There is no power in this Union

Pathetic:

The European Union has refused to support Britain's call to freeze $28 billion in export trade with Iran until 15 British sailors are freed.

France urged avoiding inflaming the confrontation and the Dutch noted it was important that the dialogue with Iran continue, the Times of London said Saturday. EU ministers met in Germany Friday night to discuss the impasse about the detention of the British naval personnel for allegedly trespassing in Iranian waters.

Damian P.

Update: "This latest crisis," writes David Frum, "opens a chance to mobilize European opinion to action." Doesn't mean they'll take that chance, though.

I, the critic

I've been posting quite a few movie, TV and book reviews to Blogcritics.org lately. In partcular, I strongly recommend Color Me Kubrick, starring John Malkovich and recently released on DVD.

Damian P.

The Globe's inimitable Ibbitson gets his

Kate McMillan takes him severely to task, drawing on a piece by the Toronto Sun's Lorrie Goldstein. The guy from Gravenhurst (give it a ranking on the "cosmopolitan" scale) really is too supercilious.

Mark C.

"That's where I saw the leprechaun. He told me to burn things."

Part 2 here. They taste like burning!

Damian P.

Responding to Rosie

Popular Mechanics answers Rosie O'Donnell's "unanswered questions" about the collapse of World Trade Center 7.

I was going to send this link to "ask ro," but she's not accepting any new questions right now. But of course. (In any event, you can be sure she'd just respond with the blatant lie that Benjamin Chertoff, the "lead researcher" on PM's conspiracy-debunking story, is a close relative of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff.)

Damian P.

If only Canadian opposition parties thought like Democrats

On the other hand, Charles Krauthammer's Martian is right in terms of argument, but can his conclusion be successfully implemented--politically or militarily?

...Bring in a completely neutral observer -- a Martian -- and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources and no industrial or technological infrastructure. The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure that, though suffering decay in the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule, could easily be revived if it falls into the right (i.e., wrong) hands. Add to that the fact that its strategic location would give its rulers inordinate influence over the entire Persian Gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf states. Then ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question...

[...]

The Democratic insistence on the primacy of Afghanistan makes no strategic sense. Instead, it reflects a sensibility. They would rather support the Afghan war because its origins are cleaner, the casus belli clearer, the moral texture of the enterprise more comfortable. Afghanistan is a war of righteous revenge and restitution, law enforcement on the grandest of scales. As senator and presidential candidate Joe Biden put it, "If there was a totally just war since World War II, it is the war in Afghanistan."..

As to implementation, several commenters on an earlier post, "US ground forces tapped out", objected that it was based on a news story in the Washington Post and hence was basically liberal pap. This article appears in the Post's evil conservative twin, the Washington Times: "Is the Army headed for collapse?". It is written by a retired major general, a former commander of the Army War College.

Mark C.

Afghanistan: Taliban not what they were/ANA improving

A round-up post at The Torch: "Less fight in Taliban".

Plus: "Romania one of the six doing combat" (can you name them all?).

And a post by Damian Brooks on the Canadian Forces' other, small operations around the world: " The forgotten missions".

Mark C.

Update: When the Poles arrive they'll be fighting too.

"The wonder drug of German politics"

Der Spiegel laments the results of a poll showing that more Germans feel threatened by the United States than by Iran:

Now they believe that the United States is a greater threat to world peace than Iran. This was the by-no-means-surprising result of a Forsa opinion poll commissioned by Stern magazine. Young Germans in particular -- 57 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds, to be precise -- said they considered the United States more dangerous than the religious regime in Iran.

The German political establishment, which will no doubt loudly lament the result of the poll, is largely responsible for this wave of anti-Americanism. [Might I suggest that the reliably anti-American Der Spiegel deserves its share of the blame? - DP] For years the country's foreign ministers fed the Germans the fairy tale of what they called a "critical dialogue" between Europe and Iran. It went something like this: If we are nice to the ayatollahs, cuddle up to them a bit and occasionally wag our fingers at them when they've been naughty, they'll stop condemning their women to death for "unchaste behavior" and they'll stop building the atom bomb.

[...]

For us Germans, the Americans are either too fat or too obsessed with exercise, too prudish or too pornographic, too religious or too nihilistic. In terms of history and foreign policy, the Americans have either been too isolationist or too imperialistic. They simply go ahead and invade foreign countries (something we Germans, of course, would never do) and then abandon them, the way they did in Vietnam and will soon do in Iraq.

Worst of all, the Americans won the war in 1945. (Well, with German help, of course -- from Einstein and his ilk.) There are some Germans who will never forgive the Americans for VE Day, when they defeated Hitler. After all, Nazism was just an accident, whereas Americans are inherently evil. Just look at President Bush, the man who, as some of SPIEGEL ONLINE's readers steadfastly believe, "is worse than Hitler." Now that gives us a chance to kill two birds with one stone. If Bush is the new Hitler, then we Germans have finally unloaded the Führer on to someone else. In fact, we won't even have to posthumously revoke his German citizenship, as politicians in Lower Saxony recently proposed. No one can hold a candle to our talent for symbolism!

That probably explains a lot of the comparisons between Israel and the Nazis, too.

Damian P.

What next for Zimbabwe?

Con Coughlin says Mugabe could be gone next month, but that his successor might be no better:

When officials at South Africa's foreign ministry start whispering to visiting American businessmen - as they did earlier this week - that a coup in Harare is on the cards for some time in mid-April, there is every reason to believe that the wind of change is about to blow the cantankerous old devil out of his presidential palace.

The sudden change in Pretoria's attitude to Mugabe is just one of the many factors that have raised expectations throughout Africa that the dictator's 27-year rule of fear is finally drawing to a close.

But if Mugabe goes, will Zimbabwe's salvation inevitably follow?

[...]

Joice Mujuru, generally regarded as holding pole position in the succession stakes, is hardly a figure to inspire confidence.

A veteran of the guerrilla war that eventually brought ZANU-PF to power, she owes her political prominence to her husband Solomon, who for many years commanded Zimbabwe's armed forces, and therefore bears responsibility for many of the atrocities committed against the country's civilian population.

Solomon Mujuru, who acquired vast personal wealth while the rest of Zimbabwe starved, is credited with being instrumental in Mugabe's appointment following independence in 1980; but the country's dire economic situation has prompted even him to ditch his loyalty to his erstwhile protégé, and he has been wooing support from British, American and French diplomats.

When South African officials talk of a potential coup in Zimbabwe, Solomon Mujuru's name is never far from their lips.

For those desperate to see the back of Mugabe, the replacement of a political dictator with a military one might have its attractions, but this would completely fail to serve Zimbabwe's long-term interests.

What Zimbabwe needs is not more of the autocratic Marxist dogma that has brought the country to its knees; it needs to start again, just as it did after the 1980 Lancaster House agreement ended years of bloody civil war.

Damian P.

Update: publicly, at least, Zimbabwe's neighbours are showing "solidarity" with Mugabe's government:

In a communique issued at the end of the meeting, the 14 countries of the Southern African Development Community called for an end to all economic sanctions against Zimbabwe and expressed their solidarity with the government of Mr Mugabe.

They also took up one of Mr Mugabe's long-standing causes, calling on the British government to compensate white farmers whose land his government has seized.

However, they also acknowledged that Zimbabwe's political landscape needed to change. They appointed South African president Thabo Mbeki to promote dialogue between opposition and government figures.

Speaking after the two-day closed meeting, Jakaya Kikwete, the president of Tanzania, said there had been no suggestion of asking Mr Mugabe not to run in presidential elections scheduled for next year.

And he accused opposition groups of using illegal means to further their cause.

Celebrity guest post

4 thousand Jews

stayed home on 9/11

google it

Rosie O.

Canadians bloviate while Darfur burns

Same old headline, and the Arab states (and probably their people) don't give a...

...in a speech earlier in the day [March 28] at the Arab summit [in Riyadh], al-Bashir underlined his objections to a 20,000-strong combined U.N.-AU peacekeeping force, saying the United Nations should only provide financial and technical help to African peacekeepers already on the ground.

Al-Bashir slammed U.N. resolutions calling for U.N. troop deployment in Darfur as "a violation for Sudan's sovereignty" and said they "provoke the conflict in Darfur, instead of finding a solution for it."..

But Gerald Caplan, one of Canada's great and good, asks the question the international community is longing to hear:

Why is Canada not speaking up to decry the shameful opportunism and cynicism of the UN's permanent five?

So the US and UK are just as bad as Russia and China. Phooey on leftist relativism. Read the analysis at the Army.ca link.

As for the French, they're busy protecting their national interests next door:

France, the former colonial power in Chad, has an air force contingent of 3,000 now in the country...

Even more, from greater and gooder Canadians Allan Rock and Lloyd Axworthy:

Canada is failing the test of leadership in Darfur. As the sponsor and principal advocate of "Responsibility to Protect" -- the doctrine that recognizes an international responsibility to protect populations from genocide and other mass atrocities --Canada should be leading a sustained diplomatic and political push to stop the fighting, protect the population and broker a peace pact in Darfur.

[...]

...So how can Canada help? Here are steps we can take immediately...We should bring together a "contact group" of countries that share our concern, drawing from different regions and political interests, including the League of Arab States [hah! see above]...

...it must also be made clear that Sudan's failure to accept a protective force will have consequences. The contact group must be ready to persuade the Security Council to impose and enforce meaningful measures to show that the world means business...

-Lloyd Axworthy served as minister of foreign affairs from 1995-2000. Allan Rock served as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations from 2004 to 2006. In this capacity, he acted as Canada's representative during the negotiation of the May 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement.

What pleasant planet do these people live on? Have they brains? Did they learn nothing about reality on the job? Their idea of policy, I would suggest (and it is far too common with Canadians), is that attitudes are action and proposals in themselves purposeful--especially since they make us feel oh so morally superior to those damned Yankees. Who, in the end, will have to do most of the heavy lifting most of the time. Thank goodness they no longer have power of any sort, other than with our self-satisfied chattering classes.

Latest: progress that means nothing effectual:

"Sudan has now agreed for the U.N. to provide logistical support to help African forces," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said at a news conference.

Those logistics will sure solve things.

Mark C.

"Plan B" for Iraq

One cannot but wonder why Muslims (of whatever stripe) and anti-Americans everywhere do not simply scream blue murder--and maybe try to suggest something effectual--in an effort to stop the killing.

Scoring points seems all that many people wish to do, rather than consider human life. Saddam was evil. The US bungled, very badly, the occupation. Is being anti-Bush morally better than not condemning those actually doing the killing?

And are the frontiers of an artificial state worth preserving? The Muslim countries pay a huge amount of attention to the Palestine/Israel problem - where far, far, fewer Muslims are being killed.

Why this odd priority, if people are what one cares about rather than religion or attitude? Do Muslims have any suggestions for the future of Iraq, other than US withdrawal and concomitant slaughter? Quelle solution.

"Plan B"--blah, blah, blah:

On the other hand, an orderly withdrawal has its advantages. Taking sides would keep both U.S. troops and credibility mired in Iraq. It would make it more difficult to marshal significant forces and political capital to address other pressing challenges like Afghanistan and Iran. And if, in taking sides, the administration fully embraces the logic of the 80 percent solution, it risks U.S. complicity in a “final solution” for the 5 million Sunnis in Iraq. Beyond the obvious moral implications here, empowering the Shiite majority and its efforts to crush Iraqi Sunnis might cause the fragile coalition of Sunni Arab states Washington is currently stitching together to fly apart. Moreover, as the declassified 2006 NIE on terrorism recognized, the perception of the continued U.S. “occupation” of Iraq feeds the anti-Americanism that drives jihadi recruitment around the world. It might therefore be preferable to withdraw U.S. support from the Iraqi government altogether rather than risk being a party to genocidal violence and the spark for a regionwide sectarian war and greater terrorism worldwide.

Given the strategic and moral stakes, we should hope that President Bush’s new plan indeed spurs important Iraqi political changes—a new oil law, a rollback of de-Baathification, local elections that empower Sunnis, demobilization of militias, etc.—that produce genuine national reconciliation. But we should not count on it. Instead of fixating on the pros and cons of the surge (which, for all intents and purposes, is a done deal), the U.S. public and Congress should be thoroughly analyzing the options for Plan B while there is still time for reasonable debate. Discussion needs to start now, not six or nine months from now. If it doesn’t, the likely result will either be another fait accompli by the Bush administration that puts in place its preferred Plan B if the surge fails, or a rushed withdrawal driven more by domestic politics in the United States than its geopolitical interests and humanitarian obligations in Iraq.

I have no answers. I have one question, an honest one. Would it have been better to have allowed Saddam to remain in power?

Mark C.

Afghanistan: "We are Canadian"

Crikey, what a good film. Interesting to see navy-looking types in land-locked desert terrain. And how good to live in a country from which such volunteers choose to serve.

It was, near the end, I think important to see an Afghan National Army officer telling the Canadians what his troops were going to do with the clear implication that he was in charge of that aspect. It's their country; we are only there to do what we can in an effort to ensure that it does not threaten us in some way.

The Globe and Mail's not-John Doyle liked it too. How refreshing.

Mark C.

My question would be, "are you on meth?"

u have no idea how much idiocy can b featured on 1 site

more here

Damian P.

Update: my pounding headache is getting worse

Turley's second letter

The Iranians haven't released Faye Turney yet (nor any of her colleagues, needless to say), but they have produced another letter she voluntarily wrote in her own words, she really did:

Iran's Mehr news agency quoted military commander Alireza Afshar saying Britain must apologise for entering Iran's waters and promise it would not happen again.

"The release of a female British soldier has been suspended," he was quoted as saying. "The wrong behaviour of those who live in London caused the suspension."

In the letter, whose authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, Turney said her group was in Iranian waters.

"Unfortunately during the course of our mission we entered into Iranian waters," the letter said. "Even through our wrongdoing, they have still treated us well and humanely, (for) which I am and always will be eternally grateful."

[...]

The somewhat stilted language of the letter led some linguistic experts to suggest the text may have been written originally in Farsi and then translated into English.

Damian P.

Britain vs. Iran: The EU's role

Will EU hearts beat as one with Britain's? Don't bet on it, says Timothy Garton Ash.

Last week, while the European Union celebrated 50 years of peace, freedom and solidarity, 15 Europeans were kidnapped from Iraqi territorial waters by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. As I write, those 14 European men and one European woman have been held at an undisclosed location for nearly a week, interrogated, denied consular access but shown on Iranian television, with one of them making a staged "confession," clearly under duress. So if Europe is as it claims to be, what's it going to do about it? Where's the solidarity? Where's the action?

[...]

Many continental Europeans, if they have registered that there is a crisis at all, will probably think of it as yet another consequence of a foolish, illegitimate Anglo-American military action in Iraq. They will see it as a problem for "them" (Brits and Americans) rather than for "us" (right-thinking, peace-loving Europeans). Some may suspect the British sailors and marines did in fact stray into Iranian territorial waters, as the Iranians claim. A few may even privately mutter, "Well, you had it coming to you."

[...]

Here is something Europe should do: Flex its economic muscles. The EU is by far Iran's biggest trading partner. More than 40 per cent of its imports come from, and more than a quarter of its exports go to, the EU. Remarkably, this trade has grown strongly in the past years of looming crisis. Much of it is underpinned by export credit guarantees given by European governments, notably those of Germany, France and Italy.

[...]

So here's a challenge for the German presidency of the European Union: Will you put your money where your mouth is? Or are all your recent speeches about European solidarity in the cause of peace and freedom not even worth the paper they are written on?

Now Mr Garton Ash is a particularily prominent pro-Europe Brit. Yet he clearly is close to outrage at the EU's mealy-mouthed passivity. A lesson to him and others likeminded, perhaps? As to views in the "Union's" current presidency:

1) Who are the good guys?

Evil Americans, Poor Mullahs

By Claus Christian Malzahn

Forty-eight percent of Germans think the United States is more dangerous than Iran, a new survey shows, with only 31 percent believing the opposite. Germans' fundamental hypocrisy about the US suggests that it's high time for a new bout of re-education...

2) How to deal with Iran:

The German papers Thursday [March 28] praised the British response to the crisis, with some newspapers calling for international solidarity in dealing with Tehran...

That certainly is a stand-up attitude. Whilst at the scene of the latest action:

Britain is seeking a United Nations Security Council statement demanding the immediate release of 15 British sailors and marines seized last Friday by Iran, British officials said Thursday.

At the United Nations in New York, British officials were circulating a draft statement, which would also condemn Iran's actions in the case and support the British position that its troops were acting legally within Iraqi waters. The officials hoped it would be issued later Thursday, according to a spokesman for the British Foreign Office...

Any wagers on how much support Russia and China will give for any substantive action? By the way, in the latter case it is, as with Darfur, all about oil.

Mark C.

Update: Should you wish to face the enemy within (us) take a look at the comments on Mr Garton Ash's piece as published in The Guardian. First on the scene is "DaveCanuk". Oh dear. Can't spell much.

I also hope you and your emperial overlords get chased back to your home countries promptly.

Cry, the beloved country. Such cultural self-loathing. Diagnosis, please?

A premeditated heist

When fifteen British sailors were taken prisoner by Iran, geopolitical analyst Rosie O'Donnell compared it to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. She may have a point: just as the Johnson Administration exaggerated, falsified and/or manipulated the Tonkin incident, it looks like the Iranians exaggerated, falsified and/or manipulated this one. (What do you mean, "that's not what she meant"?)

Dominic Kennedy, in The Times, suggests it was all planned well in advance:

The Ministry of Defence released the coordinates of the searched vessel yesterday to prove that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards made an unprovoked and improper attack in Iraqi waters.

The Iranians also blundered in diplomatic talks by giving the British their own compass reference for the place where they said the 14 men and one woman had been seized. When Britain plotted these on a map and pointed out that the spot was in Iraq’s maritime area, the Iranians came up with a new set of coordinates, putting the seizure in their own waters.

The speed and cunning shown by the Revolutionary Guards has raised suspicions that their action was premeditated. A senior military officer described it as “deliberate”.

It took only three minutes for the Iranians, moving at 40 knots, to move from their legitimate positions monitoring shipping in their waters to come alongside the British last Friday morning.

Why didn't the British fight back? Kennedy says they would have had every right to do so, in self-defence, but it would have been suicidal:

— The two Iranian patrol ships that seized the Britons were equipped with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, enough for a small sea battle. By contrast, the Britons go lightly armed on vessels they search in the Gulf. Each man is issued with a rifle or a pistol

— The Iranians struck at a vulnerable moment when the Britons were climbing down a ladder to jump into their inflatables

— The Royal Navy does train its men in the techniques needed to fight at just such a dangerous stage. “They had all the rights available to act in self-defence under law,” a senior military officer said. But they were in an “almost impossible position”

— A similar decision to hold fire was taken by the six Royal Marines and two sailors captured by Iran in 2004 in similar circumstances. Scott Fallon, a former marine, said they did think about shooting their way free but knew it would be hopeless. He told BBC Radio 4: “They had antiaircraft guns. We would have stood no chance”

Meanwhile, the Iranians say they may not release Faye Tunney after all, as long as the British refuse to act like proper dhimmis:

British sailor Faye Turney may be set free by Iran on Thursday, but there is word her release could be delayed if Iran is faced with "fuss and wrong behaviour" from Britain.

[...]

Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on state television that Turney's release would depend on the British response.

"We even said that the grounds were ready for the release of a woman among the British sailors but if we are faced with a fuss and wrong behaviour then this would be suspended and it would not take place," Larijani said, according to Reuters news service.

In another interview on Iranian radio, Larijani said specifically that Turney's release could be delayed if Britain takes the issue to the UN Security Council or freezes relations, as it has threatened to do.

Damian P.

Meet the new Commission, same as the old Commission

The Foreign Policy blog describes how the "reformed" UN Human Rights Council is back to its old tricks - namely, letting brutal dictatorships off scot-free, and concentrating its attacks against the country with all the Jooooooos in it:

...By a decisive margin, the Council voted to end its examination of Iran and Uzbekistan despite worsening human rights records in both countries. Japan, South Korea, and Brazil were surprising votes in favor of the free passes; they had been supported more predictably by Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, and Azerbaijan.

The sad irony is, the Council was actually conceived as an alternative to the now-defunct Human Rights Committee, which had been widely condemned for doing exactly what the new Council is doing now. The United States had been a leading advocate for reform, but refused to sit on the Council at its inception, fearing that it would degenerate into a talking shop that would aid and abet the worst violators.

That position is looking pretty prescient now. The Council has condemned Israel 8 times, but refused to pass judgment on even a single other regime. Regional bloc cover for their own, while tyrants point to the shortcomings of democracies to hide the fact that they aren't even trying. All of which just goes to show the inherent weakness of a body that treats all of its members as formal equals in judging matters in which they manifestly are not. ...[emphasis added]

Via Publius Pundit.

Damian P.

At least he isn't teaching anymore

While Cathy Seipp was on her deathbed, a persistent, mentally unstable cyberstalker took the opportunity to take cheap shots at Seipp and her teenaged daughter:

Just hours before her death, “Cathy Seipp” suddenly seemed to undo decades of hard work with an oddly written letter posted on the Web site, www. cathyseipp.com. In what came off as more bizarre rant than heartfelt apology, her supposed “very last blog entry” called her years of journalism a “shoddy,” “despicable” and “irresponsible” career as a “fourth-rate hack.” Her political stance? All a mistake.

