palestinian suicide bombers, and the rather lukewarm response he's getting in Gaza. That's been known for quite some time now, but here's the section that stopped me in my tracks:

Sheik Yassim Jamasi said he was grateful for the $25,000 cheque he received from Saddam Hussein, but it did not change his attitude towards the Iraqi president.

Before the cheques were given out there was an hour-long rally in support of the Iraqi leader's generosity and his inevitable military victory over the aggressor. (emphasis added)

I'm a board member of the Humber Community YMCA here in Corner Brook, and I'm quite proud of the work we do in this community. But the International Y movement's attitude toward the Israel-Palestine conflict has bothered me for quite some time. The Geneva-based World Alliance of YMCAs goes well beyond merely supporting a Palestinian state; when you look at some of its moves over the years (printing a "peace week" T-shirt which included "Palestine" but not Israel; publishing a shockingly biased issue of YMCA World magazine which blamed Israel for the entire conflict while failing to even acknowledge the wars launched against it by the Arab world), you're forced to wonder whether the organization wants the Jewish state to exist at all. (For the record, the Canadian YMCA has protested Geneva's attitude.)

But this goes far beyond anything I've seen before. This isn't just about supporting a Palestinian state or denouncing Israeli occupation. This isn't even about "understanding the despair" of Palestinians who blow themselves up in crowds of Jewish civilians. This is about a YMCA building being used to support Saddam Hussein and his funding of genocidal murder.

This is disgraceful. It's beyond disgraceful. It goes against everything the YMCA allegedly stands for, and Y supporters shouldn't stand for it. Contact the YMCA and let them know how you feel.

YMCA of Canada: services@ymca.ca
World Alliance of YMCAs: office@ymca.int

Update: Here's the letter I just sent to both organizations...

Dear sir or madam:

I am a proud member of the Board of Directors for the Humber Community YMCA in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. I am very proud of the work we do in our community, and I'm honoured to serve the organization. But I recently came across a story in the Guardian, a British newspaper, which disturbed me greatly. (For the record, I am writing as a private citizen, and my views do not necessarily reflect those of the Humber Community YMCA.)

As you may have read, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government have spent thousands of dollars funding Palestinian suicide bombers. (The family of a suicide bomber gets $25,000, much more than a merely wounded Palestinian is paid.) Whatever your views on the Israel-Palestine conflict, I shouldn't have to tell you just how despicable suicide bombing is. It's not just about "resisting occupation," or the other mushy phrases I hear mouthed in its defence; it's about killing as many Jews as possible, with maximum efficiency, in the hopes that the Jewish state can be wiped off the map completely.

So imagine my shock and horror when I read that a ceremony honouring the suicide bombers, and handing out the Iraqi-sponsored cheques, was hosted at the Gaza YMCA. You can read about it at this link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,912938,00.html

I know the Canadian and International YMCAs support a Palestinian state - and so do I, though I do not believe such a state should come into existence until the Jewish state's safety is assured and its existence accepted by its neighbours. But the YMCA's attitude toward this conflict has disturbed me for a very long time. Whether it's a "Peace Week" T-shirt which lists "Palestine" but not Israel as a state which hosts a YMCA (despite the presence of a Y in Jerusalem), or a nauseating, biased issue of YMCA World (which rails against "Zionists" and refuses to even acknowledge the three wars of annihilation launched against Israel since 1948, or the truly nauseating anti-Jewish hatred whch permeates public discourse in the Arab world), I have to wonder whether the Y movement wants Israel to exist at all.

I'll probably be told the Gaza Y is an autonomous organization which has the right to control its own agenda. That would be a cop-out. If a YMCA in Alabama sponsored a KKK rally, or if the Jerusalem Y sponsored a gathering by a radical Jewish settlers' movement, I know the international YMCA wouldn't stand for it, and would denounce it in the strongest terms. They should do the same here. I wouldn't expect the Gaza Y to not protest occupation by Israel, but this is a celebration of murder and genocide - sponsored by one of the world's most brutal dictators, no less.

As I've said, I'm proud to be a YMCA supporter. But if the organization is going to tolerate something like this, I may have to reconsider my support.

Thank you,

DAMIAN J. PENNY
Corner Brook, NL

Update II: the American YMCA issued a statement last month condemning the East Jerusalem YMCA for an anti-Israel campaign.

As for the Canadian Y, I can't find any press releases on its website. I'm going to try and contact the organization to find out its position and its relationship with the World Alliance.

Chris Patten is the most

Chris Patten is the most despicable weasel on the face of the Earth, Reason #7,399.

Mikey the PayPal Martyr The

Mikey the PayPal Martyr The folks at PayPal finally realized that a donation button on an anti-Jewish hate site might not be good for business, so they've terminated Mikey Rivero's account.

Needless to say, Rivero and his disciples are throwing a major hissy fit. Boo hoo. Not coincidentially, I finally got around to adding a PayPal button to this redesigned site today.

For the record, here's the PayPal user agreement. Curiously, it doesn't say your account will be terminated if your site is disseminating hate propaganda. (Section 7.2, the "Restricted Activites" section, has a rather vague reference to being "defamatory, trade libelous, unlawfully threatening or unlawfully harassing.") However, section 11 lists the following grounds for having an account closed:

Without limiting other remedies, we may...indefinitely suspend or close your account and refuse to provide our Services to you if: (a) you breach this Agreement or the documents it incorporates by reference; (b) we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us; (c) we believe that your account or activities pose a significant credit or fraud risk to us; or (d) we believe that your actions may cause financial loss or legal liability for you, our users or us. In addition, PayPal reserves the right to hold funds beyond the normal distribution periods for transactions it deems suspicious or for accounts conducting high transaction volumes to ensure integrity of the funds.

Hey, I don't know for sure why his account has been shut down, but it might be worth your while to check out S. Boyle's articles about Rivero's unusual financial dealings. Meanwhile, Mikey is trying to smear the company by noting the presence of PayPal buttons on porn sites. Frankly, I don't think they're being hypocritical at all. Naked people aren't nearly as offensive as naked bigotry.

In the mid-'60s, the Rolling

In the mid-'60s, the Rolling Stones famously changed one of their songs to "Let's Spend Some Time Together" when they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

History repeats itself:

The Rolling Stones have been ordered by the Chinese Government to drop four of their most popular songs when they tour the country next month.

The four songs were also cut by the Chinese Ministry of Culture from the Chinese release of the hits album 'Forty Licks' –the band's first record to be released in the country. Jixin told bbc.co.uk that she did not know why the government had banned the songs.

If the Stones were still a young band (say, in their mid-forties), they'd cancel the shows and tell the ChiComs to fuck themselves. It won't happen, though.

Prepare to vomit: Jacques Chirac

Prepare to vomit:

Jacques Chirac was basking in ecstatic praise from virtually all of France yesterday after his Monday night pledge to defy America and veto a war against Iraq.
[...]
Only Joan of Arc was missing from the rollcall of heroes, from Charles de Gaulle to Charlemagne, to which M Chirac was likened.