The fiery, unwavering supporter of George W. Bush supposedly said she'd done a complete 180 in the past year and was now an implied supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. What was even more perplexing was that “Seipp” was taking mean-spirited potshots at her own daughter, Maia Lazar, whom she called an “obnoxious” and “arrogant” wanna-be “skank” who was “mentally ill.” Throughout the letter, the one person whom “Seipp” seemed most sorry for ever having offended was Maia's 10th-grade journalism teacher, who had frequently clashed with mother and daughter. Finally, “Seipp” said she was probably to blame for her own illness — the “venom” she'd spewed for years was responsible for her terminal cancer.

Friends were horrified. They quickly realized that the letter was the work of an infamous character known as “Troll Dolls” who'd positioned himself as the blogger's archenemy and bought the domain name www.cathyseipp.com years earlier (Seipp's real Web site is www.cathyseipp.net). Troll Dolls is really Eliot Stein, a 54-year-old former online talk-show host and stand-up comedian who hadd taught Maia in a journalism class for a brief period in 2004, and who blamed Maia and Seipp for his departure from the school after only five weeks. Seipp's friends marshaled their resources, creating an impromptu Internet chat room to make their plans, fingering Stein as the culprit, enlisting the help of a lawyer to serve him a cease-and-desist letter, and successfully lobbying Stein's Internet host to take the Web site down permanently.

[...]

...Stein said that he made several bona fide efforts to end the feud with Seipp, but that whenever he took his site down, Seipp would begin the conflict again with comments about him in her blog. Seipp's friends said that if anything, the reverse was true, and that Seipp was a deathly ill woman focusing on her cancer and her daughter, and never took Stein very seriously. In 2006, Seipp wrote a column in which she lightheartedly referred to Stein as a cyberstalker and compared him to the Star Wars figure Jabba the Hutt. That, Stein said, was the last straw. He later crafted his fake Seipp letter and posted it on his Web site, knowing full well that she was dying but still alive.

“They thought that because this is the Internet they could say whatever they want whenever they want, but they met someone with an expansive education, a pioneer of the Internet with an incredible sense of humor,” Stein said. “They picked the wrong person to mess with.”

When asked if he himself might be accused of abusing the freedoms and power of the Internet to attack someone, Stein said his actions were justified by Seipp's history of “character assassination.”

If the teaching thing doesn't work out, maybe he can get a place at the Huffington Post.

Damian P.

Captives on parade

Iranian television showed the captured British sailors today:

Iran today broadcast a film of the lone woman among 15 British Navy personnel seized in the Gulf last week, in which she says she "obviously trespassed" into Iranian territory.

As the seven sailors and eight Marines were paraded on Iranian state television, Leading Seaman Faye Turney was shown separately, wearing a headscarf and smoking a cigarette.

An apparent recording of the 26-year-old said: "I am Leading Seaman Faye Turney. I come from England. I serve on Foxtrot Nine Nine. I have been in the Navy nine years. I live in England."

“I was arrested on Friday March 23. Obviously we trespassed into their waters. They were very friendly and very hospitable, very thoughtful, good people. They explained to us why we had been arrested. There was no aggression, no hurt, no harm.They were very, very compassionate.”

The broadcast was accompanied by what was claimed to be a letter from Ms Turney to her parents, which was released by the Iranian Embassy in London.

In the letter, Ms Turney said they had "apparently" gone into Iranian waters and repeated her assurances that was being treated well by her captors.

[...]

Earlier the British Ministry of Defence published satellite coordinates which commanders said proved that the personnel were 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters when they were "ambushed" by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett then told MPs that Britain was immediately freezing all bilateral ties with Iran - except for negotiations directly concerning the 15.

Turney's "confession" is the lead story in most British newspapers this morning. The video, if you can stand it, is here.

Damian P.

Why the European Economic Community went wrong

Too much "coordinated capitalism" (as in Quebec?):

Postwar European history falls neatly into two periods. From 1945 to 1973, the countries of Western Europe recovered rapidly from the almost unimaginable devastation caused by World War II and then took off, growing faster than the United States and more than twice as fast as their own historical trends. From 1973 to the present, however, their economies have struggled with low growth and high unemployment, lagging behind both international competitors and their own earlier success.

...In “The European Economy Since 1945,” Barry Eichengreen, a professor of economics and political science at the University of California, Berkeley, presents not only a comprehensive account of Europe’s postwar economic experience but also an important analysis of capitalist development more generally.

...In the years after 1945, Europe needed to recover from the war and catch up with the United States. This involved what economists call “extensive growth” — essentially, increasing the number of workers doing familiar kinds of jobs. Extensive growth requires adopting existing technology, using labor more efficiently and generating high levels of investment. After the war, Europe developed a variety of institutions well suited to these tasks.

...By the early 1970s, however, the potential for extensive growth had been largely exhausted. Europe’s businesses and infrastructure had been rebuilt, its labor force transferred from agriculture to manufacturing, the latest technology imported and adopted. At this point, Eichengreen says, “the continent had to find other ways of sustaining its growth. It had to switch from growth based on brute-force capital accumulation and the acquisition of known technologies to growth based on increases in efficiency and internally generated innovation” — that is, to “intensive growth.”

The problem, of course, was that Europe was now saddled with institutions ill suited to the creativity and flexibility that intensive growth demands. As Eichengreen puts it, “the continent’s very success at exploiting the opportunities for catch-up and convergence after World War II doomed it to difficulties thereafter.” The new situation called for flexible and mobile work relationships, technological novelty and the financing of risky ventures — none of which Europe’s postwar institutions were good at...

More on the broader malaise of what became the European Union is here.

Mark C.

Big Bang

Talk about MOPping up:

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) successfully conducted the first explosive test of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) conventional weapon concept yesterday at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. The test consisted of a statically emplaced conventional weapon within a DTRA test tunnel. “This demonstration of the bomb’s capability to defeat tunnels was a significant step in the development of this innovative concept,” said Robert Hastie, Ph.D., MOP program manager.

The conventional 30,000-pound penetrating bomb is designed to defeat hard and deeply buried targets such as bunker and tunnel facilities. Designed to be carried in B-2 and B-52 bombers and employed at high altitudes, the MOP’s innovative design features include a Global Positioning System navigation system and over 5,300 pounds of explosives...

Picture here--topping the Tallboy, as well as the Daisycutter and MOAB.

Mark C.

Update: Omitted the Grand Slam.

Testing British resolve

Melanie Phillips says Iran's seizure of fifteen British sailors is a test to see how the UK and its allies will react. And so far, the British are failing that test miserably:

My goodness, the Iranian regime must be shivering in its shoes. With what contempt they must regard us — a country that stands impotently by while its people are kidnapped and then does no more than bleat that it is ‘disturbed’.

[...]

We just don’t seem able to grasp the true nature and scale of the Iranian threat. Indeed, there is a distinct air of irrationality about a Britain which tells opinion pollsters that it believes President Bush is a greater threat to world peace than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. What terrible moral confusion.

We have consistently shown we are not prepared to defend ourselves. In 2004, the British servicemen who were kidnapped by Iran were spirited to Tehran and paraded blindfold on television, which broadcast their apprehensive apologies for a ‘big mistake’.

It was an act of war against us. We let them get away with it.

In 2005, the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Iran was supplying the roadside bombs that were blowing up our troops in Iraq. Such a supply was an act of war against this country. We let them get away with it.

Our failure to respond adequately to Iranian aggression this time round will provide yet another signal, not just to Iran but to every corrupt despotism which fancies its chances against Western interests, that we are there for the taking.

Some Britons - the same ones who compared their public response to 7/7 with how the Americans reacted to an attack that killed sixty times as many people - would respond that the Brits' relatively muted response is itself a sign of maturity and courage, compared to these trigger-happy Yanks. But I fear many Britons believe their sailors somehow deserved it.

Damian P.

Update: Telegraph readers weigh in.

Separatism isn't dead

Yes, the PQ was relegated to third place in the Quebec election. And, yes, Mario Dumont opposes a new referendum on sovereignty. But the ADQ platform demands significant "autonomy" for the province:

Mr. Dumont drew a lot of attention during the campaign for his promise not to facilitate another referendum. Less attention was paid to his platform to assert Quebec's autonomy, elements of which might surprise Canadians.

Adopted by the party in 2004, the policy is a strongly nationalist document that calls for Quebec to adopt its own constitution, create its own citizenship and even disregard some federal laws when they are judged to be infringing on areas of provincial jurisdiction.

"Our first fidelity, our passion and our loyalty are toward Quebec," the platform says. It adds: "The development of Quebec as a distinct nation flows naturally from an increase in our autonomy." Canadians outside Quebec are considered "privileged partners," not countrymen. It proposes having the province's name officially changed to the "Autonomist State of Quebec."

The document is heavy on rhetoric about rejecting "submission to Canada" and affirming Quebec's "sovereign rights."

The Canada Health Act, which sets national standards for healthcare delivery and limits private sector involvement, is considered an unacceptable intrusion.

If federal environmental law were to block construction of Quebec hydroelectric dams, an ADQ government would reserve the right to ignore the federal government if it were satisfied the project met Quebec environmental standards.

[...]

Guy Laforest, a professor of political science at Universite Laval and former president of the ADQ, said the electionmarks the beginning of a new political phase in Canada.

"The idea of Canada as one nation, Dumont does not buy that dream. Dumont is not a one-nation Canada guy. Dumont is a Quebec nationalist," Mr. Laforest said. "The result of yesterday is not that Quebec is going out. Quebec is not going anywhere. Quebec is staying in but will act as a nation, will demand autonomy and will act autonomously."

Mr. Dumont has said he wants limits on federal spending power written into the Constitution, but Mr. Laforest said much of the ADQ program does not require anyone's approval.

"Quebec does not have to beg for permission to do this. It can do it alone," he said.

Mario Dumont obviously feels no emotional attachment to Canada, but is willing to remain part of Confederation as long as Quebec gets a lot of power and money out of it. ("Quebec would be under none of the constraints of federalism, but would enjoy all of its privileges," writes Andrew Coyne.) With about two-thirds of the vote going to the ADQ, the PQ and the far-left, separatist Quebec Solidaire, it's obvious that most Quebecois feel the same way - and that the R-word will come up again before too long.

The question is, ten or twenty years from now when Quebec inevitably holds another referendum, will the rest of Canada even care anymore?

Damian P.

Live from Kurdistan

Michael Totten continues his outstanding reporting from Iraqi Kurdistan, including an inspiring piece about how that relatively calm region of the country is being rebuilt, and an encounter with Iranian Communists.

Damian P.

CBC to air excellent documentary on troops in Afghanistan

Now that you've picked yourself up off the floor read the post, "The Crazy Eights", by Damian Brooks at The Torch. Damian has some perceptive points on the Canadian media's general attitude towards the Canadian Forces.

The Crazy Eights will air on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 8:00 p.m. on CBC television, repeating Saturday, March 31, 2007 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBC Newsworld. Make some time to watch it.

Now read this piece by Mark Steyn: "Harmed Forces".

Mark C.

The Liberals were right!

Airman, with gun, on our ice. Canada's New Government sure is scary.

Mark C.

An electric Bricklin?

The Truth About Cars is skeptical about the heavily hyped Tesla roadster, a beautiful, electric (not hybrid) sports car that will reportedly go from 0-60 in four seconds:

...our man was not allowed behind the wheel. Indeed, all Tesla’s media coverage has been carefully supervised and controlled. While "you can't touch this" restrictions are not unknown in an industry that produces million dollar plus prototypes, there are plenty of electric car companies happy to let responsible journos do what responsible journos are supposed to do.

[...]

The enthusiastic staff at Tesla Motors describes the Roadster’s selling proposition as “performance without guilt.” But if you set aside the media’s PC fawning over an eco-friendly sports car, there are serious questions about the Roadster’s ability to deliver on its manufacturer's promises.

For example, Tesla says its engineers have placed the Roadster’s LiIon batteries away from each other in steel and aluminum containers. Even so, if one of its batteries ignites, it could cause a virtually unstoppable series of fires and/or explosions. Roadster deliveries are now scheduled for fall; federal approval for the vehicle has not yet been granted.

Safety, range, reliability, recharge time, battery life, build quality, manufacturing costs– Tesla has yet to prove that they’ve overcome any of these obstacles for their lightweight Roadster (never mind their planned family car). Until they do, until they allow the press to thoroughly evaluate the car’s real world capabilities, their Roadster should be viewed as nothing more than another well-meaning concept car. Or, if you prefer, a fabulous toy.

I hope the Tesla lives up to expectations, but how many times have we been burned by upstart manufacturers promising to revolutionize the auto industry?

Damian P.

The making of an environmental myth

If you thought recent talk about China having stricter vehicle-emissions standards than the U.S. was too good to be true, you were right. (Ironically, China is one of the few places on earth where big American cars - especially Buicks - are a hit.)

Damian P.

Hicks heading home

The "Australian Taliban" has plead guilty before a U.S. military tribunal, and will serve his sentence Down Under:

Chief prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis said today that David Hicks's guilty plea meant the Australian terror suspect could be winging his way home in a matter of months.

Hicks would be sentenced by the end of the week, under a deal in which Hicks can serve out any more time to be served in an Australian jail, Colonel Davis said.

[...]

Hicks’s US military lawyer, Major Michael Mori, entered the plea to the charge of material support for terrorism which was broken into two counts or specifications.

Major Mori rose and said Hicks pled guilty on specification one, and not guilty on specification two.

Specification one of the charge detailed at length Hicks's links to terrorist organisations and his activities in Afghanistan where he met Osama bin Laden and completed al-Qa'ida training courses.

Specification two simply alleged that Hicks entered Afghanistan from about December 2000 to December 2001 to provide support for terrorism and that he did so in “in the context of and was associated with an armed conflict namely al-Qa'ida or its associated forces against the United States or its coalition partners”.

Tim Blair, one of the few Aussies who never drank the Hicks Kool-Aid, has much more. (Turns out our Aussie friend, who had been repeatedly described in the Australian media as being on the verge of starvation, packed on quite a few pounds in Chimpy McLikudBurton's gulag.)

Damian P.

Charest cut down; Boisclair bombs

Jean Charest and the Liberals barely hang on to power in Quebec, but the big story is the upstart ADQ surging ahead of the venerable Parti Quebecois to become the official opposition:

When the dust settled, the Liberals had 48 seats, the ADQ 41, and the PQ 36 in the 125-seat National Assembly. The last time Quebec had a minority government was in 1878.

While it is not entirely clear how the three parties will align themselves, the Liberals almost certainly will continue to govern, even though Mr. Charest may be turfed as leader. Four of his cabinet ministers were defeated. Mr. Boisclair won his seat, but could also lose his job.

[...]

With the ADQ gnawing away at both the traditional parties, the federalist-sovereigntist dichotomy that dominated Quebec's political landscape for three decades dissipated.

While Mr. Dumont's "autonomist" position remains vague, his fence-straddling allowed him to move beyond the age-old debate about Quebec's place within Canada and focus on other issues.

He wooed voters, particularly outside of urban Montreal, with his small-c conservatism and focus on families.

Is this the end of Quebec separatism? Don't bet on it. You can be sure the endless debate will lurch back to life before too long, and then we'll see where Dumont and his ADQ really stand on the issue.

Damian P.

The greening of war games

Different types of wars demand a different sort of game--and player.

Strategic war games used to be simple. Soldiers, defense consultants and others divvied up into Blue (allied) and Red (enemy) teams and then faced off in a series of moves roughly resembling chess. The point wasn't to predict the outcomes of future battles — though that sometimes happened — but to sort out how policies, tactics and weapons might perform in combat. A roll of the dice set a team's odds. Complicated mathematical formulas determined the outcome. And that worked pretty well up through the Cold War.

Today, dice seldom get rolled. In the wake of 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, war games have had to evolve to remain relevant. Instead of a monolithic enemy, there are often several Red teams, fighting against each other as well as the Blue team. This complicates things for Red team players like me, but frankly, it's a fascinating way to make a living.

It's not just the Red teams that are changing; so is the definition of victory.

The outcome of many games is determined by a new addition, the Green team. Green represents the civilian population, the media and the international community — once bystanders, now the ultimate arbitrators. If Red or Blue kills civilians in a manner considered unnecessary in the process of winning a battle, for instance, it may lose Green team support, thus losing the war or at least the campaign.

Mark C.

The Truth Hurts

Hillel Neuer, head of UN Watch, appeared before the UN Human Rights Commission last week - and spoke truth to powerlessness.

Damian P.

Quote of the Day

KSK reader "big jim slade" on Joe Theismann getting dumped from Monday Night Football:

"The only thing that would have made this sweeter is if they had Lawrence Taylor break the news to him."

Damian P.

It worked so well in Ukraine

Hugo Chavez wants to collective agriculture:

President Hugo Chavez announced Sunday that his government's sweeping reforms toward socialism will include the creation of "collective property."

Vowing to undermine capitalism's continued influence in Venezuela during his television and radio program "Hello President," Chavez said state-financed cooperatives would operate under a new concept in which workers would share profits.

"It's property that belongs to everyone and it's going to benefit everyone," said Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro whom opponents accuse of leading Venezuela toward Cuba-style communism.

Chavez — a leftist former paratrooper popularly known as "El Comandante" — said his government fully respects private property, but pledged to replace capitalist ideals with socialist principles on cooperatives such as cattle ranches and farms.

"It cannot be production to generate profits for one person or a small group of people that become rich exploiting peons who end up becoming slaves, living in poverty and misery their entire lives," he said.

[...]

Since the reform began five years ago, officials have redistributed over 1.9 million hectares (4.6 million acres) of land that had been classified as unproductive or lacked property documents dating back to 1847, according to a recent government census.

Critics say reform has failed to revive Venezuela's agriculture industry, which does not produce enough food to satisfy domestic demand. The government has been forced to import food amid shortages of staples such as meats, milk and sugar.

Damian P.

Iranian provocation

The Iranian government says the captured British sailors have "confessed" to entering Iranian territorial waters:

The Iranian Foreign Minister accused a group of captured British servicemen last night of having committed an act of “aggression”, only hours after Tony Blair appealed for their release.

“The charge against them is their illegal entrance into Iranian territorial waters,” Manouchehr Mottaki, the Foreign Minister, told a press conference in New York.

In a telephone conversation with Mr Mottaki last night Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, “made extremely clear our view that our personnel were operating in Iraqi waters, called for their immediate return, and asked for immediate consular access to them”, a spokesman said.

But Mr Mottaki told the conference that Iran had already provided British officials with details, including GPS coordinates, of the servicemen’s arrest. The British Ambassador to Tehran was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to explain why 15 service personnel in two inflatable boats had strayed into Iranian territorial waters.

[...]

So far the Iranians have refused to give any details about their fate, other than to say that they are being well treated. General Ali Reza Afshar, Iran’s armed forces spokesman, said that they had been taken to Tehran for questioning and that they had “confessed” to an “aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran’s waters”.

Diplomats involved in the case believe that the British servicemen were ambushed by a naval unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards with the intention of putting pressure on Britain ahead of the key UN Security Council vote to impose sanctions on Tehran for its nuclear programme. If that was the motive, it failed. On Saturday, the day after the abduction, the council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Iran, banning the export of weapons and freezing the assets of 28 individuals and companies involved in the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

It's certainly possible that the British sailors had strayed into Iranian waters, but the Iranian response definitely looks like a test of how Britain and its allies will react. Not unlike 1979.

Damian P.

Love among the classmates(.com)

Some stunning news about the best-known (formerly) married couple on the internet. (Via Kathy Shaidle)

Damian P.

How long must this go on?

A consensus amongst some Sun Media columnists this Sunday (via Norman's Spectator):

"Quebec sucks Canada dry"

"Stop bribing Quebec"

"Keeping Quebec comes at steep cost"

Mark C.

Afghanistan: What you won't see in the Canadian media...

...except, oddly enough, on the CBC website: the UN Security Council has passed unanimously a resolution that, amongst other things, endorses the work of NATO ISAF and the Operation Enduring Freedom coalition (almost no coverage in US or UK press either):

“The Security Council,

[...]

“Noting, in the context of a comprehensive approach, the synergies in the objectives of UNAMA [United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan] and of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and stressing the need for continued cooperation and coordination, taking due account of their respective designated responsibilities,

[...]

“25. Calls upon the Afghan Government, with the assistance of the international community, including the International Security Assistance Force and Operation Enduring Freedom coalition, in accordance with their respective designated responsibilities as they evolve, to continue to address the threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan posed by the Taliban, Al-Qaida, other extremist groups and criminal activities, welcomes the completion of ISAF’s expansion throughout Afghanistan and calls upon all parties to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law and to ensure the protection of civilian life...

I wonder what the Liberals, NDP and BQ, those great believers in the UN, think of all this.

This is what you do see from some Canadians. And here's what you can see in a video by a US Army sergeant.

Mark C.

Update: Other news you are most unlikely to see in the Canadian, quagmire-memed, media:

"Australian special forces likely to head to Afghanistan"

"First group of Polish troops leaves for mission in Afghanistan"

But then, I guess, Diggers and Polacks (irony alert) are just infra dig. Bush babies you know, just decent members of the UN.

Tres close

The latest numbers from Quebec: PQ 31, Liberals 30, ADQ 28. Unbelievable.

I'm not sure what to think about the ADQ. Quebec's political system desperately needs a good shaking, and I find many of Dumont's policies intriguing - but even if he now opposes a new referendum, I can't forget where he stood 12 years ago.

Damian P.

Afghanistan: More ministerial and bureaucratic economy with the truth

This sort of thing is ridiculous and must stop. (I guess CIDA can contradict "Ottawa" since its HQ is in Gatineau.)

Canada has not funded the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission for years, despite the government's insistence that it plays a vital role in safeguarding captives transferred by Canada to Afghanistan's notorious prisons...

Government House Leader Peter Van Loan said Monday, that "the government of Canada has funded the Independent Human Rights Commission to the amount of $1-million."

Mr. Van Loan did not mention that the $1-million was given five years ago by the previous Liberal government...

Now doubts have emerged over another of Mr. O'Connor's assurances in light of a letter from senior Defence and Foreign Affairs officials.

Two assistant deputy ministers told MPs in December that Canada had been notifying the AIHRC of the names of transferred detainees for months. But in a March 15 letter revising their statement, they wrote that Canadian Forces didn't pass along any of the names of transferred detainees.

"No notifications, in fact, took place," until last month, the two assistant deputy ministers wrote.

Mark C.

The brutal truth about "one tier" health care

Excerpted from a post by the president of the Richmond Hill Federal Liberal Riding Association and Director of York Region Area for the Ontario Liberal Party (via Kate McMillan):

...I support public health care because it is a manner of rationing [emphasis added] scarce medical resources in a way that the market could never do.

Mark C.

Dirty work at the wicket

"Blogs and chat rooms abuzz over Woolmer murder".

More mega-coverage, from the Daily Telegraph:

Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan coach, was poisoned and then strangled as he was about to go public with allegations of corruption in international cricket, it was claimed yesterday. Police believe food or alcohol delivered to Mr Woolmer's hotel room in Jamaica after Pakistan's shock World Cup exit might have been poisoned to incapacitate him before he was killed.

Speculation that he was murdered to silence him before he blew the whistle on match-fixing in the game intensified yesterday.

The Daily Telegraph can disclose that Mr Woolmer was planning to write a book about cricket which would include a chapter on the issue.

In an email, seen by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Woolmer wrote: "I am going to write a book on my tenure as Pakistan coach. I shall only start after the World Cup... I believe, regardless of the money, the story is worth telling, has to be told and in the correct way. I am not a name and shame guy, just the honest facts. Let the punter make up his mind etc."..

I have no idea how valid any of the insinuations may be. But, if Mr Woolmer's death really is connected to corruption, then we are facing one of the biggest professional sports scandals ever. Not cricket, as one used to say.

Mark C.

Paint him Black

Mark Steyn writes about the first week of the trial of the Lord of Crossharbour. Pretty straight reportage, rather than the usual Steyn fireworks--but interesting.

Peter Worthington, for his part, describes the thinness of the US government's case so far--and makes a clear distinction between ethics and illegality.

Even the egregious Eric Margolis, to whom I cannot bear to link, is on Lord Black's side.

Mark C.

EU's 50th anniversary blues

Two leading public intellectuals analyze what has gone wrong and how to right things. Neither writer's suggestions sound compelling or very practical to me:

1) Timothy Garton Ash: "The EU's midlife crisis--Europeans need to start finding each other in a common public sphere.."

2) Bernard-Henri Lévy: "Europe Has Lost Confidence".

A contrary view:

The elites' most sacred doctrine is what they call the acquis communautaire. This is like the Muslim notion of sacred space - the belief that land, once occupied for the part, belongs to it forever. It says that what has become common European property can never be given up...

Mark C.

British sailors seized

This could be a misunderstanding (the British mistakenly being in Iranian waters, or the Iranians thinking the British were in Iranian waters), or it could be something much bigger:

Iranian naval vessels seized 15 British sailors and marines Friday in Iraqi waters, the Ministry of Defense said.

The British personnel from the frigate HMS Cornwall were "engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters," and had completed their inspection of a merchant ship when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, the ministry said in a statement.

"We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and ... the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office," the ministry said.

"The British government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment."

A fisherman who said he was with a group of Iraqis from Basra in the northern area of the Gulf said he witnessed the event. The fisherman declined to be identified because of security concerns.

"Two boats, each with a crew of six to eight multinational forces, were searching Iraqi and Iranian boats Friday morning in Ras al-Beesha area in the northern entrance of the Arab Gulf, but big Iranian boats came and took the two boats with their crews to the Iranian waters," said the fisherman.

The British Broadcasting Corp. said the British forces were inspecting a ship suspected of smuggling cars. It did not cite a source for the report.

A similar incident occurred in 2004:

In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were seized by Iran in the Shatt al-Arab between Iran and Iraq. They were presented blindfolded on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally.

They were released unharmed after three days.

No explanation from the Iranians yet. PJM has a blog roundup.

Damian P.

Dishonesty of the day

Lawrence Martin of the Globe and Mail tells a real porky:

...[Conrad Black's] purchase of Southam and creation of the Post (both of which he sold later to owners more ardently right wing than himself) did wonders to change the tenor of the debate...

Larry, really: CanWest Global, owned by the Asper family, bought the Post.

Mr. Asper's influence spread to the political world, where he was involved with the Liberal party, serving as an MLA and as its provincial leader...

And this:

...The Aspers were close political allies of Chrétien...

But maybe this is how Larry defines "ardently right wing":

...CanWest is "unabashedly" pro-Israel, company executive Murdoch Davis once famously announced...

Mark C.

"Canadian values"

Ideological idiocy impedes improving health care in Ontario:

Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman said the government will not consider contracting out knee-replacement operations to a private Toronto hospital.

The Globe and Mail revealed yesterday [March 15] that the province was reviewing a proposal from Don Mills Surgical Unit Ltd., a private Toronto hospital, to perform 1,500 knee-replacement operations.

[...]

"This Ministry of Health gives you and all Ontarians the complete assurance, I will never support the outsourcing of those knee surgeries to any private, for-profit-motivated organization," Mr. Smitherman said. "Our government fundamentally believes that the public health-care system, the not-for-profit public health-care system is the best expression of Canadian values [emphasis added]."..

Despite the fact that there would be a substantial cost saving, and that the province already funds some procedures at this hospital:

The Ontario government has rejected a proposal to have 1,500 knee replacements done at a private Toronto hospital, even though it would have helped reduce waiting times and cost $1,000 less per knee than in the public system.

[...]

Don Mills Surgical is one of three surgical hospitals that operate under the province's Private Hospitals Act...[and amongst other things does] provincially financed cataract and orthopedic services such as knee arthroscopy and cataract surgery...

As the Globe editorialized [full text not online]:

Canadians should not have to wait in terrible pain for surgery because political leaders won't talk honestly about private health care. But that is the situation in Ontario. People wait nearly twice as long as the Ontario government's official targets say they should. Yet Health Minister George Smitherman turned his nose up last week at a chance to pay a private clinic in Toronto to help cut waiting times for knee-replacement surgery...

Madness.

Mark C.

Toyota hits the jackpot

As if they need the help. How's this for government policy distorting the market:

Unhappy auto companies that sell subcompact cars are revising marketing plans and sales forecasts now that Ottawa has provided a competitive advantage to Toyota Canada Inc. with environmental provisions in the new federal budget.

The provisions will affect virtually every auto maker in the country, but the most significant impact will come in the subcompact segment of the market, where Toyota's Yaris gets a fraction better fuel economy than cars offered by competitors.

Under the government's plan, Yaris buyers will receive a $1,000 rebate from Ottawa, while people who drive off dealers' lots in competing cars such as the Chevrolet Aveo, Honda Fit, Hyundai Accent, Nissan Versa and Suzuki Swift are out of luck...

[...]

...Yaris was the fourth best-selling passenger car [emphasis added] in Canada last year with 34,202 sales.

None of the other vehicles eligible for the rebate came close to that level of sales.

And the Corolla five-speed qualifies for the $1,000 rebate too (list of rebates here). Honda and Nissan must be feeling sick.

Mark C.

And you thought soccer fans were passionate

The coach of Pakistan's national cricket squad, who died shortly after his team's shocking World Cup loss to Ireland, may have been murdered:

Top British detectives will investigate the death of Bob Woolmer as speculation intensifies that the former Pakistan coach was strangled in his bath.

Two Scotland Yard officers are due in Jamaica to help to solve the mystery behind the death of Woolmer, who held a British passport.

A Jamaican television station reported yesterday that the former England batsman had been strangled within 24 hours of Pakistan's shock Cricket World Cup loss to Ireland on Sunday, and other sources were backing that assertion last night.

[...]

Suspicions surfaced on Tuesday that his death was linked to match-fixing, and that he was about to tell all in a book that would have implicated several Pakistan players.

But co-author and sports scientist Professor Tim Noakes dismissed that theory.

Poor Mr. Woolmer may have met a fate similar to Colombian footballer Andres Escobar, who was shot dead after scoring an own-goal in the 1994 World Cup. Good thing we don't take our sports this seriously in North America, or Rex Grossman would be under 24-hour police protection. (Well, I guess that's a good thing.)

Damian P.

Cathy Seipp, R.I.P.

She succumbed to cancer yesterday, at age 49. The Los Angeles Times, one of Seipp's favorite targets, has an obituary.

Cathy had a lot of friends and fans in the blogosphere, and their tributes are being collected here. At least she got to see her daughter, Maia, off to college. My condolences to Maia and the rest of her family.

Damian P.

Rosie's new friends

Now that Rosie O'Donnell has thrown her intellectual weight behind the 9/11 conspiracy movement, the View studios have become a shrine for her fellow blackshirts. (The official uniform is available in sizes up to XXL. I'm just sayin'.)

Damian P.

African solidarity

Good news: another African country is sending security forces into Zimbabwe. Bad news: they're being sent in to help Robert Mugabe:

About 2,500 Angolan paramilitary police, feared in their own country for their brutality, are to be deployed in Zimbabwe, raising concerns of an escalation in violence against those opposed to President Mugabe.

[...]

Police sources who asked not to be named said previous training exchange programmes with southern African countries had involved only small numbers of officers at a time. “This is the first time that there has been such a large group,” said one. “Our capacity for training is badly run down, and we could never deal with so many. I doubt if any of them speak English. They can only be here for riot control and to back up our own riot police.”

Dubbed “Ninjas” for their all-black uniform of combat trousers and tunics, boots and balaclavas, the paramilitaries form part of the presidential guard of Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power since 1979. They patrol in pickup trucks, with mounted heavy machine-guns, and are notorious for their violence. “Angolans are terrified of them,” an Angolan resident said.

They will significantly reinforce Zimbabwe’s police force, which used to have 25,000 officers but has been severely depleted in recent months by mass resignations due to discontent with low pay and poor conditions.

Damian P.

Russia and Iran: It's all about money (maybe)

The NY Times wonders about the Bear's motives and gives (reluctant) credit to the Bush administration. It even cheers capitalism:

Let’s hear it for the profit motive. Russia has apparently decided that it can do even better financially if it starts pressuring its longtime client Iran to curtail its nuclear appetites.

Elaine Sciolino reported in The Times yesterday that Moscow told Tehran privately that it will not deliver nuclear fuel for Iran’s Russian-built Bushehr power plant unless Iran stops enriching uranium. There were also reports that Moscow was pulling experts from the nearly finished reactor site. The pressure is welcome and long overdue, considering that the Security Council ordered Iran to suspend enrichment by the end of last August.

As for why Moscow — which has been working since before August to deflect any serious sanctions against Iran — may be doing the right thing, that is something of a puzzle. Russia’s leaders may have finally figured out that a nuclear-armed Iran poses a genuine danger. But we suspect profits may have brought that threat into sharper focus.

Russia has accused Iran of falling behind on payments for the Bushehr project, which Tehran hotly denies. Meanwhile, Russia is very eager to become a leader in the global business of nuclear fuel production and spent fuel storage. Being the chief protector and enabler of Iran’s nuclear efforts is not the best advertising for such an enterprise. Moscow will have another chance to put its mouth where its money is in coming days when the Security Council votes on another series of sanctions against Iran.

The Bush administration also deserves credit if it helped Moscow to see where its larger interests lie...

Mark C.

Airport security blasted

And the Liberal government was just as culpable:

A Senate committee is recommending the federal Transport Department be relieved of its responsibility for airport security after finding that improvements in lax security at Canadian airports are "few and far between" more than five years after the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001.

"The Committee recommends that Transport Canada be relieved of its responsibility for security at airports and that this responsibility be transferred to the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada," says the all-party security and defence committee in one of 16 recommendations contained in its update on airport security.

[...]

It says the federal government should boost the size of the RCMP by between 600 and 800 full-time equivalents so the national police force can expand its "security, investigative and analytical capabilities at airports [the RCMP got out of providing airports security in 1997]."

Departmental responses to the committee's three-year-old recommendations aimed at overcoming "serious gaps" in airport security were typified by "vagueness, obfuscation, non-response and seemingly endless procrastination," it says, adding the federal bureaucracy is bogged down in "more talking; more consulting (and) more thinking

I quite agree about the pathetic nature of departmental responses.

Giving the RCMP overall operational control would seem to make sense, with policy direction from Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada--an organization with operational responsibilities only for coordinating the federal response to emergencies. And I have serious doubts about its capabilities in that regard. In fact, the department has quietly dropped "emergency preparedness" from its name on its website.

Damian P.

Comuzzi cut out

Veteran Liberal MP Joe Comuzzi has been expelled from Stephane Dion's caucus for supporting the budget:

He was expelled because he has decided to vote against his leader and for the minority Conservative government budget, which contains money for a research facility in Thunder Bay.

[...]

As the minister for Northern Ontario in Paul Martin's cabinet, Mr. Comuzzi, who had eschewed the trappings of a minister by refusing a car and driver and bigger office, had worked to get funding for the centre. It means 400 good jobs for the area and all the accompanying spin-offs.

But Mr. Comuzzi also liked how Finance Minister Jim Flaherty spoke optimistically about Canada and its accomplishments. He said he spoke with "enthusiasm" that he hasn't heard for a long time.

"I have a feeling about Flaherty," said Mr. Comuzzi. "He's got the map of Ireland on his face. He can't lie."

Comuzzi says he won't be joining the Conservatives, but who knows?

Damian P.

Auto buzz

I don't think the name of the General's new model will be a winner (though on a hot new Vauxhall, who knows?):

GM mosquito bred to destroy malaria

Mark C.

Budget blindness: No accountability, no rational electorate

William Robson outlines the fundamental perniciousness of transferring large amounts of federal revenues to provinces as "transfers" (rather than the distinct equalization payments):

To start, they kill accountability. Suppose Manitobans are unhappy with the quality of their hospitals, British Columbians want change in their universities, or Nova Scotians need leaky sewers fixed. To whom do they complain? Their provincial governments are constitutionally responsible for health care, education and cities. But if the latest infusion of cash, and all the conditions that came with it, are federal, who is really in charge? Provincial [and increasingly municipal] politicians can simply point to their federal counterparts, thousands of kilometres away.

[...]

The key lesson Ottawa and the province both need to learn is that one more infusion of federal money, no matter what label it bears, will not solve the fiscal imbalance. Quite the contrary: the more Ottawa gives -- and the more taxes it levies, not for its own programs, but to transfer funds to the provinces -- the worse the imbalance gets. What Canada's provinces need -- and what Canadians as taxpayers, voters and citizens need -- is federal tax relief that will leave more money in their pockets. Then they can debate how much, and how, they should pay for the health, education and infrastructure they want from their provincial governments.

Democratic government simply cannot function properly when voters do not know who is responsible for government program funding. So the endless fed-prov blame dance will waltz on.

Meanwhile, John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail sums up the political effectiveness (all conservative principles aside) of the budget:

Vast swaths of the suburban middle class may start to wonder whether maybe this Harper fellow isn't as scary as his critics make him out to be and, besides, that baby bonus sure has come in handy.

The Liberals and the NDP, meanwhile, fight over the downtown Toronto lesbian vote...

Mark C.

It's Super Buick!

GM is bringing back an old name:

General Motors Corp. said yesterday it is bringing back its "Super" line of Buicks, about five decades after the premium models last were sold, as it makes broader efforts to reinvigorate the 104-year-old brand in the U.S. and grow in China.

Buick general manager Steve Shannon said the auto maker soon will unveil the line, last used in 1958. For now, he said, it will include versions of the LaCrosse and Lucerne sedans.

[...]

After bringing out a fresh face for Cadillac and Saturn, GM is turning more attention to Buick, which traditionally is known for its appeal to older drivers.

Longer-term, Shannon said there will be a focus on rolling out fewer – but better – Buick models to keep the brand profitable for GM.

Nearly all of Buick's new vehicle sales are in the U.S. and China. Buick's worldwide sales rose about 3 per cent last year to more than 567,000 as sales in China jumped 25 per cent to about 304,000.

If GM is going to keep selling Buicks in North America, they might as well go all the way and make Buicks - big, rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered, porthole-emblazoned, heavily chromed, plush, intimidating Roadmasters. That's what the brand is all about. (The Lucerne is a very nice car - the best Buick in years, according to many critics - but GM chickened out and made it front-wheel-drive.)

Damian P.

The premiers are revolting

We all know why Danny Williams and Lorne Calvert are upset, but despite plenty of new money for Ontario, it ain't enough for Dalton McGuinty:

In Toronto, Premier Dalton McGuinty said he feels short-changed despite improved federal funding for Ontario.

McGuinty vowed to continue his fight to eliminate the fiscal imbalance because federal funding for health care in Ontario won't be made on a per capita basis – as it is now with other provinces – until 2014, costing Ontario about $700 million a year.

"That's a seven-year wait," he told reporters at Queen's Park. "Justice delayed is justice denied and we'll continue our fight in that regard."

The extra funding for health in the budget is not enough to buy Ontario's silence because "we're going to continue to be the subject of discrimination," McGuinty added.

"While we're getting more money for health care, we're not getting as much as we should. So more is better than none, but what's best is that we're treated the same as all Canadians."

Yeah, about that "fiscal imbalance"...

Damian P.

China's Olympic Crackdown

Beijing prepares to welcome the world in 2008.

As noted in the story, the South Korean military dictatorship fell as the 1988 Seoul Olympics approached. And the Nazis and Communists didn't last much longer after the 1936 and 1980 games. Coincidence? Maybe, but it's a promising precedent. (Maybe we should give Tehran or Harare the games in 2016.)

Damian P.

The least effective embargo ever

In 2006, financial support for the Palestinians went up considerably, despite a "painful aid cutoff" to the Hamas-led government:

Despite the international embargo on aid to the Palestinian Authority since Hamas came to power a year ago, significantly more aid was delivered to the Palestinians in 2006 than in 2005, according to official figures from the United Nations, United States, European Union, and International Monetary Fund.

Instead of going to the Palestinian Authority, most of the money was given directly to individuals or through independent agencies like the World Food Program.

The IMF and the UN say that the Palestinians received $1.2 billion in aid and budgetary support in 2006, about $300 per capita, compared with $1 billion in 2005.

While the United States and the EU have led the boycott, they too provided more aid to the Palestinians in 2006 than 2005. Washington increased its aid to the UN refugee agency for Palestinians to $468 million in 2006, from $400 million in 2005.

The EU and its member states alone are subsidizing 1 million people in the West Bank and Gaza, a quarter of the population, as part of their effort to avoid creating a catastrophe from the embargo.

One side effect of the redirected aid, some officials said, is that while starvation has been avoided, institutions are withering and a culture of dependence is expanding.

Damian P.

You should know your argument's in trouble...

...when you have to quote Hitler in support of Stalin's greatness:

'Compared with Churchill, Stalin is a giant figure,' confided Hitler to Goebbels on the eve of the battle of Stalingrad. 'Churchill has nothing to show for his life's work except a few books and clever speeches in parliament. Stalin on the other hand has without doubt--leaving aside the question of what principle he was serving--reorganised a state of 170 million people and prepared it for a massive armed conflict. If Stalin ever fell into my hands, I would probably spare him and perhaps exile him to some spa; Churchill and Roosevelt would be hanged.'

Some principle. Some reorganisation. That certainly puts things in perspective. Stalin, according to the book from which I took that quote (p.373), was a very good leader if one just ignores the millions of people who died as a result of his intention or his incompetence. When will we ever learn about evil? And, by the way, the Cold War was basically the West's fault.

As for Churchill and the overarching importance of what he achieved in 1940, I suggest you read this book.

Mark C.

Hearn stands firm

Loyola Hearn will support the federal budget:

Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn is on the defensive..in the wake of the federal budget. Hearn says Ottawa was ready and willing to remove 100 per cent of non-renewable natural resources from the equalization formula, but the premiers couldn't agree. Hearn says the province is losing nothing now. Hearn says we have until 2012 with the Atlantic Accord benefits uncapped, so there is time to ensure Newfoundland and Labrador's benefits continue.

[...]

There are calls for Loyola Hearn's resignation in the wake of the federal budget. Bonavista- Gander -Grand Falls-Windsor MP Scott Simms says Hearn has a choice to make.Liberal MP Gerry Byrne says it isn't a good day for the province. Liberal MP Bill Matthews says the federal government has nullified the Atlantic Accord. Matthews says any gains in the budget will be overshadowed by the loss.

On Bill Rowe's VOCM show this afternoon, Fabian Manning also implied that he'll vote in favor of the budget. (Newfoundland's third Conservative MP, Norm Doyle, is retiring from politics.) If the talk-radio shows are any indication, Newfoundlanders are furious about the equalization changes - but I suspect most Canadians would echo these sentiments:

Michael Dymond, Toronto: Hello, regarding equalization and Newfoundland, do you think it is as laughable as I do that Danny Williams thinks that there should be no cap on equalization so that hypothetically, Ontario or Alberta could be paying Newfoundland money that makes them better off than the people in Ontario and Alberta?

I mean, his performance yesterday reminded me of a 3-year-old crying in a toy story. Give it a rest, Danny.

Equalization should make you equal. Ontario and the "have" provinces shouldn't have to pay you money past the point that your province is on an equal footing with the rest.

So much for the end of provincial/federal bickering over money. It lasted about 20 minutes I think.

Jeffrey Simpson: Michael, Paul Martin went over the top in his deal with the offshore provinces.

What he should have done was agree that Newfoundland would get a better deal on resources up to the point at which the province reached the national level, at which point, like Ireland, they would pay into the system.