Le Figaro called M Chirac a “white knight of peace, champion of all the oppressed of the Earth” and suggested that he might win the Nobel Peace Prize.

By French standards, Le Figaro is a conservative paper. Then again, by French standards, Chirac is a conservative. Either way, it really puts complaints about "the lack of substantive criticism in the American media" into perspective, doesn't it?

The Times illustrates Chirac's appalling hypocrisy in this editorial:

By suggesting that France will oppose any second resolution, whatever the wording and whenever it is introduced, M Chirac, as Tony Blair noted yesterday, has sent a message to Saddam Hussein that he is “off the hook.” It will encourage dictators around the world, from Pyongyang to Harare, to believe that they can defy UN resolutions, oppress their people and get away with it, safe in the knowledge that France will take a self-indulgent and unprincipled stand, at least as long as M Chirac is in the Elysée.

Glimpsing the moral highground that has been alien territory to him in 40 years of political manoeuvring, M Chirac is now insisting that he is acting to protect the authority of the United Nations. Such sentiments sit ill with his own record as a man who rarely lets obligations or scruples interfere with what he considers France’s interest. Within months of coming to office he ordered nuclear tests in the South Pacific that were seen as a breach of faith by friends in the region. He has intervened in Africa without reference to the UN. He has ignored European Union directives unpopular with French public opinion. And more recently he has undermined EU attempts to curb President Mugabe by offering him a platform in Paris to mock his opponents.

Read this one, too: Charles

Read this one, too: Charles Krauthammer tells President Bush to walk away from the UN:

Walk away, Mr. President. Walk away from the U.N. Security Council. It will not authorize the coming war. You can stand on your head and it won't change the outcome. You can convert to Islam in a Parisian mosque and it won't prevent a French veto.

The reason you were able to build support at home and rally the world to at least pretend to care about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is that you showed implacable resolve to disarm Iraq one way or the other. Your wobbles at the U.N. today--postponing the vote, renegotiating the terms--are undermining the entire enterprise.

The money quote, directed at those who say an invasion without UN sanction would "undermine the international order and rule of law in place since 1945," or something like that:

The U.N. did not sanction the Kosovo war, which was unarguably a just war. Of the scores of armed conflicts since 1945, exactly two have received Security Council sanction: the Korean War (purely an accident, the Soviets having walked out over another issue) and the Gulf War. The Gulf War ended in a cease-fire, whose terms everybody agrees Saddam has violated. You could very well have gone to war under the original Security Council resolutions of 1991 and been justified.

Outstanding column by Janet Daley

Outstanding column by Janet Daley in the Telegraph this morning, about the UN's fundamental flaw:

The UN has been revealed to be not a talking shop, as its dismissive critics have always claimed, but a diplomatic souk in which bribery, vanity and manipulation are the currencies. Can anyone claim to have been edified by the pantomime of the past few days, with the foreign ministers of the great nations flying around Africa with metaphorical suitcases full of money to "persuade" tinpot dictators to support their position in the Security Council?

And for what? To get the legal imprimatur of the Security Council of the UN. The government of Guinea - with an appalling human rights record and not even an approximation of democratic accountability - might have the power to deliver the ultimate sanction of UN approval for America and Britain to invade Iraq.
[...]
Like the League of Nations before it, the UN was designed to be a forum for preserving peace and security for all nations, and so all nations had to have a voice in its deliberations. Tyrannies were given parity with democratic countries even among the permanent members of the Security Council, the qualification for which was simply to have been on the winning side in the last world war.

I cannot imagine what keeps the UN true believers going. If the semantic wrangling and the horse-trading of duplicitous self-serving national leaders do nothing to dent your reverence, then surely you must be shamed by the competitive tendering that is now going on for the support of repulsive dictatorships.

Read it all.

A musical about the Taliban?

A musical about the Taliban? Actually, I think it's quite fitting. What better way to stick it to a regime that banned music?

Quack "Self-help guru" Deepak Chopra

Quack "Self-help guru" Deepak Chopra says the Americans should build a Disney World in Iraq, and give Iraqis free CNN and MTV to build peace in the Middle East. I swear to God I'm not making this up.

A Middle Eastern Disney World would ensure lasting peace in Iraq by easing fear and anger among children, according to Deepak Chopra, the popular self-help guru.

"These children are in enormous peril, not just from bombs but from cultural isolation," Dr. Chopra says. "Let children breathe free air at a place where fun and joy abide [Disney World]. What better way to reduce fear and anger?"
[...]
The Disney World proposal is the last and most peculiar of Dr. Chopra's 10 prescriptions for world peace, which include more aid, withdrawal of troops in favour of a peace corps, student exchanges, and using Pope John Paul II and Nelson Mandela as human shields in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

Thousands of National Post readers undoubtedly laughed their way through this story, which suggests that Chopra believes the problem is a United States that won't let the Iraqis have MTV and CNN, instead of a ruthless dictator who would execute anyone who dared to watch them. The mind boggles. But did anyone notice that the new NDP leader, Jack Layton, is actually taking this seriously?

Jack Layton, leader of the federal NDP and an advocate for peace in Iraq, praised Dr. Chopra's proposals yesterday and called him "a great mind of our time."
[...]
Mr. Layton said Dr. Chopra's underlying idea of replacing the military campaign against Iraq with a cultural one, involving exported news and entertainment, is "brilliant," but he questioned the impartiality of CNN.

"The idea that you provide some fun for the children of Iraq, I think is sound," Mr. Layton said. "He's thinking nicely outside the box."

Leave it to a New Democrat to say CNN could be too biased for the people of the Middle East, a region where the newspapers run shocking exposes about how the Jews use childrens' blood for their holiday rituals. But is Layton reallt that far out of touch with the anti-globalization kiddies and professional America-haters who make up the NDP's base? I thought the slow, steady march of soulless, corporate American mass culture was the problem.

Take it back, Jack! You're betraying your party!

So, did any of my

So, did any of my Toronto readers enjoy "Government of Canada night" at the Leafs game Saturday?

Another essential anti-anti-Semitism, anti-conspirofreak site:

Another essential anti-anti-Semitism, anti-conspirofreak site: Marduk's Babylonian Musings.

(via Tim Blair)

Next time someone tells you

Next time someone tells you "dissent is patriotic" and that the Bush administration (especially Ashcroft, the devil incarnate) is trying to "suppress" opposing views, remember this.

Words fail me. These people are the lowest crypto-fascist scum on the face of the earth. In the unlikely event that these assholes (all of whom call themselves "free speech activists," I'll bet) get the "revolution" they crave, it'll make Pol Pot's Cambodia look like Romper Room.

Update: more totalitarian scum. How Tex has the stamina to read this garbage, I'll never know.

Fox News has uncovered more

Fox News has uncovered more information about the cluster bombs recently found in Iraq:

The New York Times reported Monday that U.S. officials say Iraq has reconfigured rocket warheads from its stockpiles of imported or home-built weapons. Some of these makeshift weapons have been used by Iraq with both conventional and chemical warheads.