Instead, Martin's deal was so sweet that it had Ontario residents paying into equalization even if Newfoundlanders per-capita were getting more income. The fiscal cap stops that.

As for Mr. Williams, he has declared war on Ottawa, Quebec, the offshore oil companies, foreign fishermen, playing very skillfully on the sense there that everyone is against Newfoundland and that the provinces is being held back by "others."

He bullied Paul Martin, but he can't do that to Stephen Harper who twice has gone to St. John's and refused to be pushed around by the premier.

In this province, the NDP may benefit from an anti-Conservative protest vote come election time, but I suspect most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will reflexively turn back to the Liberals - even though Stephane Dion never supported Williams's position in the first place.

Damian P.

Spendthrift conservatives

Andrew Coyne notes that the government of Stephen Harper, former head of the National Citizens Coalition, is the biggest-spending government in Canadian history. (Is that adjusted for inflation or percentage of GDP, Andrew?)

...The $200-billion Mr. Flaherty proposes to spend this year works out to about $5,800 for every citizen. Even after you adjust for increases in prices and population, that's more than the Martin government spent at its frenetic worst, when it was almost shovelling the stuff out the door. It is more than the Mulroney government spent in its last days, when it was past caring. It is more than the Trudeau government spent in the depths of the early 1980s recession. All of these past benchmarks of over-the-top, out-of-control spending must now be retired. Jim Flaherty has outdone them all.

In two years of this "conservative" government, spending has climbed a historic $25-billion. Bear in mind: that's on top of the wild rise in spending during the Liberals' last term. The Tories have taken all of that fat, all of that waste, and all of those hundreds of priorities --and added to them.

[...]

...The $200-billion Mr. Flaherty proposes to spend this year is nearly $4-billion more than he projected in his last budget, just 10 months ago. The $207-billion he projects for next year, we may assume, will be similarly revised. The budget boasts of instituting "a new Expenditure Management System." And why not: That's a whole lot of new expenditures to manage.

Is this what you voted for, you loyal Conservative followers? Is this what you suffered for, through all those long years of Liberal rule, dreaming of the Conservative revolution to come? "Hiring 50% more environmental enforcement officers?" Increasing "the share of meal expenses that long-haul truck drivers can deduct?" Tax credits for lacrosse? Exactly how does this differ from any Liberal budget -- other than outspending them, I mean?

This is probably because the Conservatives had to appease at least one of the opposition parties with the new budget. (It worked.) But I also wonder whether the Tories' reputation as scary Alberta right-wingers has something to do with it. This budget is almost certainly meant to tell voters, "See? We're not so bad after all."

By contrast, the Chretien Liberals had to eliminate the massive deficit left over from the Mulroney years, but also had to show Canadians they could be fiscally responsible. Would a Stephane Dion government have raised spending this much? Dion is attacking this budget from the left, but I still wonder.

Damian P.

The A380 arrives

Popular Mechanics has video of the Airbus super-jumbo passenger jet arriving in New York. (via InstaPundit)

Airbus has lurched from one crisis to another these past few years, but I'm still enthusiastic about any plane that can potentially make long-distance travel easier and - more importantly - cheaper.

Damian P.

Update: Pajamas Media has a good piece about the A380 landing in Los Angeles.

Some of my readers say Airbus planes are less comfortable than their Boeing competitors, but I've never really noticed a difference. Of course, most Newfoundlanders will settle for anything bigger and smoother than the dreaded Dash-8. As for the A380, I'll sit on the wing if the fare is low enough.

US ground forces tapped out

Pyongyang, Tehran, Beijing, Khartoum et al. must be feeling good.

Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge.

[...]

The risk to the nation is serious and deepening, senior officers warn, because the U.S. military now lacks a large strategic reserve of ground troops ready to respond quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises, whether the internal collapse of Pakistan, a conflict with Iran or an outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula. Air and naval power can only go so far in compensating for infantry, artillery and other land forces, they said. An immediate concern is that critical Army overseas equipment stocks for use in another conflict have been depleted by the recent troop increases in Iraq, they said.

More here, also noting Navy and Air Force problems.

Expanding the Canadian Forces will take some time too.

Mark C.

I Hate Huckabees

Videos of Lily Tomlin and director David O. Russell feuding on the set of I Heart Huckabees have been leaked to YouTube. They must be seen to be believed.

Damian P.

The equalization changes

Ed Hollett has an excellent post on the subject.

Damian P.

Minister of National Defence eats crow

Gordon O'Connor has apologized to the House of Commons during its first day back in session. Thank goodness he did so at the first opportunity since it became clear he had misled the House over Afghan prisoners and the International Committee of the Red Cross. One wonders how lasting the damage will be.

Mark C.

A Bill Clinton budget

Talk about targeting and triangulation. Reminds me of the former president's state of the union speeches: everything, including the kitchen sink with a built-in garbage disposal unit. Read Lorne Gunter's pre-budget column.

Mark C.

Further thought: The good old days, just over a year ago, when a Conservative cabinet minister actually waxed conservative and considered the alternative to the imperial parliament. Why must all federal governments think they are patrons (in both the French and musical senses)? Plus ça change...One can just hope that the change remains at least somewhat on the right course.

Put these election signs back in the basement

The separatist Bloc Quebecois will support the new federal budget, which means it should be approved by the House of Commons even if the Liberals and New Democrats vote against it:

The Bloc Quebecois is the lone opposition party to support the federal Conservative government's new budget. CTV News is reporting that two of the three of the opposition parties will not support the 2007-08 budget tabled Monday by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

NDP Leader Jack Layton told CTV that his party wouldn't be supporting the budget because it widens the prosperity gap.

"As this budget stands, we couldn't support it," he said.

Robert Fife, CTV's Ottawa bureau chief, said he's received word that the Liberals are not prepared to support the budget either.

Craig Oliver, CTV's chief political correspondent, said Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe had been speaking with Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair on what position to take.

Quebec does pretty well under this budget, and the separatists opposing it would be a gift to Jean Charest. As for the NDP and Liberals, you have to wonder what kind of budget would satisfy them, considering how much money gets thrown around in this one:

Key measures include:

- A new $2,000 child tax credit that will provide up to $310 of tax relief for each child under 18
- The Working Income Tax Benefit, which is intended to assist low-income Canadians who are making the transition from welfare to the workforce.
- $140 million over the next two years toward a Registered Disability Savings Plan
- Resources to the Canada Revenue Agency to detect and close down tax avoidance through offshore tax havens
- A rebate of up to $2,000 to buyers of fuel-efficient cars
- A levy of up to $4,000 on fuel-inefficient vehicles, which does not extend to gas-guzzling pickup trucks
- An increase in the age limit to 71 from 69 for registered retirement savings plans and registered pensions
- $300 million toward offering a vaccine to protect women against cervical cancer
- An end to the marriage penalty by increasing the spousal and other amounts to provide up to $209 of tax relief for a supporting spouse or single taxpayer supporting a child or relative

Thanks to continuing strong employment growth and high corporate earnings, Canada is expected to post a budget surplus in 2006-2007 of $9.2 billion.

Overall government spending next year will total $233.4 billion, up about 7 per cent compared to this year.

As for the equalization issue, 50% of non-renewable resource revenue will be included in the formula. Benefits will also be capped:

The budget also makes an historic change in the fiscal capacity standard which serves as the dividing line between have and have-not provinces. Now, the equalization standard will be calculated based on an average of the 10 provinces.

"This standard ensures that Equalization brings the revenue-raising capacity of less prosperous provinces up to the national average," reads Budget 2007.

For decades, the standard was calculated based on an average of the five-middle earning provinces, until the dying days of Paul Martin's Liberal government when a new formula was devised.

The fiscal capacity cap, another new measure in the budget, is intended to ensure that the formula doesn't unfairly bring a receiving province's overall fiscal capacity to a level higher than that of any non-receiving, or "have" provinces.

Under the measure, no province can bring in more revenue than Ontario, which doesn't receive a payment from the equalization program earns less revenue than Alberta.

Danny Williams was interviewed on NTV a few minutes ago. He wouldn't come out and say he'll campaign against the federal Tories come election time - not yet, anyway - but he's not happy about this.

Damian P.

Update: according to NTV, Williams is encouraging Newfoundlanders to vote against the federal Conservatives:

...Provinces can choose a 10-province standard for equalization, which enriches the program, but they must accept 50 per cent inclusion of oil and gas revenues in the formula, and a fiscal cap that cuts off equalization payments once a have-not province reaches Ontario's fiscal capacity. On the other hand, Newfoundland and Labrador can choose the status quo, which keeps 100 per cent of oil and gas revenues sheltered from equalization clawbacks with no cap for the remaining four to 12 years of the Atlantic Accord, but maintains the less lucrative five-province standard. Premier Williams says that is not what Stephen Harper promised in the 2006 election. Harper's promise would have allowed Newfoundland and Labrador to keep the 100 per cent shelter, but also enter the 10-province standard. The budget is likely to pass with the support of the Bloc Quebecois, preventing an early election, but the premier says he will be urging voters to defeat Conservative candidates when the next federal election does happen.

"Right now they're just making her comfortable"

Some very sad news about veteran California blogger Cathy Seipp. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

Damian P.

Turning back to the Taliban

A new survey suggests that support for the Taliban is rising in Afghanistan - thanks, in no small part, to drug-eradication efforts:

Canadian troops are facing another challenge in Afghanistan as Taliban support among civilians has rocketed to nearly 27 per cent.

The findings stem from a large-scale survey conducted this month by Brussels-based thinktank Senlis Council. The organization polled 17,000 Afghan men in the Canadian-controlled areas of Kandahar province and in neighbouring British and U.S.-controlled regions of Helmand and Nangarhar.

Surveyors said the real figure is likely higher than the 27 per cent figure, since some respondents were probably hesitant of admitting support for the Taliban to a Westerner.

The men polled said they were disillusioned with the NATO military effort.

[...]

"The Taliban has been able to easily and effectively capitalize on this by providing protection from forced eradication [of poppy crops] and employment to many," says the report.

The Senlis Council started as a European drug-policy organization but has since become involved in Afghanistan -- arguing in favour of allowing Afghans to grow opium poppies for medical use.

Contrasting 2001 polls that showed locals believed the Taliban could be defeated, only 48 per cent of southern Afghans now think their government and NATO will be successful.

You can have a war on terror, or you can have a war on drugs. Pick one.

Damian P.

The Egyptian crackdown

The Washington Post describes how Hosni Mubarak's Egyptian government is once again snuffing out dissent and opposition - and how the Bush Administration, which caused a stir by loudly promoting democracy and reform two years ago, has backed off:

Contradictions mark almost every facet of America's relationship with Egypt. The country has served as a linchpin of U.S. policy in the Middle East since it signed a treaty with Israel in 1979. Generous aid followed that agreement, in part as a reward, although never matching the totals for Israel. The U.S. Agency for International Development has given $28 billion since 1975. Military aid over the past quarter-century has totaled $33 billion. Yet today, opinion surveys almost always rank anti-American sentiment higher in Egypt than in any other Arab country.

In a way, those contradictions shaped the sentiments of the activists who coalesced around Kifaya. In contrast to members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, they were largely secular (with the exception of figures such as Maadi), steeped in the language of human rights and typically socially liberal. Maadi admitted freely, as others did grudgingly, that the pressure the Bush administration exerted in 2004 and 2005 helped curb government repression, providing crucial space for their work. At the peak of the pressure, protesters gathered unmolested, as they did the day Rice spoke. As it receded, the brutishness of Egyptian police and state-supervised thugs mounted proportionately.

But a striking irony underlined America's relationship with the movement: The activism that flourished in 2005 was spurred less by the Bush administration's support and more by opposition to its politics -- in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and even Egypt. As activists negotiated government repression and tepid popular backing that year, they had to grapple as well with their stance toward avowed U.S. support. Maadi said he and his colleagues in Kifaya often felt an urgency to act before their agenda was tainted by association with U.S. aims.

[...]

...as [election] results came in around midnight, in a din of ringing phones, [Mubarak's National Democratic Party] crossed into a different future than the one they had in mind. Candidates affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood were winning most of the races in which they had run. There was anger in the room, tinged with shock. Party officials didn't even recognize some of the names of Brotherhood candidates capturing their seats.

"I was just surprised," Kamal said, shaking his head in disbelief. "We were all surprised by these results."

In the second round, the government's security forces stepped in with a show of raw power so brazen that officials, speaking privately, don't even deny the tampering. Paramilitary men clad in black, with truncheons and helmets, blocked people from voting. Elsewhere, with method that suggested specific orders, hired thugs wielding machetes and knives chased voters away from polling stations as police idly watched.

Unfortunately, if free and fair elections were held in Egypt, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood would probably win. That's probably why the Americans have cooled to the idea of Egyptian democracy - but in the long run, as Michael Totten told Egyptian blogger Big Pharoah in 2005, it may be what Egypt needs:

“I’ve had this theory for a while now,” I said. “It looks like some, if not most, Middle East countries are going to have to live under an Islamic state for a while and get it out of their system.”

Big Pharaoh laughed grimly.

“Sorry,” I said. “That’s just how it looks.”

He buried his head on his arms.

“Take Iranians,” I said. “They used to think Islamism was a fantastic idea. Now they hate it. Same goes in Afghanistan. Algerians don’t think too much of Islamism either after 150,000 people were killed in the civil war. I hate to say this, but it looks like Egypt will have to learn this the hard way.”

Damian P.

Budget Day

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will introduce the federal budget at 5:30PM Newfoundland time (4:00PM Eastern) today. CTV News says it looks like an "election budget":

The Conservative government is poised to spend billions of dollars aimed at a broad range of voters to position itself for what many suspect might be a spring election.

CTV News has learned that that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will give the provinces more than $4 billion for social programs when he delivers his government's 2007-08 budget on Monday.

So-called have-not provinces like Quebec will get richer equalization payments.

[...]

CTV News has learned details about some of the other tax relief and spending initiatives:

* $3 billion in tax breaks aimed at general tax relief, helping the working poor get off social assistance and fitness tax credits for families with children.
* Seniors will see a special tax credit as well as pension income-splitting
* Corporations will also get a $1 billion tax cut, and
* Investors should see capital gains taxes reduced

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already announced about $1.5 billion in environmental spending.

Sources tell CTV News that the budget will provide incentives for buying energy-efficient cars.

Cities will continue to receive a share of federal gas taxes.

The equalization formula, and how it treats non-renewable resource revenues, will be the big issue for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Damian P.

Going coastal

The madness of affirmative action applied to English university admissions. Warning: your education will be held against your children.

Mark C.

The Iraqi meltdown

It doesn't appear to be online, but this weekend's National Post has a lengthy, depressing piece (originally from Britain's Sunday Telegraph) about sectarian strife in Iraq four years after the fall of Saddam.

When Saddam Hussein was unceremoniously turfed from power in 2003, I hoped Iraq's nascent democracy would be a model for the Middle East. Instead, according to the Telegraph, the 2005 election may have set back the democratic cause:

The historic first elections of 2005, [Iraqis] say, have been disastrous for the country. Far from ushering in the Middle East's first secular, liberal state, as the West had hoped, they have allowed Islamist parties to take hold, encouraging Iraqis to identify as Sunnis or Shias and opening up 1,500-year-old religious tensions that might otherwise have lain dormant.

[...]

The euphoria of polling day, [a secular Sunni politician] points out, eclipsed the fact that the elections were scarcely the informed, rational contest of policies that is supposed to characterize a democracy. Inexperienced in the ways of multi-party politics after decades of totalitarianism, millions of Iraqis voted for the Shia or Sunni religious parties simply because they thought they would go to hell if they didn't. "My own brother told me that the imam in his mosque told him to vote for the Twaffaq [a Sunni religious party] if he wanted to join Muhammad in the afterlife," Mr. Mutlaq said. "And it was the same with the Shias. Their hands would shake with fear if they didn't mark the box for their religious parties."

I don't think Iraq's sectarian divide was ever "dormant" - especially not under Saddam, whose government was dominated by his fellow Sunnis. What we're seeing today is largely because of decades under totalitarian dictatorship.

To that end, a new poll suggests that most Iraqis think their life today, despite daily horrors and violence, is still better than life under Saddam Hussein. (That probably says more about the late, unlamented dictator than it does about the situation today.)

The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week.

One in four Iraqis has had a family member murdered, says the poll by Opinion Research Business. In Baghdad, the capital, one in four has had a relative kidnapped and one in three said members of their family had fled abroad. But when asked whether they preferred life under Saddam, the dictator who was executed last December, or under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, most replied that things were better for them today.

Only 27% think there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 61% who do not, according to the survey carried out last month.

By a majority of two to one, Iraqis believe military operations now under way will disarm all militias. More than half say security will improve after a withdrawal of multinational forces.

Damian P.

Update: Tigerhawk has more about that poll. So does Andrew Sullivan.

Burnett vs. Griffin

Carol Burnett is suing the makers of Family Guy for alleged copyright infringement:

In an episode first aired last April, a quartet of "Family Guy" characters is seen entering a porn shop. When Peter, one of the comedy's lead characters, wonders if it will be dirty, another remarks that the business is clean because "Carol Burnett works part-time as a janitor." As seen in the above video clip, the animated female janitor appears modeled after the "Charwoman" character that the comedian created decades ago ("Charwoman," the complaint notes, is known for her trademark blue bonnet, and she always carries a mop and bucket). In the "Family Guy" episode, entitled "Peterotica," a "slightly altered version of Carol's Theme is playing" while the animated janitor is on screen, situated next to a bin of blow-up dolls. Additionally, Burnett takes issue with a "vulgar comment" made by one of the characters in relation to the star's trademark ear tug. The performer's lawsuit, which seeks in excess of $6 million in damages, also charges Fox with misappropriating her name and likeness and violating her publicity rights.

The appearance by "Burnett" was obviously a parody (and pretty tame, by Family Guy standards), so I don't think she has a case. Still, I'm looking forward to Ollie Williams's informative and entertaining reports on the case.

Damian P.

Darfur: Who's helping...

..."The butchers of Khartoum"? China and Russia, together with Arab
and Muslim states on the utterly futile--indeed pernicious--new UN human rights body:

China and Russia joined with Arab and Muslim states yesterday [March 16] in urging the U.N.'s human rights watchdog to ignore a report from a mission to Darfur that blamed Sudan for continuing war crimes against civilians there.

The two permanent Security Council members argued that the mission, led last month by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams, failed to gain access to the vast western region of Sudan and had not fulfilled its mandate.

Despite warnings from Western and some African states that failure to act would undermine the credibility of the newly formed Human Rights Council, Muslim and Arab states and their allies backed Sudan's assertion that the report had no legal basis.

[...]

The situation in Darfur is seen by many as a test for the Human Rights Council. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights was disbanded by the United Nations in March 2006, because it had been rendered ineffective and meaningless by political bickering and the membership of so many known human rights abusers.

The U.N. General Assembly chose 47 new members of the new Human Rights Council in May 2006, including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Cuba, all members that the United States singles out in its annual human rights report. The United States did not apply for membership in the current body. Human rights advocates are watching to see whether the latest incarnation is any more effective than the old commission...

The new Council is fixated on one country alone: Israel. Why, for pity's sake, was Canada "pleased" last year to be elected a member of this predictably dishonest farce?

Meanwhile, the UN force for Darfur fades further into the blood-red desert sunset.

Mark C.

The vulgarization of our society

Robert Sibley, in a major essay in the Ottawa Citizen, dissects and deplores the relentless vulgarization and pornification of our society.

More from Mr Sibley:

"Age of terror, age of illusions"

"The dark side of multiculturalism"

"The West's choice: Courage or collapse".

Mark C.

Running against MacKay

Green Party leader Elizabeth May will be a candidate in Peter MacKay's Central Nova riding.

May would have a chance of winning in some British Columbia or GTA ridings, and would probably put up a good fight in Cape Breton, where she grew up - but unless Nova Scotians get really angry with tomorrow's budget, I can't see her beating a prominent cabinet minister.

Damian P.

Where leaving is a crime

According to Human Rights Watch, North Korea is taking a harder line against people who try to leave the country:

In an ominous reversal, North Korea has apparently scrapped its 2000 decree that it would be lenient toward citizens who "illegally" crossed the border -- in effect, almost everyone leaving the country -- to China to find food or earn money to feed their families. According to recent border-crossers interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Pyongyang has implemented harsher punishments for those repatriated.

The North Koreans interviewed recounted the chilling language officials use to describe the policies the North reinstated perhaps as long ago as late 2004: Those crossing the border without state permission "won't be forgiven," no matter why they went to China or what they did there, including first-time "offenders."

[...]

North Korean authorities often subject people who have been detained to cruel and inhuman treatment, including punitive strip searches, verbal abuse, threats and beatings. A 50-year-old woman who had a scar on her left cheek shared her story with Human Rights Watch: "They arrested me for selling clothes, which was banned. I served nine months in prison for that. They gave prisoners a fistful of powdered corn stalk for each meal. My health deteriorated so much that I was once unconscious for 20 days. A doctor revived me. I stole a spoon with which to kill myself, but they caught me. A guard kicked me in the face." After she was released from prison, she fled the country.

Damian P.

Update: leaving the country is impossible for some Zimbabweans, too.

Solidarity forever...

...with the wrong people:

...Sadly, the modern anti-war left has turned to supporting fascists.

Tomorrow [March 17], the so-called peace movement marches mainly in opposition to Canada and the United States, and in support of governments and movements, however brutal, that oppose them. Not everyone marching to the Vancouver Art Gallery will hold those repugnant views - but the movement's leaders do...

The Canadian Peace Alliance does have a strange concept of "peaceful". Certain devils will go marching in: pas d‘ennemis à gauche?

On another front: a great count on Gaeilge at Mr Glavin's post above. The right people have seen the light. Grrr. Beannachtai na Feile Padraig!

Mark C.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

If you're planning to have green beer tonight, don't have it at Moe's.

Damian O'P.

F1 is back

The Australian Grand Prix starts tonight at 11:00PM Eastern on TSN and the Speed Channel. A season preview is here.

Kimi Raikkonen, now driving for Ferrari, has the pole. The big surprises are the BMW-Saubers starting third and fifth, and the Super Aguris - effectively last year's Hondas - outqualifying the new Hondas.

Damian P.

Tony Blair defends the union...

...whilst reminding people of the Montreal meltdown:

We celebrate this year the 300th anniversary of what can justifiably be claimed to be the most successful voluntary union between two countries.

It's a partnership that has brought the citizens of both Scotland and England prosperity, stability and an astonishing influence in the world. We can now see, too, that it was an arrangement well ahead of its time, enabling the countries of what was to become the United Kingdom to keep their distinctive identity, but to co-operate to their greater good.

[...]

Montreal was once the financial capital of Canada. But even though the people of Quebec have turned their back on independence [really? - MC], the uncertainty of the future was enough to see it lose its position to Toronto. Scotland's prospering financial sector, for example, could suffer the same fate when future investment decisions are made...

Language laws had something to do with it too. I can't see an independent Scotland forcing Gaelic on businesses. And how much longer will the English want the union? (A question the Rest of Canada might itself ask.)

Mark C.

Fine Iranian Whine

No prizes for guessing who the Iranians blame for 300:

The screening of the movie '300,' which has depicted war between the Persians and the Greeks, using an unreal and fabricated story, is facing a wave of protests and criticism by Iranians both inside and outside the country. Warner Bros., which belongs to the famous and rich American Jew, is the company that has made the movie.

This movie, which is totally against Persian culture and civilization, could be considered a production by Zionists and a group of American extremists.

[...]

...In addition to distortion of history, the Zionist Warner Company is also pursuing cultural and political objectives by producing such a film which has a very shallow script. From the cultural point of view, the Zionists and the elements affiliated to the U.S. have tried to launch a propaganda front against ancient and historical roots of Iranians, and the hasty production of this film is an indication of its propaganda aspect. But the political intentions of Warner have been more important than anything else.

Damian P.

Subs and Arctic sovereignty

US and UK subs make a regular point of asserting that the waters are international:

Commander Submarine Force announces the participation of the USS ALEXANDRIA (SSN 757), home ported in Groton, Conn., in a joint U.S. Navy / Royal Navy exercise being conducted in the Arctic Ocean in March and April 2007.

[...]

Two submarines, the USS ALEXANDRIA and a Royal Navy Trafalgar class submarine will conduct the joint classified testing on submarine operability and war fighting capabilities in Arctic waters...

The U.S. Submarine Force conducts exercises in waters around the globe, including the Arctic, in order to guarantee assured access to any ocean in the world. The Submarine Force continues to use the Arctic Ocean as an alternate route for shifting submarines between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In fact, submarines can reach the western Pacific directly by transiting through international waters of the Arctic rather than through the Panama Canal.

U.S. submarines must continue to train in the Arctic environment to refine and validate procedures and required equipment in support of operational safety. The U.S. Navy and Royal Navy Arctic cooperation represents an excellent example of the shared vision and resources the two navies [and governments - MC] enjoy.

Since 1986, every Arctic tactical exercise has involved both U.S. Navy and Royal Navy submarines.

I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that the covert presence of vessels in an area is not in fact a challenge to a claimed sovereignty. If subs transit submerged within the 12 mile territorial sea, sovereignty would not be called into question. It is a visible presence, without authorization, in claimed territorial waters that would raise the issue.

More here: "Arctic sovereignty: the Navy is not the answer".

Mark C.

Update: Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star, in a useful moment, pointed out a brutal truth in a column, Jan. 28, 2006 (full text not free online):

The United States, as well as Japan and the European Union, insist that the ice-choked passage, which winds through the archipelago of the Canadian Arctic to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is an international waterway...

But, as I keep arguing, operations in all seasons by Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers would suffice to assert our claims, however tenuous they may be, to the passageways.

"The Biased Broadcasting Corporation"

The Beeb's new Arabic TV service does not look like a Good Thing, if the radio service is any guide.

Mark C.

Update: The home service gets a bashing too:

You really do have to leave the country to appreciate fully how pernicious the BBC’s grasp of the nation’s cultural and political soul has become. The groupthink and assumptions implicit in almost everything broadcast by BBC News, and even less explicitly by much else of the corporation’s output, lie like a suffocating blanket over the national consciousness.

This is the mindset that sees the effortless superiority, at every turn, of benign collectivism over selfish individualism, exploited worker over unscrupulous capitalist, enlightened European over brutish American, thoughtful atheist over dumb believer, persecuted Arab over callous Israeli; and that believes the West is the perpetrator of just about every ill that has ever befallen the world — from colonialism to global warming...

Sound familiar? The column also makes London sound a lot like Toronto, though with the inaccurate claim that London "...is much more polyglot and multinational than any other urban concentration in the world." I guess world class T.O. just doesn't register on English journalists' radar.

Trouble brewing in Pakistan

A gloomy, disturbing analysis in the Financial Times.

Damian P.

Standing by his stupid remarks

PQ leader Andre Boisclair will not apologize for his comments about Asian university students:

Parti Québécois Leader André Boisclair refused to apologize yesterday for referring to Asians as having "slanted eyes," even as he faced criticism from Asian-Canadian and other groups that the comments were offensive.

The Chinese Canadian National Council said Mr. Boisclair should withdraw his words, which it said were disrespectful and traded on caricatures. And a Montreal civil-rights group said the PQ Leader should apologize because the remarks betrayed "racial bias."

[...]

Mr. Boisclair studied at the John F. Kennedy School of Government before running for the PQ leadership in 2005.

"I was surprised to see that on campus, about a third of the undergraduate students had slanted eyes," he said.

"They're not going to work in sweatshops. They're people who will later work as engineers, managers, and will create wealth. They're people who will innovate in their countries. There is ferocious competition in the world today."

The PQ has spent years trying to build bridges with ethnic minorities, who have traditionally backed the Liberal Party, and Mr. Boisclair has tried to make inclusiveness and tolerance one of his selling points since his election as PQ leader in 2005.

Yesterday, faced with repeated questions from reporters, Mr. Boisclair said he stood by his remarks and didn't understand why a fuss was being made, since he has used the "slanted eyes" phrase repeatedly in stump speeches in the past.

The "create wealth" stuff makes it look like Boisclair was trying to be complimentary to Asian students. But what a way to do it.

Damian P.

Update: Barbara Kay thinks this has been blown way out of proportion, as do some of my readers.

The coming equalization fight

When the federal budget comes down on Monday, Newfoundlanders will be watching to see whether Prime Minister Harper sticks to his promise to exclude non-renewable resource revenues from the equalization formula:

Ottawa may be on a pre-election collision course with Newfoundland over the national equalization program in light of a written exchange between Prime Minster Stephen Harper and Premier Danny Williams.

Sources with Mr. Williams's government said yesterday that Mr. Harper wrote a letter to the Premier in which he refrained from reaffirming a pledge to remove provincial oil revenues from the formula that determines how much a province gets from the wealth-sharing program.

As an oil-producing province, removing such resources from the formula could benefit Newfoundland.

The government is also contemplating putting a cap on the amount an equalization-receiving province can get, another difficulty for Mr. Williams.

[...]

Mr. Harper said in the last election campaign that non-renewable resource revenue should not be included in that calculation because of its temporary nature. But the government is now seriously studying a report from former Alberta deputy treasurer Al O'Brien, who argues that a portion of oil revenues should remain in the formula. The move has angered both Mr. Williams and Saskatchewan's Lorne Calvert, the Premier in another province with oil and gas deposits.

Contrary to earlier comments by the Alberta treasurer, Premier Ed Stelmach is siding with Newfoundland and Saskatchewan. So are the New Democrats, who may vote against the budget if Harper reneges on his promise:

Layton said his party may not back the budget, which is to be tabled Monday, if the Conservatives don't keep a promise to remove revenue from non-renewable natural resources in the equalization formula.

"It would be pretty darn hard to see how a budget that breaks a fundamental promise like that, a clear-cut promise like that, could be supported," said Layton.

"It would be very difficult to see how we could support a budget that doesn't provide fairness and honour the promise that was made to the people of Saskatchewan by the Conservatives."

[...]

"It wasn't as though he made that promise casually, he made it in two successive elections," Layton told a small crowd of supporters at Tommy Douglas House in Regina.

Newfoundland and Labrador elected three Conservative MPs (out of seven seats) in no small part because of Harper's stance on equalization. If he goes back on his word, the Tories will be wiped out down here - and in a close election race, seven ridings could make a big difference. (Newfoundland Liberal blogger Ed Hollett wonders whether this played a part in Norm Doyle's decision to retire from politics.)

Damian P.

The world wide (censored) web

Internet censorship is increasing around the world, according to a new study:

A recent six-month investigation into whether 40 countries use censorship shows the practice is spreading, with new countries learning from experienced practitioners such as China and benefiting from technological improvements.

[...]

Ronald Deibert, associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, said 10 countries had become “pervasive blockers”, regularly preventing their citizens seeing a range of online material. These included China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Burma and Uzbekistan.

New censorship techniques include the periodic barring of complete applications, such as China’s block on Wikipedia or Pakistan’s ban on Google’s blogging service, and the use of more advanced technologies such as “keyword filtering”, which is used to track down material by identifying sensitive words.

Methods such as these are being copied as countries new to censorship learn from those with more experience. “There’s a growing awareness of best practice – or rather, worst practice,” Mr Deibert said.

Related: the arrest and imprisonment of blogger Abdelkareem Nabil Suleiman has drawn some criticism in the Egyptian press.

Damian P.

Mohammed's exaggerations

Some U.S. officials say Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is blowing up his role in several planned terror attacks. (No pun intended.)

While there apparently is truth in much of the statement, several officials said, there's also an element of self-promotion. They view the claims as at least in part a rallying cry to bolster his image and that of al-Qaida in the only venue Mohammed has left: a military courtroom from which the public is barred.

"I have never known a criminal - either terrorist or otherwise - that didn't exaggerate," said Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent and the top Republican on the terrorism panel of the House Intelligence Committee.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said authorities would decide the credibility of Mohammed's claims if he is tried. "These are his words," Whitman said.

The United States linked Mohammed closely to the attacks of 9/11, and his statement said he was responsible "from A to Z." Officials don't doubt his claim that he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl with what he called his "blessed right hand." And he corroborates al-Qaida's known interest in attacking embassies, London's Heathrow Airport, the New York Stock Exchange and other targets.

But his role in some plots may be more minor than his hands-on involvement in coordinating the attacks of 9/11 _ evidence of which was found on his computer when he was captured. Some of the plots were formulated in al-Qaida's early years, when alliances among jihadists were even more fluid than they are today.

Damian P.

There are no words

Three years ago, a 22-year-old Palestinian woman named Rim Al-Riyashi blew herself up at a border crossing, killing four Israelis. Last week, a Hamas-affiliated TV station interviewed her children, and the transcript doesn't do it justice - you really have to see the video, with these poor children insisting on acting like kids while the host goads them into praising their mother's murder-suicide:

Interviewer: Let's talk with the two children of the jihad-fighting martyrdom-seeker Rim Al-Riyashi - Dhoha and Muhammad. Dhoha, you love mama, right? Where did mama go?

Dhoha: To Paradise.

Interviewer: What did mama do?

Dhoha: She committed martyrdom.

Interviewer: She killed Jews, right?

Interviewer: How many did she kill, Muhammad?

Muhammad: Huh?

Interviewer: How many Jews did mama kill?

Muhammad: This many...

Interviewer: How many is that?

Muhammad: Five.

Interviewer: Do you love mama? Do you miss mama?
Where is mama, Muhammad?

Muhammad: In Paradise.

Damian P.

Why it's sometimes hard to like Americans

The Washington Post runs an article on the situation in Helmand Province, Afghanistan - and doesn't mention the thousands of British forces who are fighting, and dying, there.

Mark C.

Blackout upheld

The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld s. 329 of the Canada Elections Act, which prohibits the transmission of election results from one riding to another until the polls have closed in the latter district. In practice, this means TV networks cannot broadcast federal election results in, say, British Columbia until the polls have closed in that province. This particular decision is about a B.C. man who posted the results to a website:

In a 5 to 4 decision, the country's highest court ruled that provisions of the Canada Elections Act must stand, forbidding the reporting of partial results in areas where the polls haven't closed.

"For the big broadcasters and big media in this country, we have been operating under this law for several years now. And we will have to continue to black out this type of information until the polls close in western Canada," CTV's Rosemary Thompson reported from the lobby of the Supreme Court on Thursday morning.

British Columbia software designer Paul Bryan launched a constitutional challenge of the provisions, arguing that the ban imposed in 1938 has become obsolete. He said that the Internet and other modern communications technology made enforcing the law impossible and impractical.

[...]

Federal lawyers argued that the legislation is still needed so that voters in the West are not influenced by Eastern results and do not engage in strategic voting when they cast their ballots.

The Supreme Court agreed, saying the media blackout was needed to protect electoral fairness, and electoral democracy.

The blackout provision, "by virtue of its objective of ensuring informational equality among voters, is a reasonable limit on" freedom on expression, the court explained.

Four members of the high court, including Chief Justice McLachlin, dissented:

The s. 329 publication ban is an excessive response to an insufficiently proven harm and a violation of s. 2(b) of the Charter that cannot be justified under s. 1. The government’s s. 1 justification falters fatally in its submission that the benefits of the limitation on the freedom of expression are proportional to its harmful effects. ...there is only speculative and unpersuasive evidence to support the government’s claim that the information imbalance is of sufficient harm to voter behaviour or perceptions of electoral unfairness that it outweighs any damage done to a fundamental and constitutionally protected right.

The law effectively keeps us from live-blogging federal election results until the polls have closed all over the country, unless we can block internet users in other provinces from viewing our sites. (Of course, thanks to this new-fangled device called the "telephone," people in Newfoundland have been telling their Ontario friends about early election returns for years.)

As I've suggested before, the best compromise might be for election officials to keep all the results sealed - or not even start counting at all - until the polls have closed all across the country.

Damian P.

T.O. Rules. Very. Big. Time.

In 1911 the population of greater London--when at its peak compared to the country as a whole--was 7.2 million. The UK's population (including southern Ireland, I assume) was 42.1 million. In other words, at a time of great dominance by London, it had one-sixth of the UK's population.

The 2006 census gives the population of Canada as 31.6 million. The Toronto metropolitan area has 5.1 million people. Also around one-sixth. Are you beginning to get the picture regarding media and intelligentsia dominance?

And, if you subtract Quebec which really is a different (if not separate) nation, the population of the RoC is some 24 million. So T.O. is one fifth--20%-- of that. A dominant position that I do not think London, England, has ever had.

Or the largest city in any other sizable country, including Paris. And a city that is, by any reasonable appreciation, close to unique in its "distinctiveness" compared to the other parts of its country. Prove me wrong.

Another comparison. In 1910 New York City, one of the most ethnocultarally diverse cities in the US as well as the largest, had a population of 4.8 million out of a total US count of 92.2 million. Spot the difference?

Mark C.

Update: Commenters have proven me wrong in one aspect by pointing out that Sydney has about 20% of Australia's population. But Melbourne has about 18.5%; there is no equivalent balance to Toronto in the RoC. I am also being proven wrong for other countries (Seoul). Let the fun continue, but keep it in the developed world. And what about the "distinctiveness" angle?

KSM confesses

Khalid Sheik Mohammed confessed to planning the 9/11 terror attacks, and several dozen other terrorist plots, before a U.S. military tribunal:

In a rambling statement delivered Saturday to a closed-door military tribunal, Mohammed declared himself an enemy of the United States and claimed some responsibility for many of the major terrorist attacks on U.S. and allied targets over more than a decade. He said that he is at war with the United States and that the deaths of innocent people are an unfortunate consequence of that conflict.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," Mohammed told a panel of military officers through a personal representative, who read off a list of 31 terrorist acts that were either carried out or planned but not executed. According to transcripts released by Defense Department officials last night, Mohammed later spoke in broken English and Arabic, saying, "For sure, I'm American enemies."

[...]

Mohammed described himself as Osama bin Laden's operational director for the Sept. 11 attacks and as al-Qaeda's military operational commander for "all foreign operations around the world."

He claimed to have been "responsible" for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, Richard Reid's attempt to ignite a shoe bomb on an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean in December 2001, and the October 2002 bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia.

Mohammed also said he plotted to assassinate several former presidents, including Jimmy Carter, a scheme not previously revealed.

Mohammed described several other plots that never came about, such as attacks on buildings in California, Chicago and Washington state, and on the New York Stock Exchange.

Despite his statements, it is unclear how much involvement he could have had in the 31 separate attacks he listed. The Sept. 11 commission described Mohammed as a flamboyant operative who developed grandiose plans for attacks even as other al-Qaeda leaders urged him to focus on the Sept. 11 plot.

A transcript of the hearing can be viewed here.

Damian P.

Update: much more at Hot Air. Even Allahpundit wonders whether KSM is "glory-seeking, confessing to some things he wasn’t involved in to build up his legend."

The reaction from Huffington Post readers is exactly what you'd expect.

Darfur or Africanism: Why anti-Westernism drives me nuts

This article in the London Review of Books makes some good points. But why, for goodness' sake, the need to end it with a ritualistic condemnation of the West?

The camp of peace needs to come to a second realisation: that peace cannot be built on humanitarian intervention [take that Softy Lloyd and your R2P], which is the language of big powers. The history of colonialism should teach us that every major intervention has been justified as humanitarian, a ‘civilising mission’. Nor was it mere idiosyncrasy that inspired the devotion with which many colonial officers and archivists recorded the details of barbarity among the colonised – sati, the ban on widow marriage or the practice of child marriage in India, or slavery and female genital mutilation in Africa. I am not suggesting that this was all invention. I mean only to point out that the chronicling of atrocities had a practical purpose: it provided the moral pretext for intervention. Now, as then, imperial interventions claim to have a dual purpose: on the one hand, to rescue minority victims of ongoing barbarities and, on the other, to quarantine majority perpetrators with the stated aim of civilising them. Iraq should act as a warning on this score. The worst thing in Darfur would be an Iraq-style intervention. That would almost certainly spread the civil war to other parts of Sudan, unravelling the peace process in the east and south and dragging the whole country into the global War on Terror.

Some points:

Until well into the nineteenth century the Brits were in India for the money. Any ‘civilising mission’ was not not the main thing.

The "camp of peace": check this link for enlightenment.

Has not the phrase, er, "peace process", become a mindless cliche? What is to be done?

A Guardian article that makes many good points--including highlighting the (nefarious) role of China.

For the evil west and a certain "ism" see this.

Mark C.

Boston suicide

The family of Brad Delp says he took his own life:

Delp, 55, died Friday at his Atkinson home. Fiancee Pamela Sullivan found him.

Toxicology tests by the state medical examiner's office showed that Delp committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, said Lt. William Baldwin. Delp also left two notes taped to a door and letters to his family and Sullivan.

Baldwin said police do not know the contents of the letters.

Damian P.

Gored

A nice post by Terry Glavin: "An Inconvenient, Honest Attempt To Tell Truth"

Mark C.

Mugabe's last days?

Here's hoping:

At long last, President Robert Mugabe's stranglehold on Zimbabwe may be loosening. Throughout his 27 years of dominance, the old dictator's opponents have always risked assault, torture or worse.

[...]

...there are growing signs that Mr Mugabe is finally losing his grip. Never in its 44 year history has Zanu-PF been as divided as it is today. Mr Mugabe appears to be in a state of open warfare with both his party's main factions.

One is led by Solomon Mujuru, a retired general and former army commander who wants his wife, the vice-president Joyce Mujuru, to succeed Mr Mugabe.

The other major faction is dominated by Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has served in the cabinet since 1980 and was once a favourite for the succession. But he had a spectacular falling out with the president.

In the past, Mr Mugabe always would have been clever enough to ally with one faction against the other. At the very least he would have turned them against one another and kept each permanently off-balance.

But today, both the Mujuru and Mnangagwa groups appear to have become united against him. There is no other explanation for Mr Mugabe's apparent failure to extend his term of office.

More here about the beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Damian P.

Do the math: Who will be the Canadians of the future? Where will they live?

Mesopotamia West raises the first awkward question. Kate MacMillan outlines the static or declining future facing most of the country.

Just how multicultural can we afford to be? One thing in particular: I suspect the US gets a significantly greater number of Indian immigrants that one might say belong to the Anglosphere than Canada does.

And what kind of country will it be with more and more of the population living in just six large conurbations? Especially when the makeup of the population in those areas is radically different from most of the rest of the country--deux (peut-être trois) nations indeed.

Note in particular that B.C. and Alberta combined will soon surpass the population of Quebec. Go west, young person. Canada is rapidly becoming a polity utterly dominated by four provinces. They have some 27 million out a total population of just over 31.5 million--almost 86%. And that's where those six conurbations are. Not one's grandfather's Canada. There is moreover an increasingly diminishing, comparatively, Rest of Canada within the RoC as a whole.

Mark C.

Inside baseball, québécois style

The Quebec party leaders' debate was a kitchen-sink session without much apparent ideological difference. Boy, do they speak fast (disclosure: I only watched the first half hour in French). Messieurs Boisclair and Dumont seemed hyperactive relatives--performance, not politics. M. Charest seemed, for most of the show, a hobbit not aging especially well.