But officials told Fox News that the weapons are not rockets, but large bombs that can be dropped from wings of airplanes. Soccer-ball-sized cluster bombs then are released from the larger bombs. When triggered by a fuse, these smaller submunitions can disperse chemical or biological agents.
[...]
Senior U.S. officials confirmed to Fox News on Monday that the inspectors initially found just one of these munitions, then another, and eventually uncovered the manufacturing capability.

U.S. officials say the Iraqis apparently have hundreds of these weapons, which were discovered sometime within the past several months.

Here's a photo. Will this make a difference to the French? Nah.

Yanks-as-fundamentalists watch: "That's another scary

Yanks-as-fundamentalists watch: "That's another scary thing about Mr. Bush; he is a true believer who says he takes his guidance from God -- not unlike Osama bin Laden, except they have different gods."

- Anthony Westell in The Globe and Mail

"Remember, children: violence is never,

"Remember, children: violence is never, ever the answer, unless the teachers' union says so."

An appearance by Ontario's education minister turned ugly Monday after she was forced to flee a mob of jeering Catholic teachers who shoved and threw water at her.

But McVean said she understood their anger.

Of course.

Stop the Thomas the Tank

Stop the Thomas the Tank Engine menace!

The televised adventures of Thomas the Tank Engine feature too many crashes and could be leaving children terrified of going on a train, a psychologist said yesterday.

“As a result there is a possibility that the sheer amount of crashes they see on Thomas could frighten them. Seeing lots of crashes on TV means they could end up absolutely terrified of going on a train.”

Won't somebody please think of the children?!?

Rivero captions! I got a

Rivero captions!

I got a lot of great entries in my Mikey Rivero caption contest (for which there's no prize beyond the recognition and glory, but you probably knew that). Special mention must go to Charles Austin, who sent 17 entries. But Steven J. Meyer is the winner, proving that when I run a contest like this, you can't go wrong with a Simpsons reference. The winner is in bold, with the other entries in plain text:

"Last night's 'Itchy & Scratchy' was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world with all of the fascist Zionist JEWS who are clearly the root cause of Itchy & Scratchy's lack of entertainment value."

"Look what the Zionists did to me! I'm a monster!"
"Only a Zionist would think that this shirt makes me look fruity."
"No, I haven't ever kissed a girl. It's obvious that the Zionists have turned all women against me."
"No I am not Saddam Hussein. Piss off."
"Ah, I see you tremble at the sight of my manly forearms. And so you should!"
"What? Tommy Bahama's Jewish! This is my coolest shirt, too."
"Whew. No flat-panels. I can still have my daily CRT radiation insanity-bath."
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
"There's no need for a tin foil hat when the entire building has already been covered with two layers."
SPECTRE World Headquarters.
Cue Robin Leach: "Today on 'Lifestyles of the Poor and Loathsome' we talk to Michael Rivero."

Soldier of Freedom #1: "Should we take him out?"
Soldier of Freedom #2: "Nah, it's one of his doubles. He'd never really let us get that close to him."

Is that the one-armed man from The Fugitive?
While you've been reading this caption, three more evil Jewish conspiracies to take over the world have been born.
Do you ever wonder what he'd have been doing for a living before electricity was generally available?
There was an awkward silence after Mr. Rivero said, "Chicks dig what I do."
"And for $18.95 a month you can subscribe to watch my battle with the Elders of Zion live!"
"No Michael, I'm not interested in hearing again about your alien abduction and the anal probe."

Reuters: "American dissident Michael Rivero, who exposes Jewish conspiracies, is seen in his underground lair in Hawaii. Human rights around the world have been a casualty of the US-led 'war on terror' since September 11, 2001."

Thanks to everyone who entered. I'll definitely be doing this again soon.

The US and Britain has

The US and Britain has delayed the vote on its latest Iraq resolution at the UN Security Council ("to try to win support from Security Council members who oppose a rush to war," says the AP). The vote will now be Thursday at the earliest, and the Americans and Brits might agree to a "compromise" resolution:

Several council nations complained that the March 17 deadline was too short for Iraq to demonstrate that it is disarming.

Whether this slightly longer time frame for inspections is acceptable to the undecided nations -- Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan -- remains to be seen.

Fred Kaplan says the Bush administration screwed up by not insisting on clearer benchmarks when Resolution 1441 was drafted:

The resolution, after all, contains not a single word about how this process might take place. There are no timetables, no deadlines, no delineation of priorities. It demands that the Iraqis provide "immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access" to all suspected weapons sites—but it does not demand "immediate, unconditional" disarmament. The document does call for "full and immediate compliance" with U.N. Resolution 687, the original cease-fire measure passed by the Security Council in April 1991. Resolution 687 required that Iraq "unconditionally accept the destruction, removal or rendering harmless" of everything related to its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs (as well as ballistic missiles with a range exceeding 150 kilometers). But it too laid out no deadline or schedule.

This failure to sketch out so much as an outline of the disarmament process, however, proved to be a huge mistake. It has allowed Saddam Hussein to manipulate, even to control, the Security Council's deliberations. He can throw the council a few crumbs of compliance—the destruction of a few missiles, the handover of a few documents, the issuance of a new decree, whatever he figures might be good enough—and war can be staved off, well within the provisions of 1441.

To be fair, a resolution with more teeth almost certainly would have been vetoed by the French, and maybe even the Russians. But at least the Americans could have said, "hey, we tried to cooperate, we're clearly setting forth what Saddam has to do, and if the French aren't taking him seriously, well...we think he's a threat, and we're going to do what we can to make sure Iraq doesn't sponsor its own 9/11." The French would have looked unreasonable. But now, Saddam and his European enablers have been given the tools they need to look like men of peace.

Disgraceful. And you know something? If the Bush administration is willing to keep waiting and waiting to do something about Saddam, even a diehard hawk like myself has to ask, "just how much of an immediate threat is this guy, anyway?" If Iraq's WMD programs had progressed to the point where Saddam was ready to smuggle them into the United States, the Americans wouldn't put up with this UN bullshit, that's for sure.

HA!

HA!

Technical stuff: The reaction to

Technical stuff: The reaction to my new template has been great. Sadly, the change wiped out all my old links, so I'll need quite some time before they're all added. If I like your site, it will be up there soon. (And if you had a link once but I've left you out, tell me.)

If anyone can recommend a good, reliable comments section, let me know. BlogOut has been giving me quite a bit of trouble, and I can't find any others that are actually accepting new users.

Finally, I'll be posting the caption contest entries tomorrow morning. Get 'em in now!

Motorcycle racing legend Barry Sheene

Motorcycle racing legend Barry Sheene died of cancer today. Tex notes that Sheene dismissed chemotherapy as "poison" and sought help from an Austrian "natural healer".