MEGO statistics ad infinitum from all three. Would an average citoyen(ne) not simply fade out? Plenty of devilish details: "competitive tax environment", yada yada. One was confronted with three passionate statisticians, if that is not an oxymoron; otherwise, three intense CFOs going at each other at a cocktail party--away from whom everyone else drifts. At least Mario Dumont appeared to advocate a greater private beau risque on health care.

Even the part of the debate on separation (l'avenir du Québec, the final section) had plenty of statistics from premier ministre Charest. M. Charest, a former leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party, did not himself sound "Canadian" - which makes one think.

It was a more serious effort at a debate than most federal ones, but any more enlightening? At least George Bush was not mentioned. To me, M. Charest seemed to come on strong at the end, but whether that perception is valid is something else. On the whole it was a very provincial encounter amongst petty nationalists.

Mark C.

American exceptionalism

Anywhere else in the Western world this would not be news.

Congressman says he doesn't believe in God

Democrat Pete Stark of California is the highest-ranking elected official in the U.S. to make such a public acknowledgement.

De Tocqueville was on to something:

In his social and political study of the United States, Democracy In America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, "the religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States."

Another example. Do senior public officials no longer have the obligation to give honest answers to questions? Do they not have the right to hold personal views on moral matters that are not politically correct (pace politicians both Democratic and Republican)?

Note that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was speaking of both homosexuality and adultery. Exceptionalism again in terms of the Western world. What's a right thinking person to conclude? Seek counselling, perhaps.

Mark C.

The Battle of Evergreen Terrace

This scene from last weekend's Simpsons - a Parody of Lord opf the Rings, apparently - is the funniest thing that once-great show has done in many, many years. (The set-up: a UPS clone wants back the cardboard boxes with which Bart and Lisa built "Boxingham Palace.")

Damian P.

Careful with that sperm...

Can a sperm donor be forced to pay child support? According to The Straight Dope, some American courts have answered in the affirmative:

The parties in the Pennsylvania case, Joel McKiernan and Ivonne Ferguson, met at work and had a two-year extramarital affair. After the affair ended, Ferguson asked McKiernan to help her conceive. The two agreed McKiernan would not be obligated for child support if he acted as sperm donor. (Ferguson had had a tubal ligation and could only conceive by in vitro fertilization, or IVF.) She had another man pose as her husband, told the doctor it was her husband's sperm, and had twins. McKiernan had little contact with the twins at first, but five years out Ferguson thought better of their agreement, sued McKiernan for child support, and won. In 2004, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the trial court's decision ordering McKiernan to pay $1,500 a month to support the twins. The court reasoned that the contract between McKiernan and Ferguson was unenforceable – a parent can't bargain away a child's right to support. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has not yet decided the case.

This isn't the only case in which a sperm donor has been ordered to pay support, nor is it the only case involving nontraditional ways of getting pregnant. First, there are the stolen sperm cases. For example, in a New York case, Deon Francois banked some frozen sperm at an NYU lab while he and his wife were trying to get pregnant. They broke up; he moved out, stopped paying the storage fee to NYU, and assumed NYU would discard the sperm. Instead, his estranged wife forged his signature on a release and notarized it with a stolen notary stamp. She used the release to get the sperm from NYU, which hadn't discarded it; got pregnant; and then sought child support in her divorce case. The judge awarded her $150 per week.

In other cases women have inseminated themselves with sperm from fellatio or from a condom (or so their male acquaintances alleged), then sought child support – and won. That's because the paramount consideration in child support cases is providing the child with support from two parents. Wisely or not, courts traditionally have defined parents as those who contributed the gametes that made the baby. In most cases, courts will overlook the adults' agreements or despicable conduct in the interest of providing for the children.

Establishing parentage on the basis of genetics is a double-edged sword. Genetic parents can be required to pay child support, but they can also get custody and visitation rights, sometimes even if they've agreed they won't be a parent. It gets even more complex when we factor in surrogacy and embryo implantation. ...

I haven't found any Canadian case law on this subject, but courts up here rarely (if ever) allow a parent to sign away her child's right to financial support. The "best interest of the child" trumps everything else. (If anyone does know about such a decision, let me know in the comment section.)

Damian P.

A Canadian hero attacked

Words of my own fail:

A Canadian soldier awarded a Medal of Military Valour for braving enemy fire in Afghanistan is angry after he says was jumped from behind and taunted by four men who beat him up in a Morrisburg [eastern Ontario] bar on the weekend.

Master Cpl. Collin Fitzgerald, who was awarded a Medal of Valour for heroic actions in Afghanistan by Governor-General Michalle Jean on Feb. 19, had his foot broken in three places and needed 10 stitches to close a cut above his right eye. The 27-year-old soldier also suffered a broken nose and two black eyes in the attack, which occurred after midnight Saturday morning.

Master Cpl. Fitzgerald said Monday he had only been in the bar about 20 minutes when he was struck from behind.

[...]

OPP Const. Paul Murphy said a 21-year-old Morrisburg man has been charged with aggravated assault. The man has since been released from custody on a promise to appear in court. Since he has yet to appear in court, his name was not released, police said. [emphasis added]

Const. Murphy said more charges are expected to be laid against the 21-year-old. Police also expect to lay charges against several other suspects, he said.

After serving eight months in Afghanistan, Master Cpl. Fitzgerald said, "not in a million years" did he expect to be jumped in a Morrisburg bar. He also never expected to be shown such disrespect.

"Ignorance is bliss. They obviously have no idea or any clue what the hell is going on over there," he said. "We weren't just sitting in a camp. We're getting shot at. People are dying. Buddies of mine I've seen get blown up. They really don't have any clue, and they don't know how lucky they have it here in Canada."..

One has a very good idea how the Canadian criminal justice system will punish anyone brought to trial. How much national media coverage and commentary will this outrage receive?

Mark C.

Update: The attack did get front page coverage in the Ottawa Citizen. However no story in the Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star or on the CBC and CTV websites (as far as I can see). Canada.com does have it.

Am I being too cynical, but might there not have been national coverage if Master Cpl. Fitzgerald had attacked a civilian?

Upperdate: See comment by MadMacs of Bytown for a link to audio of an interview with Master Cpl. Fitzgerald on CFRA, Ottawa, this morning.

It's really all about oil

Halliburton bugs out:

U.S. oil services firm Halliburton Co. is shifting its corporate headquarters and chief executive from Houston to Dubai in a move that immediately sparked criticism from U.S. members of Congress.

Halliburton Chief Executive Dave Lesar, speaking at an energy conference in nearby Bahrain, said he will relocate to Dubai from Texas to oversee Halliburton's intensified focus on business in the Mideast and energy-hungry Asia, home to some of the world's most important oil and gas markets.

[...]

"This is an insult to the U.S. soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no-bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years," Leahy said in a statement.

"At the same time they'll be avoiding U.S. taxes, I'm sure they won't stop insisting on taking their profits in cold hard U.S. cash," Leahy said...

More here.

Mark C.

One very good German

It is one hundred years (and a day) since Helmuth James von Moltke was born:

On his centenary anniversary Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised him as a symbol of "European courage" and for having a vision of a democratic Europe far ahead of its time.

Mr. Von Moltke, descendant of one of Germany's greatest military generals, was executed in 1945 for collaborating against Hitler, partly as the guiding spirit of the Kreisau Circle, a collection of German intellectuals, theologians, and aristocrats committed to ending Hitler's rule and rebuilding Germany...

Meanwhile, I don't see much point in doing this to one very evil German:

Hitler May Be Stripped of German Citizenship

Mark C.

Update: The "Good Nazi" wasn't so good after all:

Letter: Speer Knew Of The Holocaust

Gitta Sereny's book, Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth, is probably the best there is on the man.

And one other very good German.

The very liberal new New Republic

Kind of makes one wonder about the ideological bent of CanWest Global properties in Canada, including our largest newspaper chain and the major canada.com Net portal.

So what is different about Vol. 236, No. 4,809 (besides that the wealthy benefactor is gone, and the new owner, CanWest Global Communications, expects the perennial money loser to eventually turn a profit)?

For starters the magazine is fatter, with more photographs, articles, graphics (including a regular political cartoon by Drew Friedman) and even a few more advertisements than usual, all packaged under a lush cover painting of Barack Obama by the young, of-the-moment artist Dana Schutz.

Printed on thicker, silkier paper, the first issue includes an article on Mr. Obama’s days as a young street organizer, an essay wondering whether Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart troubles have affected his head, and a gentle “gotcha” about the humorist David Sedaris, whose biographical tales turn out to be not all that biographical. Contributors will not have to stick to any party line, Mr. Foer said, but the magazine’s own editorial viewpoint will be reliably left of center. (Straying from its traditional liberal roots in recent years has cost The New Republic — now with a combined Web and print paid circulation of 60,000 — some friends and subscribers.)..

David Brooks, in his NY Times column March 11, sees the new New Republic as a further sign of the end of pragmatic neoliberalism (full text is not available at the Times' site):

For the past few years, The New Republic has tried to keep the neoliberal flame alive, under editors like Peter Beinart. But there is no longer a readership for that. The longtime owner, Marty Peretz, has sold his remaining interests...

...it’s...a shift leftward. As the new editor, Frank Foer, says, there’s a generation gap within the magazine, with young interns further to the left. That’s where the future lies. Foer is hiring the Ph.D. neopopulist Thomas Frank to write essays on the presidential campaign. Recent editorials have called for tax increases to finance universal health care. The magazine now habitually calls on Democrats to take bold action on things like the war and global warming, but it’s still a little fuzzy on what that bold action should be...

Over all, what’s happening is this: The left, which has the momentum, is growing more uniform and coming to look more like its old, pre-neoliberal self. The right is growing more fractious. And many of those who were semiaffiliated with one party or another are drifting off to independent-land. (The Economist, their magazine, now has over 500,000 American readers — more than all the major liberal magazines combined.)...

Mark C.

When Michael Met Roger

This puts Michael Moore's breakthrough film in a whole new light, doesn't it?

...Among their revelations in the movie, which had its world premiere Saturday night at the South by Southwest film festival: That Moore actually did speak with then-General Motors chairman Roger Smith, the evasive subject of his 1989 debut "Roger & Me," but chose to withhold that footage from the final cut...

The fact that Moore spoke with Smith, including a lengthy question-and-answer exchange during a May 1987 GM shareholders meeting, first was reported in a Premiere magazine article three years later. Transcripts of the discussion had been leaked to the magazine, and a clip of the meeting appeared in "Manufacturing Dissent." Moore also reportedly interviewed Smith on camera in January 1988 at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.

Since then, in the years since "Roger & Me" put Moore on the map, those details seem to have been suppressed and forgotten.

The late Pauline Kael was one of the few critics who expressed any skepticism of Roger & Me when it first came out:

...I wasn’t surprised when I read Harlan Jacobson’s article in the November-December, 1989, Film Comment and learned that Moore had compressed the events of many years and fiddled with the time sequence. For example, the eleven plant closings announced in 1986 were in four states; the thirty thousand jobs were lost in Flint over a period of a dozen years; and the tourist attractions were constructed and failed well before the 1986 shutdowns that they are said to be a response to. Or let’s take a smaller example of Moore at play. We’re told that Ronald Reagan visited the devastated city, and we hear about what we assume is the President’s response to the crisis. He had a pizza with twelve unemployed workers and advised them to move to Texas; we’re told that during lunch the cash register was lifted from the pizza parlor. That’s good for a few more laughs. But Reagan visited the city in 1980, when he wasn’t yet President--he was a candidate. And the cash register had been taken two days earlier.

Whatever the reasons for the GM shutdowns, the company had a moral and financial responsibility to join with government agencies and the United Automobile Workers in arranging for the laid-off workers to reënter the labor force. Moore doesn’t get into this--at least, not directly. Possibly he thought that he’d lose the audience’s attention if he did. Maybe he thought that it was implicit in the gimmick of his wanting to show Roger the damage the company has done, but it’s almost perverse of him to pretend that what’s happened is all Roger Smith’s fault, and to tell the story in cartoon form.

My biggest complaint about Roger & Me was that it didn't mention the main reason GM had so much trouble when Roger Smith was running the company: a string of hopeless, under-engineered cars.

Damian P.

The Mugabe genocide

The New Republic's James Kirchick argues that the G-word can be used to describe what's happening in Zimbabwe. Even if it isn't actually genocide per se, it's still shocking:

The genocide in Zimbabwe is not as stark as others. There are no cattle cars and gas chambers. There are no machete-wielding gangs roaming the countryside. There are no helicopter gunships or Janjaweed. The killing in Zimbabwe is slow, oftentimes indirect, and not particularly bloody. But Mugabe's campaign of mass murder against those who oppose him has been no less deliberate than any of the other genocides in human history.

It all began with Mugabe's land seizures in 2000, in which he booted white farmers from the property they owned and replaced them with political hacks who have no interest in agriculture. The results were disastrous. Zimbabwe annually requires 1.8 million tonnes of maize. In 2006, it faced an 850,000 tonne deficit -- of which planned imports would cover just 60%.

The country also requires 400,000 tons of wheat annually, yet, last year, it produced only 218,000 tons by the government's count -- meaning the true total was likely far less.

As early as 2002, the BBC was reporting that people in Matabeleland, the southern region of the country where the minority Ndebele tribe lives, were starving. That same year, on the eve of a massive drought, the minister of Zimbabwean state security said, "We would be better off with only six million people-- with our own who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people." Today, according to the World Food Program, 38% of Zimbabweans are malnourished. [emphasis added]

Read it all, and then try to tell me Robert Mugabe doesn't deserve the Saddam treatment. (Now that CanWest owns The New Republic, hopefully we'll see more TNR pieces in the National Post.)

Damian P.

The butcher of Harare

Morgan Tsvangirai, the face of opposition to Robert Mugabe's thugocracy, is in hospital after being brutally beaten by Zimbabwean police:

The leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party needed hospital treatment for severe head injuries after police beat him following his arrest at a prayer rally on Sunday, his party said.

Morgan Tsvangirai required surgery to his wounds at Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare early yesterday, said an official from his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

The MDC leader was arrested in the impoverished township of Highfields where he had gone to attend a prayer rally. Dozens of opposition officials, rights activists and churchmen were also detained.

[...]

The former trade unionist had a “very deep wound” to his head, Professor Mukonoweshuro said. “He can hardly eat and hardly talk. In fact it was an attempted murder.” Mr Tsvangirai had fainted three times while police were beating him, he said.

Police seized the opposition leaders as they tried to negotiate for permission to hold a prayer rally in Highfields. All political meetings have been banned in and around the capital as threats to President Mugabe’s 27-year hold on power mount.

The Opposition blames Mr Mugabe for plunging this once-prosperous and peaceful country into a rapidly worsening economic and political crisis. The ageing ruler further angered opponents this week when it emerged he was seeking to postpone the end of his Presidential term from next year to 2010.

Damian P.

The butchers of Khartoum

A UN report says the Sudanese government is reponsible for many of the atrocities in Darfur:

UN investigators have accused Sudan's government of "orchestrating and participating" in crimes in Darfur that include murder, mass rape and kidnap.

They urged the international community to step in urgently. The team's leader called the response so far "pathetic".

The high-level mission issued its report to the UN Human Rights Council, which is meeting in Geneva.

[...]

"There are gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, the government is complicit in those crimes with the Janjaweed militia that it arms and trains," said the head of the mission, Nobel peace prize winner Jody Williams.

The Arab militia known as the Janjaweed have been accused of attacking villagers in Darfur, killing inhabitants and forcing others to flee, while the government provides air support.

The government denies the allegation, and accuses the West of exaggerating the problems in Darfur. (via Mick Hartley)

In light of this report, I expect the United Nations to do - what's the word I'm looking for? - nothing.

Damian P.

Clarkson to leave Top Gear?

Jeremy Clarkson can be arrogant and insufferable, but it's impossible to imagine the world's greatest automotive TV show without him hosting it. Who would I root against in the challenges?

Jeremy Clarkson’s future with Top Gear was shrouded in confusion last night as the presenter dropped hints that he might leave the motoring programme.

The blunt-speaking frontman said the BBC show would not return for a new series in the summer. Writing in a national newspaper on Saturday, Clarkson said: “After last week’s Top Gear, the continuity announcer said the show would be back in the summer. “Can I just say, here and now, it won’t be.”

This was contradicted by the BBC, which said there was no doubt that the show would return with its original presenters — Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. A spokesman said: “Top Gear will come back. A summer special is planned and Top Gear will return in the autumn.” Clarkson was not available to comment.

Damian P.

Desperation in North American auto sector

1) Canadian Auto Workers cave in:

The CAW's Brampton members have voted in favour of an agreement with DaimlerChrysler Inc. that will bring new work to their assembly plant and keep the automaker's $700-million project in Ontario.

More than 2,800 members of CAW Local 1285 packed the Pearson Convention Centre in Brampton, northwest of Toronto, Sunday to discuss contract concessions in return for Chrysler's investment. Known only as Project X, it will bring the production of a new vehicle to the plant, which currently builds the Chrysler 300, the Dodge Magnum and Dodge Charger. It will also benefit Windsor with the involvement of Chrysler's research and development centre here.

On Feb. 20, the majority of members rejected Chrysler's conditions, but were urged by CAW leaders to reconsider [emphasis added].

[...]

Workers will lose about $5,000 from their annual salary by giving up the shift premiums...

2) Ford sells off:

Ford Motor Co., seeking to raise cash after last year's record loss, will sell its profitable Aston Martin luxury sports-car unit for $848 million to investors led by U.K. auto-racing champion David Richards...

[...]

...Ford bought its initial stake while on its way to posting a then-record 1987 profit. The Dearborn, Michigan, automaker lost $12.7 billion last year, the most in its 103-year history...

Mark C.

What's the left-wing equivalent of "chickenhawk"?

I ask because of this post by Toronto-based blogger Allen Varlaki. Will Varlaki shoot the Prime Minister himself, thereby becoming the hero who saved Canada? Nope:

...Might I make an important distinction should the pigs be reading this. I know it's difficult to understand given your double-digit IQs and all, but saying someone should take a bullet is different from saying I will deliver such a bullet personally. I don't really care for guns all that much, so I would never pick one up and shoot Mr. Harper myself. Does that mean I would be bereft if someone did? I'll leave that up to you.

Coward! (Varlaki, whose blog has disappeared, says it was a joke. Maybe he should be writing gags for Ann Coulter.)

Damian P.

Afghanistan update

Quite a lot going on. Two posts from The Torch:

"...Main NATO spring offensive still to come"
"...US to send yet another brigade, to train Afghans"

Mark C.

Update: Jim Travesty of the Toronto Star has his knives out: "Damage control: A single thread connects most of Canada's missteps in Afghanistan: Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier".

Meanwhile the Globe and Mail's John Ibbitson analyzes why Minister of National Defence O'Connor will keep his job.

Those kooky English journalists

The Fisker thinks all those silly sectarian divisions in the Middle East and the Balkans are just a simulacrum of reality--a postmodern trope, as it were.

Why are we trying to divide up the peoples of the Middle East? Why are we trying to chop them up, make them different, remind them -- constantly, insidiously, viciously, cruelly -- of their divisions, of their suspicions, of their capacity for mutual hatred? Is this just our casual racism? Or is there something darker in our Western souls?

Take the maps. Am I the only one sickened by our journalistic propensity to publish sectarian maps of the Middle East? We are all familiar with the color-coded map of Iraq. Shiites at the bottom (of course), Sunnis in their middle "triangle" -- actually, it's more like an octagon (even a pentagon) -- and the Kurds in the north.

[...]

...we go on dividing and scissoring up the lands, and printing more and more of our racial maps and I do wonder if we wish to promote civil war across this part of the world, and you know what? I rather think we do.

Is there anything of which we Westerners are not guilty?

Mark C.

Those kooky French intellectuals

Robert Fulford reflects on...

...Jean Baudrillard [who] could make any subject more obscure just by briefly visiting it...

He saw 9/11 as in essence an exchange of symbolic power and morality. To him it was a reaction against globalization in trade. "Terrorism is immoral," he wrote. "It responds to a globalization that is itself immoral."

The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers, published a year after 9/11, exhibited an extreme case of a self-induced intellectual high. "The horror for the 4,000 victims of dying in those towers was inseparable from the horror of living in them," he said. He also declared, without much explanation, that somehow "we [in the West] wished for it."..

Then there's this classic. But David Warren, ever the contrarian, has kind words for M. Baudrillard.

Mark C.

"Why are we importing dead Canadian soldiers?"

Bourque achieves a despicable new low. (Via Army.ca)

Mark C.

What's happening to Russia?

The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt asks why Russia seems to be turning away from democracy:

Russians often blame their own "serf" mentality, a cultural tradition arising from centuries of autocracy that left them supposedly unsuited for self-rule. A more refined version points out that communism lasted a generation longer in Russia than in Central Europe, which at least emerged with faint memories of between-war civil society.

Then there is Russia's misfortune to be rich in oil, gas, diamonds and other resources. Latvia and Slovenia understood that they needed predictable laws and respect for private property to attract foreign investment; Russia knew the oil multinationals would come fawning even to a regime that expropriated when convenient. Estonia viewed government's role as enabling its citizens to create wealth; Russians used government to grab the wealth that nature had provided.

Being at the center of an empire might also be a misfortune. Other countries could blame Russia for their lost decades; Russia, having no one to blame, couldn't face its history. And since even the diminished, post-Soviet Russia contained nations of non-Russians, from Chechnya in the south to Tatarstan in the middle to Sakha in Siberia, the new Russia could not build itself on ethnic Russian nationalism and had trouble finding any other source of national identity.

All of these factors may play some role. But Michael McFaul, an expert on democratization at Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, cautions that "the structural explanations -- culture, history of communism, oil and gas -- can be easily overplayed, while the actual decisions and mistakes of individual leaders can be forgotten or excused."