"Natural healer": two words that make my bullshit detector go crazy. No, of course evil Western medicine doesn't have all the answers, but if I'm ever forced to choose between a guy who spent 10 years in medical school (including internship and residency and stuff) and some fellow who traipsed around Nepal for a couple of months and decided "natural healing" would be a good way to meet chicks and stick it to The Man, well...

If, Heaven forbid, you find yourself in a situation like Sheene's, check out the indispensible Quackwatch website, which has some choice words for "alternative" cancer treatment. Would chemotherapy have saved Barry Sheene's life? It's impossible to know for sure. But his chances would have been much better.

Speaking of the French, I

Speaking of the French, I don't recall them bringing this before the Security Council. Reuters says they're in Ivory Coast "to enforce a ceasefire and protect French citizens." Read the story for yourself, and tell me if it sounds like a "ceasefire" to you. I'd bet good money they're still going to be there in a year. Maybe 5 years. Maybe more.

I've never heard the French put on the spot over their staggering hypocrisy, but I guess they'd defend their actions by saying Ivory Coast is a former French colony with which they still have strong links. Merde. Isn't Iraq a former British colony? Does anyone doubt that if Iraq threatened to destroy Paris - and kept blatantly lying about their capability to do so - the French would have flattened Baghdad by now?

Hypocrites. (It's the same word in French and English, by the way.)

France and Russia say they'll

France and Russia say they'll vote against any new UN resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. The French, not surprisingly, are taking a particularly hard line: "No matter what the circumstances we will vote no," said Jacques Chirac in an interview.

No matter what the circumstances. If we take him at his word, this means the French will veto war against Iraq even if Saddam Hussein admits to having weapons of mass destruction and threatens to use them. Chirac isn't saying "the case hasn't been made at this time," or anything like that. He's effectively saying he'll never support an invasion, and that he'll use France's permanent membership status to make sure it doesn't pass.

In other words, the French have been jerking us around this whole time. When the US and Britain went the UN route, they did so on the basis that the other members would deal with the Iraq issue in good faith. We always knew the French were skeptical, but we figured they'd be willing to authorize force once it became clear the Iraqis weren't cooperating with inspectors. If the French were never going to authorize any resolution that would see the Security Council actually enforcing its other resolutions, they should have just voted "no" to 1441 when it came up late last year.

Fuck 'em. Resolution 1441 refers to "serious consequences" if Iraq keeps flouting the disarmament regime. It's obvious that they've been doing just that (the latest discovery: an undeclared cluster bomb which could be outfitted with chemical warheads), and the Anglo-American coalition should head into Iraq, finish the job, and say they're just doing what the UN resolved to do in the first place. Would this be a legally dubious interpretation? Probably. But if the veto-wielding French aren't going to take the process seriously, why should the rest of us?

There was a movie called Renaissance Man a few years ago, which I've never seen, but Roger Ebert described its hopelessly illogical climax as follows:

The students are not required to take a final exam in the course. But if they take it, and fail, they'll flunk out of basic training. Therefore, they shouldn't take it, right? But so great is their transformation that they insist on taking it, and turn up in the classroom (after the obligatory 20 seconds of suspense in which DeVito thinks they won't come, and sad music plays).

The Bush administration reminds me of the students.

My Focus ZX3 is getting

My Focus ZX3 is getting its tailgate painted today, so the folks at Humber Motors in Corner Brook were good enough to give me a 4-door Focus sedan as a loaner. After you've gotten so used to a versatile hatchback, it's a bit of a shock to open the truck and see just how little room you have in there. Hatchbacks are common in Europe and Asia, but they've never taken off in North America, and I really don't know why. They can carry much more stuff, and to these eyes, they're much better looking. And almost all of them come with cargo covers now, so you don't have to worry about potential thieves peeking into the back of your car.

If you're an entry-level buyer who wants a hatchback - and I'm not counting wagons and pseudo-wagons like the Mazda Protege5 or Toyota Matrix here - you can choose between the Focus, Hyundai Accent and Elantra, Kia Spectra, or VW Golf. That's about it. Even Honda, whose mid-'80s Civic hatchback was one of the most acclaimed designs ever, won't sell you one unless you put down the bucks for the fast - and expensive - Si model. As for mid-sized cars, you're completely out of luck. A hatchback version of the new Mazda 6 is coming, but if Hyundai's experience with the Elantra GT is any indication, it won't last long. (The Elantra is a big seller up here, but I've only seen 2 or 3 hatchback versions.)

It's a shame. I was turned off of sedans forever when I tried to carry a new 25" TV set in my old Civic. Not only was it too large for the trunk, it wouldn't even fit in the back seat unless I took it out of the box. By contrast, I first learned to drive in a 3-cylinder, 55-hp Pontiac Firefly hatchback (a Geo Metro clone) which once held 14 people. (Mom and Dad sold the car five years ago and I haven't lived at home in a while, so I guess I can confess to that one. Sorry, Mom.)

The hermit state is crying

The hermit state is crying "pay attention to me!!!" again:

North Korea has fired a surface-to-ship cruise missile towards the Sea of Japan, it has been confirmed.

But Japan also said the move is not considered a direct threat.

The Japanese and Americans are downplaying the significance to this latest test, which tells me they really don't know what to do with a nuclear-capable North Korea. I'm not so sure myself. But one thing is certain: a decade of appeasement and diplomacy have failed miserably, as Joshua Muravchik illustrates in Commentary this month. A lot of my readers tell me North Korea is on the verge of collapse, and that we simply have to wait for the country to implode. Maybe. But that's what American leaders have been thinking for many years now, and the collapse never seems to come. (Come to think of it, American appeasement has almost certainly delayed the collapse.)

And then there's Jimmy Carter's visit to Pyongyang in 1994. There's a fine line between being diplomatic and just being a fucking idiot, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner clearly crossed it:

An outspoken critic of U.S. policy for being too hard on North Korea, Carter flew to Pyongyang for some personal diplomacy with Kim Il Sung, a ruthless dictator who had been handpicked for his job by Stalin himself. Where previous Western visitors to Pyongyang had described a city darkened by power shortages, with little commerce and a populace terrified to be seen conversing with foreigners, Carter reported a bustling metropolis with shops much like the “Wal-Mart in Americus, Georgia,” neon lights that reminded him of “Times Square,” and a population that was “friendly and open.”

The wonders of the city were but a prelude to what Carter found when he came face to face with Kim. The dictator, he discovered, was “revered” and “treated as a combination of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abe Lincoln.” Carter also found Kim “very friendly toward Christianity.” Although now in his eighties, Kim was “vigorous, intelligent, surprisingly well-informed,” and “very frank.” What is more, by showing Kim proper respect, Carter had achieved a “miracle”: the basis for a new agreement.

Dear President Bush: Please invade

Dear President Bush: Please invade my country A drastic request, to be sure, but I'm starting to think it might be the only way to get rid of this guy:

There is no need for a war with Iraq because U.S. President George W. Bush has "already won," Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said in a television interview aired Sunday.