[...]

...U.S. officials too often treat Russia like a touchy adolescent that shouldn't be provoked. Last week Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, complained that for the fourth year in a row the administration has proposed "devastating cutbacks" in programs to assist democratic and civil society groups in Russia.

Damian P.

Will the other Gushue drop?

Brad's team won the curling gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Can they win their first Brier for Newfoundland against Ontario? On CBC TV at 1830 Eastern (daylight time) tonight. I'll be on their side--Damian's influence I guess.

Mark C.

Damian adds: Team Gushue has a highway named after it in St. John's. Newfoundland's only Brier victory came in 1976.

Fleeing from Fox

The Las Vegas Review-Journal has a good editorial about the Democrats' backing out of a candidates' debate which would have aired on Fox News:

...The Nevada Democratic Party had agreed to let the right-tilting network co-sponsor, of all things, an August debate in Reno between Democratic presidential candidates. Party officials were serious about drawing national attention to the state's January presidential caucus, the country's second in the 2008 nominating process. What better way for the party to reach conservative and "values" voters who might consider changing allegiances?

But the socialist, Web-addicted wing of the Democratic Party was apoplectic. The prospect of having to watch Fox News to see their own candidates would have been torture in itself. So they set the blogosphere aflame with efforts to kill the broadcast arrangement, or at least have all the candidates pull out of the event. Before Friday, the opportunistic John Edwards was the only candidate to jump on that bandwagon.

You'd think the deal called for having Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter mock the candidates between comments. No, even unfiltered, unedited, live debate between loyal Democrats couldn't be entrusted to Fox News.

The approach of outfits such as MoveOn.org is so juvenile it's laughable. Imagine if every political organization created litmus tests for news organizations before agreeing to appear on their programming. Republicans would have boycotted PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, National Public Radio and The Associated Press decades ago.

Actually, even if you accept that these media outlets are as biased against the Republicans as FNC is against the Democrats, I still don't think the GOP would turn down free air time.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, has an interesting piece about how John Edwards has moved to the left this time around. He certainly looks like the Kossacks' Kandidate, and I won't be surprised if Hillary or Obama offer him the vice-presidential nomination. (Whether he wants to go through that again, of course, is another question.)

Damian P.

Darfur: Anyone suprised?

Guess what? The Sudanese president is yet again trying to block the deployment of a UN force:

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has sent a letter to the U.N. secretary-general challenging a plan to send U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur — a setback to international efforts to stop the region's escalating violence.

The U.N. wants to send a 22,000-member joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission to Darfur, arguing the AU force of 7,000 now on the ground is overwhelmed. Al-Bashir agreed to the plan in November but has since sent conflicting signals.

In his letter, obtained Friday, al-Bashir insisted the November agreement established that the U.N. would provide the AU force with technical and financial assistance and "military consultants with ranks below that of the military commander appointed by the African Union." He objected to a section of a U.N. report stating that "full U.N. involvement in command and control would be a prerequisite for U.N. funding and troop contribution..."

Round and round we go.

Mark C.

A crash course in Presidential history

On President's Day, Hugh Hewitt turned his radio show over to historian Richard Norton Smith, who went through every American President from Washington to Bush 43 - even the ones most of us only know from the "Mediocre Presidents" song on The Simpsons. An interesting listen. (Here's Part 2 and Part 3.)

Damian P.

The fine line between ambitious and insane

This is what the EU says it will do:

The deal makes three main promises to be obtained by over the next 13 years:

Greenhouse gas emissions will be cut by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels...

So by 2020, EU members--none facing the geographic realities of distance that Canada does, and almost none the climatic realities we do--claim their GHG reductions will be 20% by over thirteen years.

Meanwhile, our opposition parties voted in favour of Canada's reducing GHG emissions some 35% in five years.

Ambitious? Are they mad?

Mark C.

Jean doing her job

Very good on her indeed.

Troops get surprise visit from boss

Here she is (video) in a military-style jacket firmly supporting the mission, not just the troops. And here she is in a helmet.

There may be some politicizing here for a Governor General, but I am proud of her as a Commander-in-Chief. Will the opposition parties dare criticize her?

Mark C.

Update: "Soldiers in Afghanistan smitten by Jean's charms".

Kaving to the Kossacks

The Democrats say a silly joke by Roger Ailes, not the nutroots' whining, is the reason they're pulling out of presidential candidates' debate which would have been shown on Fox News. And if you believe that, I have a 24-hour news channel I'd like to sell you.

The Nevada Democratic Party has canceled an August debate that was to be co-hosted by Fox News Channel, citing comments by the network's president about Barack Obama rather than an online protest launched by liberal activists and bloggers who believe the channel is biased.

"Comments made last night by Fox News President Roger Ailes in reference to one of our presidential candidates went too far. We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend such comments," state Democratic Party Chairman Tom Collins and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid wrote in a letter sent Friday to Fox News.

Ailes reportedly made a comment playing on the similarity of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's name to Osama Bin Laden.

"And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, 'Why can't we catch this guy?" Ailes said at a Radio & Television News Directors Association Foundation event in Washington on Thursday, according to a transcipt provided by Fox.

Damian P.

Brad Delp, R.I.P.

The lead singer of Boston has passed away at age 55:

Brad Delp, the lead singer for the band Boston, was found dead Friday in his home in southern New Hampshire. He was 55.

Atkinson police responded to a call for help at 1:20 p.m. and found Delp dead. Lt. William Baldwin said in a news release that there was no indication of foul play.

"There was nothing disrupted in the house. He was a fairly healthy person from what we're able to ascertain," Police Chief Philip Consentino told WMUR-TV.

[...]

Delp sang on Boston's 1976 hits "More than a Feeling" and "Long Time." He also sang on Boston's most recent album, "Corporate America," released in 2002.

He joined the band in the early 1970s after meeting Tom Scholz, an MIT student interested in experimental methods of recording music, according to the group's official Web site. The band enjoyed its greatest success and influence during its first decade.

It's fashionable to dismiss Boston as "corporate arena rock," but that first album is in my personal top-five rock albums of all time. I'm dead serious. This Blogcritics writer responds to the dismissal of Delp and Boston as a "guilty pleasure."

Damian P.

Following the federal money

Just to refresh your memory--out from Alberta and Ontario, in to the Atlantic provinces and, to a lesser extent, Quebec:

Entitled "Federal government revenue and spending by province: A scoreboard of the winners and losers in Confederation?" the article by Statscan's Stephen West ends with a question mark to avoid drawing definitive conclusions, given the imprecision of modern accounting conventions. But the piece still goes a long way toward demystifying the regional basis of federal taxing and spending.

[...]

So, who "wins" under federalism? The Atlantic provinces, by a mile. In 2004, Ottawa "spent" $4,250 more for every New Brunswicker than it collected in the province; Prince Edward Islanders really hit the jackpot with per capita net federal spending of $5,254.

Quebec, surprisingly, benefited only modestly from federal spending in 2004, with Ottawa contributing $281 more on a per capita basis, or $2.1-billion, than it took out of the province. But this sum doesn't take into account the $995-million in extra equalization payments Quebec will get this year due to a technical adjustment, or the expected manna that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will shower on the province in his March 19 budget.

The article buttresses the claims of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who has ruffled feathers in Ottawa with his assertion that a $23-billion gap exists between what his province pays into federal coffers and what it gets back in transfers and services. Mr. West pegs the gap at $20.8-billion in 2004, or $1,674 for every Ontarian. In Alberta, the gap in favour of Ottawa was $9-billion, or $2,794 on a per capita basis.

Indeed, Albertans are more responsible than anyone else for keeping Ottawa flush. It collected $3,883 in personal income taxes for every Albertan in 2004. Each Ontarian sent $3,446 to Ottawa. Each Quebecker? A modest $2,226...

Holy cow! Dalton McGuinty got one right.

Mark C.

Afghan prisoners: Prof. Attaran's agenda/Minister O'Connor

The good professor, in a piece in today's Globe and Mail, reveals what he's really up to.

1) He wants to smear the Canadian Afghanistan mission with the American Iraq brush:

Firing the general now would give useful distance, and thereby help safeguard the Canadian Forces' reputation. The alternative -- keeping him on, under a Rumsfeldian cloud [emphasis added - MC] -- would be unwise...

Prof. Attaran has earlier called for the resignation of both the CDS and Minister of National Defence O'Connor.

2) He wants Canada to be judged racist:

The second option is controversial: Transport our detainees from Afghanistan to prisoner-of-war camps in Canada. This sounds awful, but that is a shrill and unhistorical analysis. Starting in June of 1940, Canada transported about 40,000 German and Italian enemy combatants to this country and held them in camps in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. Those enemies were treated humanely...

...Canada's inability to treat European and Afghan enemies on equal terms indicates that our military and foreign-policy establishment may still be dominated by a Eurocentric ethos. The current detainee policy suggests a subterranean racism that lags decades behind Canada's contemporary reality as a multicultural state...

Since Canada is not in a declared war, I can see no legal basis for transferring prisoners to Canada (that's why the US uses Guantanamo in Cuba). Moreover, what are the odds any prisoners could ever be sent back?

First, the war will likely drag on and in any case will almost certainly not end with a formal surrender as WW II did. Second, given the admittedly poor human rights record of parts of the Afghan government, what Canadian court would permit the return of the prisoners should they go to court? No doubt as clients of the good professor, who is also a lawyer.

Minister O'Connor, for his part, has made a right fool of himself over the Red Cross aspect of the prisoner issue. He should resign if ministerial responsibility is to retain any semblance of meaning. He would not be much of a loss.

Whoever briefed him about the agreement with the Afghan authorities should be fired. And, if Gen. Hillier knowingly permitted the minister to make false statements, there is only one honourable thing to do: resign. Much as I hate to say it since he is the best CDS for lord knows how long.

Minister O'Connor has issued a statement that I do not think vindicates him. A perceptive comment at Army.ca is here.

Mark C.

Update: Ed Morrissey on responsibility:

...unless [FBI Director] Mueller submits his resignation, he's not really taking responsibility for anything. He did right yesterday by admitting the errors his agency made, and he can assume responsibility for cleaning up the mess and ensuring that the FBI stops violating the law in regards to data collection and national-security letters. If he wants to take responsibility for the violations themselves, a statement that implies that the entire organization is responsible for them, then Mueller really should resign and allow a new director to lead the FBI in a new direction. Otherwise, he should let those who violated the law assume individual responsibility -- and fire them...

The most underrated car chase in movie history

The 1990 black comedy Short Time starred Dabney Coleman as a cop who mistakenly thinks he's terminally ill, so he tries to get himself killed in the line of duty so his family can collect a big pension. If anyone remembers the movie today, it's probably because of this:

Most of the recognized classics - The Blues Brothers, Ronin, The French Connection, the original Gone in 60 Seconds, To Live and Die in L.A. and, of course, Bullitt - are all up at YouTube. God, I love the internet.

Damian P.

Scooter and the Plame Game

David Frum and others tell you what you must and mustn't do.

Mark C.

Steyn savaged

Johann Hari didn't think much of America Alone, even going so far as to call it "The Protocols of the Elders of Mohammed." Hari's best argument is that even if Steyn's demographic predictions are accurate (Hari rejects them), he assumes they will continue indefinitely:

...To fulfil his headline predictions, Steyn needs to turn 20 million European Muslims into more than 200 million European Muslims - in just 13 years. Only Fallacci's rats could reproduce so rapidly. Steyn even admits that the history of demographic predictions is hysterically inept, noting that "most twenty-year projections... are laughably speculative, and thus most doomsday scenarios are too" - before offering his own.

Europe's real demographics are described in a similar book by a slightly more scupulous author. Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of the Washington Times and DC grande dame, last year wrote 'The West's Last Chance' predicting an enfeebled Europe would collapse before the Muslim hoardes. But after studying the figures, he admitted: “For almost every Western European country, their populations do not even begin to decline until at least 2025... In fact, for the next few decades, they continue to go up, even without any new immigration… The numbers only begin to move decidedly down about fifty years from now.” So for Steyn's predictions to hold true, the current Muslim birthrate needs to hold steady through five decades of life in the West, all Muslims have to become communitarian Islamists bent on sharia law, and there must be no natalist policies from European governments in the meanwhile. [via Andrew Sullivan]

My own (much more positive) review of America Alone is here. Hopefully, Steyn will respond on his website. Over to you, Mark...

Damian P.

Iranian general defects

Kind of like the Cold War days, isn't it?

An Iranian general who went missing on a visit to Turkey last month appears to have defected to America, taking with him a treasure trove of his country’s most closely guarded secrets.

Ali Resa Asgari, 63, a general in the elite Revolutionary Guards and former Deputy Defence Minister, vanished on February 7 after arriving in Istanbul on a flight from Syria. He had reservations at the Ceylan Intercontinental Hotel but never checked in.

Iran has notified Interpol and raised fears that General Asgari might have been kidnapped. Yesterday, however, several sources confirmed reports in America that General Asgari had fled to the West, becoming the first senior Iran official to defect since the revolution 27 years ago.

Danny Yatom, the former head of Mossad and a member of the Knesset, said that the general could provide Western intelligence with a unique insight into Iran’s foreign operations in Lebanon and beyond.

[...]

Mr Yatom described the missing general as very important and said that he would be able to shed light on one of the murkiest chapters in recent Middle East history. From the early 1980s Iran funded, trained and armed members of the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, which began as a small Shia Muslim militia but is today the most powerful paramilitary force in the Levant.

Damian P.

Not punching our weight

Jim Travesty of the Toronto Star takes the government to task for not exercising Canada's amazing international clout:

Canadians are...discouraged from examining how the government extended the [Afghan] mission without extracting from NATO, Pakistan and Kabul the concessions urgently needed for success and safety...

How can such tosh get written? When did so many in our media and politics completely lose touch with reality?

Mark C.

Autoshock: GM, Chrysler beat Benz

I urge you to buy the Consumer Reports "2007 Annual Auto Issue", April. (Its approach is very different from Car, of course.) This article in particular sums up a lot: "Which companies make the best cars?" The figures below give the "Tested Vehicles Recommended":

Honda: 100%
Subaru: 100%
Toyota: 85%
Mazda: 73%
BMW: 63%
Nissan: 59%
Ford: 54%
GM: 36%
Chrysler: 21%
Mercedes-Benz: 0%

But Chrysler should not get too proud within the Daimler family. (For how long? What's with SUVs still?) Three out of four among "Most-disappointing car models", new or redesigned, are theirs. The other is Toyota's Yaris.

Ford gets one of the four "Most impressive". Two are Hyundais (!).

This quote from the article says it all:

"The domestics are trying to fix three to four decades of not caring about product..."

Mark C.

Damian adds: in the Top Gear survey I mentioned earlier, Mercedes-Benz came 30th out of 35 brands. Only Fiat, Jeep and the three French manufacturers were worse. Somewhere, Mssrs. Daimler and Benz are weeping.

Mark's update: The Buzz somehow thinks the Government of Canada can coerce people living in the far east to buy vehicles made in Canada by union workers. Why would people there buy vehicles that only North Americans buy? These are assembled in Ontario by CAW plants:

Buick LaCrosse
Chev Impala
Chev Monte Carlo
Chev Silverado
Chrysler 300
Chrysler minivans
Dodge Charger
Ford Crown Vic
GMC Sierra
Pontiac Grand Prix.

Downtown Tokyo and Seoul are just lusting for them, Buzz--and Jim.

The Palestinian Taliban

Better start getting used to this, my Palestinian friends:

For more than 30 years, anthropologist Sharif Kanaana has been collecting and studying Palestinian folk tales so that people at home and abroad would understand the story of his people.

This week, the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority (PA) added a new chapter: a directive to pull Professor Kanaana's book from school libraries and destroy it.

"I don't want to generalize about all of Hamas – I rather hope it's a unique case, a mistake by an individual," says Kanaana, a scholarly, bespectacled academic who was just heading into semiretirement when he inadvertently became the poster child of the Palestinian divide between liberals and ultra-conservatives. "Unfortunately, it confirmed some of the worst expectations people had for this government."

[...]

Religious conservatives say that they didn't like five stories within the 400-page book of folklore, which includes academic explanations and theory, because of references to body parts or human excretion.

The decision to pull the book "Speak Bird, Speak Again," first published in English in 1989 and later in Arabic in Lebanon, was issued by the education ministry last month in a letter to teachers, who were instructed to destroy it.

"Our society depends on Islamic values and has for hundreds of years," continues Sheikh Khader. "Our most important objective is to make curriculum adhere to our social values."

In his viewpoint, too many Western influences are seeping into Palestinian society, and children must be better shielded from them.

In the Palestinian territories, Fatah are the moderates. That might just be the most depressing thing I've ever written.

Damian P.

Cars in Canada: Let the market do the work

Further to the post "Save the planet: Ban minivans": as long as gas prices stay high there really should be no need for major government action here to improve automotive fuel economy (via Bourque).

You've seen them on Canadian streets for years in ever-growing numbers -- compact cars like the Honda Civic and Mazda3, subcompacts like the Toyota Echo hatchback, and baby-SUVs like Ford's Escape. Now the newest of those mite-sized vehicles are the majority.

For the first time since car dealers opened for business in Canada, more than half of all retail buyers bought a small, fuel efficient vehicle last year, new research shows.

The data, compiled by DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, suggests most Canadians are already making the kind of auto-buying choices that will reduce their footprint on the environment.

And it means that if the federal and provincial governments really want to make a difference to reduce vehicle emissions, they should focus on getting older beaters off the road instead of targeting new cars and trucks, the consultancy says.

Exactly 50.7 per cent of new vehicle buyers in Canada in 2006 snapped up a so-called entry level vehicle, DesRosiers research shows.

[...]

J.D. Power says the small vehicle market will continue to expand, with premium compact vehicles projected to grow most by 52 per cent from now to 2012. That's one reason manufacturers like BMW AG are introducing smaller, high-end vehicles to Canada. BMW will bring its 1-series here next year...

Sort of like Europe, where there are many high-end small autos, including diesels. (I particularly like Peugeots, but there are plenty of other examples.)

Now if GM, Ford and Chrysler would just focus on selling cars.

Mark C.

Damian adds: it took them long enough, but Ford is finally going to bring the next-generation Fiesta to North America. We're still not worthy of the new Focus, though.

Peugeot makes some nice cars, but the company came dead last in Top Gear's annual motoring survey. Personally, I'd like to see Skoda and SEAT - the Czech and Spanish subsidiaries of VW, respectively - start selling cars over here. (Canadians could buy Skodas back when they were commie junk, but now that they're actually good, they aren't available. Go figure.)

Mark's update: Top Gear does like the 307--and note the seven-seater.

UN committee calls Canada "racist"

PC or not PC? You just can't win.

Canada's use of the term "visible minorities" to identify people it considers susceptible to racial discrimination came under fire at the United Nations Wednesday - for being racist.

The world body's anti-racism watchdog says in a report on Ottawa's efforts to eliminate racial discrimination in Canada that the words might contravene an international treaty aimed at combating racism.

Members of the watchdog - the Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination - also questioned other terms used by the federal government, among them "ethnocultural communities."

[...]

"I don't think the committee members could have realized that Canada's use of the term 'visible minorities' is aimed at ensuring positive discrimination," says Martin Collacott, a former Canadian ambassador to a number of Asian and Middle Eastern countries, and currently senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think-tank.

"It is a form of discrimination, of course, but of reverse discrimination. While I would also argue against it, I think it's clear the UN assumes that it aims to discriminate against people."..

Mark C.

Damian adds: thank God the United Nations isn't wasting time on Darfur and other nonsense like that.

The end of the House of Lords

Britain votes for an elected Upper House of Parliament, though it's still a few years away:

Britain is to have a wholly or mainly elected second House of Parliament after historic votes by MPs last night.

Decades of deadlock over reform finally ended as the Commons voted first for an 80 per cent elected second chamber and then, entirely unexpectedly, for a fully elected House.

The decisions pave the way for one of the most radical constitutional changes in British history. It is almost certain to involve the renaming of the House of Lords.

Fears that the Lords might challenge the authority of the Commons disappeared as the MPs rejected options of a 50 per cent or 60 per cent elected Lords, and instead plumped for the 80 per cent option. Then they went the whole hog and voted by an even bigger majority for a 100 per cent elected chamber, surpassing the wildest dreams of the reformers.

The majority was swelled by the decision of a number of antireform MPs to go for a fully elected House, hoping that it would so infuriate peers that they would block the whole thing.

It may still take several years for the change to an elected system to take place. The Lords will vote next week and are expected to reject elections and opt for an appointed second chamber.

Here in Canada, by contrast, Stephen Harper's timid Senate reform proposals are too radical for some people.

Damian P.

I guess he's in on it, too

Gwynne Dyer, no fan of the Bush Administration, is no fan of Loose Change, either:

"Loose Change" confidently asserts that the twin towers were brought down by carefully placed demolition charges, not by the fires ignited by the planes that hit them; that the Pentagon was struck by a cruise missile and not by a plane at all; and that the fourth "hijacked" plane, Flight 93, did not crash in a field in Pennsylvania but landed at Cleveland airport, where the passengers were taken into a NASA building and never seen again.

What about all the calls that the passengers on Flight 93 made on their phones? Their voices were cloned by the Los Alamos laboratories and the calls to their relatives were faked. The FBI was in on it, the CIA was in on it, the U.S. Air Force was in on it (except, of course, those USAF personnel who were killed at the Pentagon) and North American Aerospace Defense Command was in on it (but they kept the Canadians in NORAD out of the loop).