"(Bush) has created a situation where Saddam cannot do anything anymore. He has troops at the door and inspectors on the ground. Planes flying over, and he cannot do anything," said Chrétien.
[...]
Chrétien compared the situation to the Cold War, saying the U.S. prevailed "without one tank, one missile and losing one life…there is no more U.S.S.R."

Yes, I know he says he's going to retire in February, 2004. But frankly, I don't think he has the intelligence to read a calendar. (To be fair, I think the interview was taped before The Times broke the news about Iraq's undeclared drone plane and Hans Blix's halfhearted attempt to bury the information - but does anyone believe it would have made a difference?)

Chrétien said he was not "comfortable" with regime change, because "where do you stop…if it's OK that we do it there, why not elsewhere?"

How about Canada?!?

Rivero revealed! Zach Cohen has

Rivero revealed! Zach Cohen has uncovered a picture of our favorite conspirofreak on an "alternative news" website.

Here he is. Get ready to scream, ladies!

"What'choo lookin' at, Jewboy?"

Update: the comments section has died again. But send in your captions for this photo, and I'll post them to the site.

Update II: The Prof says I might get more entries if I post my e-mail address. That's so crazy, it just might work. Send your captions to daimnation -at - yahoo.ca. I'll post the best ones later this week.

Depressing fact of the day:

Depressing fact of the day::00 PM-in-waiting Paul Martin owns more ships than the Canadian Navy.

Initial reports said they were

Initial reports said they were French The Sunday Mirror reports that a gaggle of Iraqi soldiers tried to surrender to Kuwait-based British forces because they thought the war had already started.

(via Drudge)

Dropped Ball Award: "I hate

Dropped Ball Award: "I hate to say it, but I think Coulthard should be considering retirement." - Infallible F1 expert Damian Penny, March 8.

Bill Herbert smacks down the

Bill Herbert smacks down the latest lefty lie: that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was never identified as a major 9/11 planner until after he was captured, in a desperate attempt to make it look like the Americans were winning the "war on terror". (Money quote: "Robert Fisk, Justin Raimondo, and conspiracy theory groupie Antonia Zerbisias had all picked up on this pathetic attempt to downplay the significance of capturing Mohammed. If that isn't a quorum of world idiocy, it's pretty close")

Herbert notes that the Sheikh, who initially ranked 18th on the U.S. government's post-9/11 most-wanted list, had been identified as the 9/11 mastermind last July. It might not have been widely reported, but isn't Zerbisias, a media columnist, supposed to notice these things?

"I am a proud Nazi

"I am a proud Nazi and a proud champion of animal rights." Some of Michael Coren's readers didn't think much of his anti-PETA column last week.

Some LGF readers found a

Some LGF readers found a Rolling Stone story from 2000, which alleges that Cat Stevens gave money to Hamas, and some viciously anti-Semitic comments he made he made in a 1988 book published by a Hamas front group.

In a related development, I did some googling and found a picture of the "Peace Train".

Australian GP qualifying thoughts: -

Australian GP qualifying thoughts:

- TSN is using the Speed Channel broadcast team instead of ITV this year. I was disappointed when I heard about it, but I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike ITV's dour Martin Brundle, David Hobbs and some American guy whose name I've forgotten actually seem to be having fun. The American is so excitable that he could even give us a few Murrayisms this year (near the end of the session, he called it the "Two Thoousand and Throo Australian Grand Prix".) The only downside is that there's no possibility of seeing Beverley Turner on TV this year.

- I like the new qualifying rules - now there's no possibility of missing a great run by any of the drivers, as in previous years. They really have to make sure the drivers on their cool-down laps are too far ahead of the next qualifier to get in the way. Aside from the safety risk, it can really mess up the next guy's time; Rubens Barrichello might have outqualified Schuey had Kimi Raikkonen not been tooling around with a blown tire.

1 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari 1m27.173s
2 BARRICHELLO Ferrari 1m27.418s

I'm not so bold as to say Rubinho will outperform his teammate this year, but I think he'll certainly be closer than ever. If Ferrari allows it, that is.

3 MONTOYA Williams BMW 1m28.101s

Told you he was sandbagging, Tim. But what's Ralf's excuse?

4 FRENTZEN Sauber Petronas 1m28.274s
5 PANIS Toyota 1m28.288s
6 VILLENEUVE BAR Honda 1m28.420s
7 HEIDFELD Sauber Petronas 1m28.464s
8 BUTTON BAR Honda 1m28.682s

If you needed any more proof that the ground is shifting in F1, here it is. I'm especially impressed with Panis - tell me he didn't get called some nasty nicknames in school - and Toyota. I thought Toyota's F1 effort was going to be a disaster of Jaguar proportions, but they're really getting it together. It seems to be coming together for Baccy-American Racing as well, but their car is so similar to the 2002 Williams that Frank is probably considering legal action. (There is precedent for this: Arrows, the Spinal Tap of F1 teams, was sued after their 1978 car was a blatant copy of the Shadow.)

9 R.SCHUMACHER Williams BMW 1m28.830s
10 ALONSO Renault 1m28.928s
11 COULTHARD McLaren Mercedes 1m29.105s
12 TRULLI Renault 1m29.136s

Disappointing performances all around. I hate to say it, but I think Coulthard should be considering retirement. He was absolutely blown off by Kimi Raikkonen on Friday, and Kimi almost certainly would have outqualified him had he not gone off.

I said Renault was going to close to Williams and McLaren this year, but I didn't mean it this way.

13 FISICHELLA Jordan Ford 1m29.344s
14 WEBBER Jaguar 1m29.367s

Jordan (lacking a primary sponsor) is in freefall, while Jaguar might just be the biggest flop in F1 history. Considering the resources at their disposal, their continually lousy performance is absolutely baffling. And they shouldn't even expect a podium performance in Monaco this year, now that Eddie Irvine is gone.

15 RAIKKONEN McLaren Mercedes 1m29.470s

Raikkonen went off early in his lap, so we can safely call this one a fluke. Kimi is the next great superstar in this sport.

16 DA MATTA Toyota 1m29.538s
17 FIRMAN Jordan Ford 1m31.242s
18 PIZZONIA Jaguar 1m31.723s

Pizzonia also went off early in his lap, and reportedly left the track quite a few times this weekend. Didn't we see this with Takuma Sato last year? (There's a reason Sato isn't back in F1 this year, you know.)

19 VERSTAPPEN Minardi Cosworth no time
20 WILSON Minardi Cosworth no time

I'm usually willing to cut Minardi some slack, but their performance today - pulling off the track before finishing their qualifying runs, to save fuel for tomorrow and to give them the chance to work on the car - was absolutely shameful. There's no guarantee they would have qualified last (I'm sure Jos would have come out ahead of Pizzonia, and maybe Firman), and it's absolutely disgusting to see them so blatantly flouting the spirit of the rules. There's a lot of goodwill toward Minardi from fans like myself, but they'll lose it all if they keep this up.

The race starts at 9:30 Eastern this evening, on Speed Channel and TSN.

Matt Welch has another superb

Matt Welch has another superb essay in today's National Post, comparing anti-American stereotypes to the reality he found at the mall in Glendale, California. Aussie Tim Mate makes a cameo appearance.

In case you're wondering why

In case you're wondering why this site has been so slow to load over the past couple of days, that makes two of us. I fixed up the HTML coding on the template and removed the comments section again, but it still doesn't seem to be working right.

Damn Blogspot. I keep threatening to get off my ass and create a Movable Type-powered blog, and I really should get around to it soon.

To Osama, in the unlikely

To Osama, in the unlikely event that you're reading this: they just caught two of your sons.

Zerbisias is at it again.

Zerbisias is at it again.

Has BAR finally got it

Has BAR finally got it together? In yesterday's qualifying session in Melbourne, Jacques Villeneuve and Jenson Button recorded the third- and fifth-fastest times, respectively. To put that in perspective, Michael Schumacher was fourth. That said, this session only decided the order for Saturday's qualifying run, so there might have been some sandbagging going on. That would explain the dreadful performances by the Williams drivers (Montoya 10th, Ralf an appalling 16th).

Hans Blix issues his latest

Hans Blix issues his latest report to the UN Security Council today. According to The Times, Blix will say his team is getting increased cooperation from the Iraqis - even though they're lying their asses off:

Mr Bush spoke as the UN's chief weapons inspector prepared to tell Security Council foreign ministers that Iraq had probably not destroyed thousands of litres of anthrax, as it claimed, and that it may well have relaunched banned weapons programmes.

Hans Blix's report, a copy of which has been seen by The Times, contains hundreds of questions for Iraq that throw doubt on its claim to be free of weapons of mass destruction and a list of 29 specific issues for Saddam to address. But Dr Blix will nevertheless deliver his most positive assessment so far on Iraq's co-operation, strengthening the argument for his inspection team to be given more time.
[...]
Dr Blix plans to tell Security Council foreign ministers today that Iraq has demonstrated substantive co-operation in a number of areas, such as destroying its al-Samoud 2 missiles and allowing private interviews with scientists.

The report also raises questions about Iraq’s suspected mobile germ warfare factories, as raised by General Powell last month. “Unmovic does not discount the possibility that Iraq has constructed, developed or acquired mobile biological agent 'factories' either truck-mounted or on rail cars,” it says.

I'd be much more supportive of this 29-point "to do" list if I thought there was any possibility Blix would ever admit, "guys, we're getting jerked around. This is hopeless."

The Washington Times reports that

The Washington Times reports that a French company is still selling parts to the Iraqi military in contravention of UN sanctions. The story comes from "U.S. intelligence officials," so a little skepticism might be in order...but frankly, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

The unidentified company sold the parts to a trading company in the United Arab Emirates, which then shipped the parts through a third country into Iraq by truck.

Other intelligence reports indicate that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring French weaponry illegally for years, the official said.

The parts appear to be included in an effort by the Iraqi military to build up materiel for its air forces before any U.S. military action, which could occur before the end of the month.

If you regularly chide the U.S. for having "created" and "armed" Saddam, eat this:

France has been Iraq's best friend in the West. French arms sales to Baghdad were boosted in the 1970s under Premier Jacques Chirac, the current president. Mr. Chirac once called Saddam Hussein a "personal friend."

During the 1980s, when Paris backed Iraq in its war against Iran, France sold Mirage fighter bombers and Super Entendard aircraft to Baghdad, along with Exocet anti-ship missiles.

French-Iraqi ties soured after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that led to the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

France now has an estimated $4 billion in debts owed to it by Iraq as a result of arms sales and infrastructure construction projects.

The debt is another reason U.S. officials believe France is opposing military force to oust Saddam.

(via Drudge)

My comments section has mysteriously

My comments section has mysteriously disappeared.

Peter Briffa has decided to

Peter Briffa has decided to refrain from reading the Wanker and Daily Fisk for Lent. In a similar spirit, I've decided to stop attaching clothespins to the most painful parts of my face for Lent.

(via Emily Jones)

I'm listening to President Bush's

I'm listening to President Bush's press conference right now. Barring any major revelations over the next 20 minutes, it's kind of anticlimactic; not that I believed he was going to announce Osama bin Laden's capture, but I'm not really hearing anything I haven't already heard. I think Bush comes across as a pretty sincere guy, but more than a little exasperated about his allies' refusal to deal with Saddam Hussein once and for all. (That makes two of us.)

I wish he was a bit more forceful. When one reporter asked him - twice - whether the capture of Saddam Hussein was an essential component of victory, he didn't even make reference to the fact that no one captured Hitler in 1945, and that certainly didn't make World War II a failure.

One more thing: once again, Bush missed an opportunity to come clean about the way his nation supported Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. After 9/11, the President himself said America should try to remain humble, and I think it would do wonders for his cause if Bush just admitted, "Yes, to our shame, we supported the guy once. So did France. So did Russia and Germany. And that's why I think we - not just America, but also our allies - have a special responsibility to end Saddam's reign of terror. As a nation, we must be willing to admit when we've done something wrong, and to take the responsibility to make things right."

Update: Geez, even the folks at The Corner don't seem particularly impressed.

More charming scenes from York

More charming scenes from York University:

[Miriam Levin, a Jewish student] said she was accosted when she tried to drive on to school property first thing in the morning. The protesters were picketing entrances to the school grounds and blocking traffic: "I told the guy, 'Making me 20 minutes late for class isn't helping the people in Iraq,' and then he started calling me a terrorist and an occupier."

She said she could not understand why the man was shouting anti-Semitic remarks at her until her friend, Hannah Wortsman, observed she was wearing earrings with a Star of David design.
[...]
It was when the line passed a booth set up by the Young Zionist Partnership and the Canadian Alliance that a confrontation occurred. Students who ran the booth claim protesters shouted insults before charging them.

He said the group also stole the booth's U.S. flag and tried to set it on fire.

To all you people who carry around signs reading "Bush is Hitler" and "Zionism is Nazism," rub your few brain cells together and think about this: when the real Nazis got started, they weren't wealthy businessmen, media magnates or military leaders. They were a bunch of violent, thuggish misfits, parading through the streets and terrorizing anyone who dared to disagree with them - and members of one religious community in particular.

There's a lesson there, though I doubt you have the intelligence to figure it out.

(via InstaPundit)

Tim Blair is fisking Fidel.

Tim Blair is fisking Fidel.

Another website that desperately needs

Another website that desperately needs fixing: The Spectator. Aside from the fact that you can't make the articles printer-friendly, there's nothing wrong with the page - when it's working. But I've never seen a professional media website out of order as often as this one. They update every Thursday, and that's when it's always down. They do realize you can update a webpage without having to take the whole thing offline, right?

By the way, of all the sites I've complained about today, two are owned by Conrad Black (The Spectator, NY Sun), one was founded by Black (National Post), and one was owned by Conrad Black for a while (The Telegram). Then again, the sites for his Daily Telegraph and Jerusalem Post are just fine, once you get past the dreaded registration process.

I don't believe Bush's press

I don't believe Bush's press conference this evening will be about the capture of bin Laden. Recovery of his body, maybe.

Update: speaking of OBL, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told one group of investigators he's alive, and another group that he's dead.

Outrage! Mike Silverman scandalously misrepresents

Outrage! Mike Silverman scandalously misrepresents the man after whom I've modelled by legal career:

Simpsons fans with sharp memories will recall that Lionel Hutz technically did win a case, in the episode where Homer sold his soul to Satan. Of coruse, if you even want to get more technical, it was a Halloween episode, and events in those episodes don't count as having "really" happened.

But Hutz did win one case in a "regular" episode - when he represented Chester Lampwick, creator of Itchy the Mouse, in his lawsuit against Itchy & Scratchy, Inc. Mind you, it was Bart who did the leg work, but Hutz was counsel of record.

And then there was Homer's case against the "Frying Dutchman," which threw him out before he had really eaten all he could eat. Hutz actually did quite well in that one - he got the Sea Captain to admit he'd never actually been to sea, and he cleverly stacked the jury with 300-pounders. Had it not been settled, Hutz almost certainly would have won.

I will not stand by and watch Lionel Hutz be slandered so callously, dammit!

Update: I completely forgot about the time he represented Bart when he was charged with the murder of Principal Skinner. Bart was acquitted when Skinner showed up, very much alive, and the prosecutor couldn't get his testimony thrown out.

So, let's see: Hutz was on the record for a successful, multi-million dollar lawsuit against a major entertainment company, and an acquittal in a high-profile murder case. Not too shabby. I'll bet he wishes he'd taken the Lampwick case on contingency, though. ("Works on contingency? No, money down!") 25% of the company's value would buy a lot of sweet, sweet Bourbon...brownest of the brown liquors...

Today's Daily Mirror features a

Today's Daily Mirror features a number of special features about North Korea, and the paper concludes that the hermit state is "the real threat to world peace". They may be right. (And this is a big improvement over the paper's standard editorial position, that George W. Bush is the real threat to world peace.)

But let's get real: if Bush and Blair declared that the Mirror had shown them the light, and that they were pulling all their forces from the Middle East and giving Kim Jong Il a disarm-or-else ultimatum, does anyone really believe the Mirror would support them? In an alternate universe where the US and Britain have concentrated all their efforts on North Korea, today's Mirror headline reads, "Iraq is the real threat to world peace".

If Quality Is Job 1,

If Quality Is Job 1, Warranty Work must be Job 2 My 2000 Focus ZX3 goes back to the dealer today. This time around, the rear windshield-wiper motor has to be replaced, and paint is starting to peel from the tailgate. There's about 58,500 km on the odometer.

This is just the latest in a long string of relatively minor but annoying quality problems. Over the past year, the driver's-side door had to be repainted because paint started to peel; the CD player had to be replaced; and as recently as a couple of weeks ago, there was yet another recall. I've never had any major mechanical problems with the car (there was one time it wouldn't start a couple of years ago, but it mysteriously fixed itself after a couple of days in the shop), but this sort of thing gets on your nerves after a while - and when the odometer hits 60,000, I'm on my own.

Would I buy another Focus? The car is remarkably roomy and comfortable, the Zetec engine is powerful enough (although its 130 hp isn't particularly high for a small car, these days), the handling is wonderful, and the ZX3 is packed with standard features. But these niggling failures have gotten under my skin, and, sadly, I just don't have the peace of mind I had with my indestructible old Honda Civic. Unless Ford is getting the hang of building these things (to be fair, the first model year of a new car is almost always the most troublesome), I don't think I'd get another one.

Pity. When everything works properly, it's a wonderful car. At least I don't have to drive a "Zaz":

Redesign these websites. Now. National

Redesign these websites. Now.

National Post - not only is the site ugly (who had the brilliant idea of making some ungodly mixture of yellow, orange and brown the dominant color?), it's not updated until mid-morning, after everybody east of Manitoba has left for work. By contrast, the Globe and Mail is fully updated between 5:00 and 6:00:00 AM, Eastern Time.

New York Sun - a whopping three stories per day, guys? Hey, let's not go overboard with content. (Or make the typeface stay the same size throughout each story.)

The Telegram - the daily paper in St. John's is an internet disaster. It now features only one story per section per day - and you it's almost impossible to link to them. If you've wondered why almost all of my local links come from CBC Radio, there's your answer.

A new study says Joseph

A new study says Joseph Stalin was poisoned by his aides to avert a purge against the USSR's Jewish population - which Stalin suspected of plotting against him - and possibly even a nuclear strike against the West:

The true cause of his death will likely never be proven, unless an autopsy is performed on his embalmed corpse. But the new study by Russian and U.S. historians argues that he appears to have ingested warfarin, a powerful and flavourless rat poison that thins the blood and causes strokes and hemorrhages.

"The circumstantial evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of non-fortuitous death," said Jonathan Brent, a professor of Russian history at Yale University. "And to support this further, we now have solid evidence, non-circumstantial evidence, of a cover-up at the highest level."
[...]
Prof. Brent is also the director of the Yale University Press and the editor of a 25-volume series on the contents of the Soviet Union's secret archives. He conducted his study with Vladimir Naumov, a historian who works in Russia and specializes in Soviet records.

Stalin himself said in public speeches at the time that there was a plot to assassinate him and other Soviet leaders, known as the doctors' plot because his initial accusations were directed at Jewish doctors. His version of the plot grew to incorporate most of the Soviet Jewish population and the leadership of the United States.

Hmmm...this is the same sort of thing President Bush is accused of planning. What can I say? If you believe Dubya wants to set up a totalitarian dictatorship and start a nuclear war, and that Stalin's impeccable reputation is being smeared, you're reading the wrong website.

Either way, I just hope the filthy, murdering animal's last hours - 50 years and a day ago - were suitably painful. It would take a lot to make up for the misery and murder for which he was responsible.

When a terrorist bomb goes

When a terrorist bomb goes off anywhere in the world except Israel, is that country's government ever asked to "show restraint" after the bombing?

Just a thought.

The Concordia Student Union: debating

The Concordia Student Union: debating the most challenging issues of our time.

Man, Blogspot is really messed

Man, Blogspot is really messed up today.

Weird, fascinating website of the

Weird, fascinating website of the day: The Italian Autosoviet site is dedicated to the cars, trucks and motorcycles of the Soviet Union and its client states. Check it out, and thank the Lord you weren't forced to put your name on a 15-year waiting list to drive something like the "Izh":

The really sad part: no fewer than five cars featured on this page (Lada, Skoda, Dacia, Aro and Yugo) were sold in Canada.

Chrissie Hynde is siding with

Chrissie Hynde is siding with the terrorists:

"Have we gone to war yet?" she asked sarcastically, early on. "We (expletive) deserve to get bombed. Bring it on." Later she yelled, "Let's get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!"

And I hope some sort of intergalactic slug burrows into her head and eats her brain. Of course, it would probably die of starvation. By the way, the Contra Costa Times concert reviewer thought Hynde's pro-fascist comments were just wonderful, because it shows she really believes in something. (This is the same excuse people use to defend Communists.)

To see a swaggering 51-year-old woman still unfazed by anything in a male-dominated music world is a wonderful thing, whether you agree or not. Hynde's credibility is genuine and rooted firmly in experience (she witnessed the Kent State protest killings in 1970 and later immersed herself in the mid-1970s London musical uprising that helped birth punk rock).

She may have witnessed Kent State, but she must have missed 9/11.

(via LGF)

Update: the San Francisco Chronicle says Hynde told the audience, ""I think our band represents all the great losers of the world." No argument here.

It looks like Rush Limbaugh

It looks like Rush Limbaugh and Andrew Sullivan have fallen for the "sunset photo from space" hoax - recently debunked by Snopes.

Would an invasion of Iraq,

Would an invasion of Iraq, without a second Security Council Resolution, violate International Law? The New York Times reprints a fair and balanced summary from the Council on Foreign Relations.

If this story is true

If this story is true - and that's a mighty big "if," since I have no idea whether the Korea Times is a credible source - the North Koreans have laid down a challenge which simply cannot be ignored or appeased away:

The warhead of a long-range missile test-fired by North Korea was found in the U.S. state of Alaska, a report to the National Assembly revealed yesterday.

The report was the culmination of monthlong activities of the Assembly’s overseas delegation to five countries over the North Korean nuclear crisis. The Assembly dispatched groups of lawmakers to the United States, Japan, China, Russia and European Union last month to collect information and opinions on the international issue.

Jeez, this is exactly what The Onion predicted last month. Of course, North Korea's increasing belligerence is not a reason to back down from Iraq - frankly, Iraq will be the next North Korea, if we don't do something about it now - but the Americans really have to start paying more attention to this one. If Kim Jong Il wants a fight, we may no choice but to give it to him.

Now, how do we do that, when he already has a few nukes? I wish I knew. This, not Iraq or even Al-Qaida, might be the toughest test of Bush's leadership.

(via Drudge)

This half of the island

This half of the island was blacked out for much of the day. Hence the light posting, at least until the last hour or so.

The wind chill was -42 degrees (Celsius) today. Sadly, my suggestion that we move our practice to Miami was rejected by the partners. Cheapskates!

Martin Amis's muddled, rambling anti-war

Martin Amis's muddled, rambling anti-war essay in today's Wanker is chock full of choice Guardianisms:

Why, in our current delirium of faith and fear, would Bush want things to become more theological rather than less theological? The answer is clear enough, in human terms: to put it crudely, it makes him feel easier about being intellectually null.

...the "war on terror" can start only with the dismantling of the settlements in the territories occupied by Israel.

Annoying (though predictable) stuff, but here's the money quote:

[September 11] also revealed the longstanding but increasingly dynamic loathing of this power in the Islamic world, where anti-Zionism and anti-semitism are exacerbated by America's relationship with Israel - a relationship that many in the west, this writer included, find unnatural. [emphasis added]

Not merely "troublesome" or "unusual," but "unnatural." Interesting choice of words, Mr. Amis. Whatever could you mean?

Leaving aside the IndyMedia-esque theories about a Zionist cabal that controls America, I presume Amis is so confounded by the American-Israeli relationship because, from a geopolitical point of view, it seems so counterproductive. Israel has no oil, or any other natural resources that would make such a strong relationship economically worthwhile. As long as the US supports the Jewish state, it will be ferociously hated by Muslims all over the world, including those who live atop the lucrative oil fields of the Arabian Peninsula. And the "aircraft carrier" theory, beloved by leftists - that the Americans use Israel as their "aircraft carrier" in the Middle East, to serve as a base with which they can patrol and dominate the region - is too nonsensical to be believed. (The Americans have huge bases in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait - but not Israel.)

The US-Israel relationship, then, isn't about American self-interest. So what is it all about? Amis tries to tie it to Christian fundamentalism (once again we see the view, unique to the British left, that the Americans are the religious nuts), and for a few members of the Bush administration, this is undoubtedly a factor. But it can't explain everything.

Let me make this shocking suggestion: maybe the Americans support Israel because they think it's the right thing to do.

Maybe Americans think the Jews have suffered to an unimaginable degree for hundreds of years - especially in the last century, mostly at the hands of the enlightened Europeans - and that the creation of a Jewish country is an achievement that deserves American support. Maybe they survey the hideous, repressive theocracies of the Middle East, and believe the region's only democracy ("the only semi-democracy in that crescent," sneers Amis) deserves American support. Maybe they've heard about the grotesque hatred, envy and self-loathing that dominates the culture of the Arab world, and believe their support is the only thing preventing the second Holocaust in 70 years.

People hate the United States, we're told, because they disagree with American foreign policy - namely, because of support for Israel. Maybe so. Does it automatically follow that support for Israel is wrong? Or "unnatural"? Amis and his fellow Guardianistas, would say yes.

I guess I'm just not sophisticated enough to think that way. Thank goodness.

"Since when was it cooler

"Since when was it cooler to be Canadian?" Since Loverboy released Get Lucky, dammit!

If anything special happened at

If anything special happened at 3:33:00 PM yesterday, I must have missed it.

What do Holocaust 'revisionists' and

What do Holocaust 'revisionists' and Guardian reporters have in common? Aside from the fact that neither like Israel very much, their debating skills are pretty similar, if this posting from Stephen Pollard is any indication. As you may have read, the Wanker recently printed a story in which some Welsh moonbat who supports Palestinian suicide bombers (example: a bombing that killed 23 Israelis was described as a "tactical error") was described as a "freedom fighter" in the headline. That's not what she called herself (at least, not in this particular story), but what the bright sparks at the Guardian felt was an appropriate description.

One of Pollard's readers wrote the reporter and editor responsible for the story, and complained about the use of the term "freedom fighter" to describe this pro-murder dingbat. In response, and in repeated correspondence, they completely ignored his complaint and whined about how he was demanding they refrain from reporting the story at all - which, of course, was completely untrue.

Where do Holocaust 'revisionists' - more accurately described as deniers - fit into this? Recently, I was caught up in one of my periodic online arguments with Zarko, a 'revisionist' troll at Zach Cohen's blog. After a while, I just gave up trying to get through to the guy, because he's so obviously inhabiting a completely different moral universe from the rest of us.

Let me give you an example: not long ago, he defended the Institute for Historical Review, the vile neo-Nazis who try to disguise their Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism with a pseudo-academic veneer. He said they were simply asking questions, and the fact that they get such a hostile reaction proves that their opponents have something to hide. Here's the response I posted (in bold), Zarko's response, and so on:

It's pretty funny how you guys never actually really prove Mike Rivero wrong (well, Zachary tried a couple of times).