The security companies guarding the World Trade Center were in on it, Mayor Rudy Giuliani was in on it, the Federal Aviation Administration was in on it, NASA was in on it and the Pentagon was in on it. At least 10,000 people were in on it. They had to be, or it couldn't have worked. And more than five years later, not one of them has talked.

Nobody has got drunk and spilled their guts. Nobody has told their spouse, who then blabbed. Not one of these 10,000 accomplices to mass murder has yielded to the temptation for instant fame and great wealth if only they blow the whistle on the greatest conspiracy in history. Even the Mafia code of silence is nothing compared to this.

For the true believer, of course, the fact that no one has come clean is proof of conspiracy.

Damian P.

Tough on crime camera phones

More about that stupid French law I noted yesterday:

A new law in France makes it a crime for anyone who is not a professional journalist to film real-world violence and distribute the images on the Internet.

Critics call it a clumsy effort by authorities to battle "happy slapping," the youth fad of filming violent acts — which most often they have provoked — and spreading the images on the Web or between mobile phones.

The measure, tucked deep into a vast anti-crime law that took effect Wednesday, has alarmed media advocates who say it tramples on freedom of expression.

[...]

The measure has implications for online video sites like YouTube, or France's Dailymotion.com. Authorities could ask them to identify the sources of images made available through their sites.

The new provision targets "happy slapping," a phenomenon that began in Britain and whose name belies the gravity of the attacks. Violators will be subject to up to five years in prison and nearly $100,000 in fines.

In France, "happy slapping" appears to be rare. Police have counted about 20 cases of filmed violence or sex attacks, but acknowledge there could be countless others.

Okay, go ahead and dump all your French wine down the sink. (Or give it to me and I'll, er, dispose of it.)

Damian P.

CBC bans Hitler

So now we too play by German rules (full text subscriber only).

A Booker Prize-winning Canadian writer was forbidden from reading from one of the world's most controversial anti-Semitic books on CBC Radio during Canada's Freedom to Read Week.

Life of Pi author Yann Martel said staff at CBC Radio Saskatchewan told him half an hour before a scheduled interview last Thursday that he wasn't allowed read excerpts of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf on the air.

[...]

The CBC had asked Martel to do an interview on The Afternoon Edition because the author was planning to read from the book that evening at a Saskatoon Public Library event for Freedom to Read Week, an annual campaign raising public awareness about intellectual freedom in Canada.

The library asked Mr. Martel to read from any banned or challenged book, and Mr. Martel chose Mein Kampf.

"It's a horrible book, but a horribly important book, because you get in the brain of one of the monsters of the 20th century," Mr. Martel said.

David Cozac of PEN Canada, a human rights organization for writers, said the incident shocked him.

"The CBC really ought to know better than to do something as silly as this," Mr. Cozac said, noting that CBC has just completed a week-long program about censorship issues around the world...

Know your enemy--and I mean it.

Mark C.

Hobsbawmistas and Spain

An Anglo-German historian is taken to task for his Stalinist leanings (via Arts & Letters Daily):

Hobsbawm cites Hemingway and Malraux – a “macho” admirer of Stalin and a compulsive liar – who wrote two of the worst books imaginable on the Spanish war...

...The Stalinist view of Orwell put forward by the noted academic is almost too dense and transparent to merit comment: he dismisses Homage to Catalonia because it was turned down by a Soviet-lining publisher and sold few copies in its first printing. Hobsbawm offers an allegedly self-incriminating quote from an Orwell letter: “Orwell himself recognised in a letter to a friendly reviewer, ‘what you say about not letting the fascists in owing to dissensions between ourselves is very true.’” But a commonsense, as opposed to a deceptive reading of this remark would indicate that Orwell had the Stalinists in mind when he referred to the sowing of dissensions that permitted a Franco victory.

For Hobsbawm, Orwell is not only illegitimate because his book did not sell well, but because he was “an awkward, marginal figure.” ..

I must conclude by briefly addressing Hobsbawm’s libels against the Spanish revolutionary militias, with which he closes his polemic. Hobsbawm informs us “Wars, however flexible the chains of command, cannot be fought, or war economies run, in a libertarian fashion. The Spanish civil war could not have been waged, let alone won, along Orwellian lines.” Once again, the Stalin-nostalgia betrays his ignorance of Spanish reality...

Now that's a polemicist in action. Much more in the full piece.

For a balanced military history of the war, see this. An anarcho-syndicalist approach to conducting the war was a guarantee of defeat; the Soviet support just made the war longer and bloodier--including internally on the Republican side--without a serious commitment actually to winning. Very nasty stuff.

Mark C.

Why cricket is a Good Thing

An assistant managing editor at The Wall Street Journal writes:

It is a source of immense chagrin to those of us who love the game--and there are few games on earth that are loved with as much fidelity, and gusto--that cricket is disparaged in America as a languorous pastime conducted between breaks for tea by men who utter such daffy things as "sticky wicket, old chap."

[...]

...when the Big Boys play--when Pakistan meets South Africa or Australia takes on New Zealand--one gets a whiff of the cordite almost instantly. Cricket then takes on the aspect with which the game's devotees are familiar, and Americans, alas, so unfamiliar--that of a virile, even brutal game in which a rock-hard ball is bowled at speeds that can approach 100 miles per hour at batsmen who stand no more than 22 yards away...

How cricket could be an even Better Thing: if Americans and Canadians generally took the game seriously, that really would solidify the Anglosphere.

Mark C.

Update: The World Cup, 2007 (pay to see).

Coulter won't quit

She says her remarks about John Edwards were - say it with me, folks - taken out of context:

Ann Coulter fired back at critics who demanded the conservative columnist apologize for comments she made during a speech in which she referred to Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards as a "faggot."

"'Faggot isn't offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays," Coulter said on "Hannity and Colmes" Monday night. "It's a schoolyard taunt meaning 'wuss,' and unless you're telling me that John Edwards is gay, it was not applied to a gay person."

[...]

Coulter called the whole controversy another example of the mainstream media's "speech totalitarianism" and says she sees no reason to apologize for a joking comment that was taken out of context.

"What I was saying right there was for conservatives to not let the mainstream media describe us as anti gay and oppose Mitt Romney's policies for being pro-gay," Coulter said.

Coulter didn't spare the GOP hopefuls, either.

"Apparently our top three Republican nominees aren't that smart," Coulter said. "And by the way, if they're going to start apologizing for everything I say, they better keep that statement handy cause there's going to be a lot more in the next year."

I can hardly wait.

Damian P.

How bad is the 1/2 Hour News Hour?

Even David Frum doesn't like it.

Damian P.

He's a terrorist, and he's okay...

In response to this, Eric Margolis would probably say it proves the Taliban's tolerance toward members of the transgendered community:

Afghan soldiers have captured a Taliban leader who tried to flee a security operation in the south dressed in a burqa, NATO said on Wednesday.

Tuesday's capture in Kandahar province came as NATO launched a major offensive in neighboring Helmand to secure a key hydroelectric dam and combat the opium trade.

The man was named as Mullah Mahmood and described as an expert bomb-maker. U.S.-led coalition forces also detained five more suspected militants in eastern Khost this week.

Damian P.

Ending a disastrous experiment

In the seventies and eighties, people suffering from mental health problems were "deinstitutionalized" and sent to live on their own and choose their own treatment. Alberta is the latest province to turn away from this well-intentioned - and catastrophic - experiment:

On the afternoon of Feb. 28, 2004, Martin Ostopovich, a schizophrenic in the grip of extreme paranoid delusions, called an Edmonton TV station from his home in nearby Spruce Grove and told them "someone was going to die today." Within a few hours, after a standoff with police, Mr. Ostopovich would shoot and kill RCMP Corporal James Galloway before being gunned down himself by police.

Three years later, following an inquiry's findings that Mr. Ostopovich had earlier walked away from an Edmonton psychiatric department "against medical advice," refusing treatment for the voices in his head urging him to kill, Alberta has announced plans to introduce legislation making it easier for doctors to force mentally ill patients to get treatment, even against the patient's will.

[...]

If Alberta passes the law -- it will be tabled in the legislature's spring sitting, which begins today -- it will be the latest province to resist the emphasis on patients' rights over public safety. Rather than waiting for the mentally ill to present an imminent danger to themselves or others before compelling treatment, psychiatrists will be able to impose treatment on any patient exhibiting a deteriorating mental state.

Throughout the '70s and '80s, provinces across Canada deinstitutionalized mental patients in the face of demands from social activists that patients be free to choose their own treatment. They were backed up by a United Nations convention asserting the "imposition of compulsory treatment on any person represents a serious denial of autonomy" and calling on governments to end involuntary treatment.

Critics have since blamed deinstitutionalization for swelling homeless ranks, as well as a rise in dangerous confrontations between delusional people and citizens or police. It was the murder by a paranoid schizophrenic of Ottawa sportscaster Brian Smith in 1995 that led Ontario to reverse the trend. Brian's Law, passed in 2000, empowers doctors to issue community treatment orders (CTOs), requiring patients to follow prescribed treatments or be involuntarily institutionalized. Saskatchewan also allows CTOs.

When I worked as a legal aid lawyer, the most depressing aspect of my practice was dealing with people suffering from mental disorders - especially schizophrenia - caught up in the criminal justice system while trying to live on their own. (Many of these people end up in prison, without anything resembling appropriate treatment.) We can't go back to the old days of locking them away and forgetting about them, but deinstitutionalization has been a disaster.

Damian P.

Brits and Irish are Basques

Interesting genetics (but I would not put much part in the philology, not excerpted here):

...Many [geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles] are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans...

...Stephen Oppenheimer, a medical geneticist at the University of Oxford, says the historians’ account is wrong in almost every detail. In Dr. Oppenheimer’s reconstruction of events, the principal ancestors of today’s British and Irish populations arrived from Spain about 16,000 years ago, speaking a language related to Basque.

[...]

This new population, who lived by hunting and gathering, survived a sharp cold spell called the Younger Dryas that lasted from 12,300 to 11,000 years ago [calling St. Suzuki for comment]...

In all, about three-quarters of the ancestors of today’s British and Irish populations arrived between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago, when rising sea levels split Britain and Ireland from the Continent and from each other, Dr. Oppenheimer calculates in a new book, “The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story” (Carroll & Graf, 2006)...

Mark C.

They should know

The German Bishops' Conference compares the Israelis to the Nazis, and they're going to make sure their parishioners know it:

A group of German bishops sparked controversy yesterday when they compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with the Nazis' maltreatment of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

The comments were made by the 27-strong German Bishops' Conference after its tour of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Several of the bishops were upset by the Jerusalem Wall, the 30ft high concrete barrier illegally built by Israel to separate Palestinian suburbs from the rest of the city.

While crossing one of the checkpoints into East Jerusalem, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, said he had been particularly incensed.

"This is something that is done to animals, not people," he said referring to the wall and heavily fortified checkpoints where Palestinians are subjected to intrusive questioning and demands for Israel-approved documentation.

[...]

"This morning we saw pictures of the Warsaw ghetto at Yad Vashem and this evening we are going to the Ramallah ghetto," Bishop Gregor Maria Franz Hanke said.

"It's enough to drive one mad. Israel has the right to exist, but this right cannot be realised in such a brutal manner."

The Israeli press described the Nazi comparisons as "divisive", but the bishops offered no apology.

Instead, Bishop Hanke said he planned to amend this year's Easter message to German churches to include the delegation's impressions and to demand a change to the situation.

Fortunately, the way European church attendance has been going, it's not like anyone will hear it. More at LGF.

Damian P.

Cpl. Kevin Megeney, R.I.P.

It was a good quarter of a year and a bit, but it sadly had to happen in the theatre. Damian Brooks has the details.

Let us just hope ISAF's Operation Achilles, involving some 200 Canadians so far, goes well. It would seem that NATO is preempting the Taliban's much advertised spring offensive.

See this post at The Torch for audio of Minister of National Defence O'Connor on the radio today, before the death was announced. The minister gives considerable operational information.

Much more on the ISAF operation is here.

Mark C.

The G-Word

The editor of Spiked smells politicization (via Arts & Letters Daily):

Why is genocide all the rage, whether it’s uncovering new ones in Africa and Eastern Europe, or rapping the knuckles of those who would dare to deny such genocides here at home?

Contrary to the shrill proclamations of international courts and Western officials and journalists, new genocides are not occurring across the world. Rather, today’s genocide-mongering in international affairs – and its flipside: the hunt for genocide-deniers at home – shows that accusations of genocide have become a cynical political tool. Genocide-mongering is a new mode of politics, and it’s being used by some to draw a dividing line between the West and the Third World and to enforce a new and censorious moral consensus on the homefront. Anyone who cares about democracy and free speech should deny the claims of the genocide-mongers.

In international relations genocide has become a political weapon, an all-purpose rallying cry used by various actors to gain moral authority and boost their own standing. Anyone with a cursory understanding of history should know that the bloody wars of the past 10 to 15 years – in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur – are not unprecedented or exceptional. Certainly none of them can be compared to the Nazi genocide against the Jews, which involved the industrialised slaughter, often in factories built for the purpose, of six million men, women and children. Rather, the labelling of today’s brutal civil wars as ‘genocides’ by Western observers, courts and commentators is a desperate search for a new moral crusade, and it has given rise to a new moral divide between the West and the rest, between the civilised and enlightened governments of America and Europe and those dark parts of the world where genocides occur...

[...]

...the critics of Western military intervention play precisely the same game – sometimes in even more shrill tones than their opponents. Anti-war activists claim that ‘the real genocide’ – a ‘Nazi-style genocide’ – is being committed by American and British forces in Iraq. Others counter the official presentation of the Bosnian civil war as a Serb genocide against Muslims by arguing that the Bosnian Serbs, especially those forcibly expelled from Krajina, were the real ‘victims of genocide’ (9). Critics of Israel accuse it of carrying out a genocide against Palestinians (while supporters of Israel describe Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s occasional dustbin-lid bombs as ‘genocidal violence’) (10). This does nothing to challenge the hysteria of today’s genocide-mongering, but rather indulges and further inflames it. Genocide-talk seems to have become the only game in town.

I quite agree that the "g-word" has been debased of practical meaning. The only slaughters in the last century that I think merit the word are those of the Armenians, the Jews, and the Tutsis (and perhaps this one in German South-West Africa). Stalin and Mao killed even more (Pol Pot did his best too), but not primarily because of ethnicity--is there a word for the extermination of "class enemies"? "Sociocide", perhaps?

Mark C.

Damian adds: I still think Darfur qualifies for the "G-word," too. Also note this Oliver Kamm post about Mick Hume's old magazine, Living Marxism (later renamed LM) and its reporting on the Balkans.

Update: Upon further research (something must have lodged in the brain):

True, proposals are being made to amend the UN Convention of Dec. 9, 1948, by adding the notion “social genocide.” Social groups also suffer from brutal persecution aimed at their extermination. However, “sociocide” and “classicide” have yet to become legal notions, which is why they are not relevant to our discussion.

About mass murder by Comrade Stalin in Ukraine.

Canada: spin and reality

The spin from the CBC: "Canada takes No. 1 spot in global image poll".

The reality from the Ottawa Citizen: "The world likes us, but that's because it doesn't know us; Top ranking in survey points to ignorance, not approval: pollster".

Mark C.

Shutting down citizen journalism?

According to IDG News Service, which specializes in technology reporting, A new French law criminalizes the filming of violent events by anyone other than professional journalists. (Note: only IDG is reporting the story so far, so you might want to wait for some other reports before dumping all your French wine down the sink.)

...The law, proposed by Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, is intended to clamp down on a wide range of public order offenses. During parliamentary debate of the law, government representatives said the offense of filming or distributing films of acts of violence targets the practice of “happy slapping,” in which a violent attack is filmed by an accomplice, typically with a camera phone, for the amusement of the attacker’s friends.

The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said Cohet [a French civil liberties activist]. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet.

The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules. The journalists’ organization Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories. (via LGF)

Damian P.

The Libby Verdict

A big roundup of blog reaction here.

Damian P.

Scott Reid corrected

Further to this post, the Toronto Star (good on them) has published this letter of mine:

Mission was never about peacekeeping

March 06, 2007

Election's polarizing issue could be Afghanistan

Column, March 3.

Scott Reid writes that "this is Harper's war and he alone is responsible for our current predicament. It was his desire to eschew peacekeeping in favour of a more muscular combat focus."

In fact, this is what the chief of the defence staff, Gen. Rick Hillier, said in July 2005, about the mission at Kandahar – when Reid was communications director for then prime minister Paul Martin: "We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people."

Hillier made it clear then that the new mission would be a combat one against insurgents, not about "peacekeeping."

Mark Collins, Ottawa

Selected for Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs "Canadian Commentary", and a Norman's Spectator LETTER OF THE DAY.

Mark C.

On Osama's trail

ABC's Blotter says the CIA is sending more resources into Pakistan:

Armed with fresh intelligence, the CIA is moving additional man power and equipment into Pakistan in the effort to find Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, U.S. officials tell ABC News.

"Reports that the trail has gone stone cold are not correct," said one U.S. official. "We are very much increasing our efforts there," the official said.

People familiar with the CIA operation say undercover officers with paramilitary training have been ordered into Pakistan and the area across the border with Afghanistan as part of the ramp-up.

Although never publicly acknowledged, Pakistan has permitted CIA teams to secretly operate inside Pakistan.

Should ABC even be reporting this? (It's also the top story on Drudge right now.) Some Blotter readers are pretty upset about it.

Damian P.

The Coulters of the left

Patterico compiles a long list of repulsive rhetoric by left-wing commentators - and he doesn't even include Ted Rall or Michael Moore.

The point of this list is not to argue that leftists are more hateful than conservatives. There are many documented examples of hate speech on the right; Ann Coulter provides many examples, but she is not the only one. I publish this list simply to rebut the Greenwald-spawned canard that leftist hate speech is exclusively the province of anonymous trolls on the Internet. On the contrary, prominent leftists have said some pretty awful things.

There are more examples, and a vigorous debate, in his comment section. Surely we can all agree that there are plenty of wingnuts on both sides, right?

Damian P.

Update: Jack Shafer on "Why the Press Can't Ignore Her."

Update II: Patterico encourages his critics to re-read the paragraph cited above.

Andrew Sullivan, not surprisingly, sneers at Glenn Reynolds for linking to Patterico's post. It's hard to believe, now, but there was a time when Sully gave out the "Begala Award" and "Moore Award" for unhinged left-wing rhetoric (along with the "Malkin Award," for which "Ann Coulter is ineligible - to give others a chance"). Like Reynolds says, there's plenty of this stuff to go around.

Darfur: Canada doing more than its bit/ UN force and ICC

This has got almost no coverage in our media (I wonder how the CBC missed it--could it be that this government's doing a Good Thing is, er, not newsworthy?):

Canada has committed $48 million to support African Union peacekeeping efforts in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay announced the funding late Thursday amid continued civil strife in Darfur.

"Canada is gravely concerned about the ongoing international humanitarian law and human rights violations and abuses in Darfur, and condemns continued ceasefire violations by all parties," MacKay said during question period.

He said the new funding is aimed at helping the African Union mission in Sudan to "enhance the protection of civilians and to facilitate safe, unhindered humanitarian access to affected populations in urgent need."

Since 2004, Canada has pledged more than $190 million to the African Union mission in Sudan, and has provided military equipment, helped train African peacekeepers, and provided food, water, sanitation, and basic health care.

Canada has also sent several dozen military observers to Sudan [44, actually - MC].

Plus more than 100 armoured personnel carriers.

Note our total figure: $190 million. Now note this:

...the EU has provided most of the financing for the AU force now in Darfur - some [US] $530 million since 2004 - and the bloc's special peace support fund for Africa has run dry.

EU foreign ministers are expected to seek extra funding Monday from the EU aid budget and from the coffers of its 27 member governments.

So on a per capita basis Canada is providing a huge deal more that the EU. No notice of that in our media either.

Meanwhile, Sudan's president is continuing his dance of the seven veils with the UN:

Sudan's president is sending a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressing his commitment to the deployment of several thousand U.N. peacekeepers to help end the violence in Darfur, Sudan's U.N. envoy said Friday.

The deployment would be the second step of a three-stage U.N. plan that would culminate in a 22,000-strong joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission.

[...]

Al-Bashir's letter expresses his commitment but also raises "issues of operational, technical and legal aspects" of the proposal, Sudanese Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem told The Associated Press. He declined to elaborate.

[...]

The first phase _ a "light support" package adding some equipment, military officers and U.N. police to the AU operation _ is nearly almost complete. The second phase is a "heavy support" package that includes the deployment of more than 3,000 U.N. military, police and civilian personnel...

I doubt the recent International Criminal Court accusations will achieve anything and will, I think, just make the Sudanese dig in their heels. On the other hand, the goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commission for Refugees is in favour of them. Damian's view is here. I fear I am a convinced cynic about Darfur; Ms Jolie does get credit for trying.

Mark C.

"Don't Send a Lion to Catch a Mouse"

I would argue that, on the other hand, success in counter-insurgency depends on how many casualties one is willing to inflict--and how many one is willing to suffer. Fighting such a foreign war, against an enemy that is in no position to inflict decisive defeat in one's homeland, gives little incentive to do what it may take to win in today's liberal and media-soaked Western world. Unlike the world of the Indian Mutiny.

The French and the Russians, for example, won asymmetrical wars in Algeria and Chechnya in the 19th century, but lost asymmetrical wars in those same places in the 20th century...

Not so. The French won militarily in Algeria last century; they lacked the political will to keep it up. So far the Russians are still winning--at a horrible cost to the Chechens--in Chechnya.

One must convince the locals that one's interest is not just transient. A lesson for Afghanistan?

Perhaps neo-neo-imperialism is needed. But that will not happen.

Mark C.

Update: "Might, Will, Sacrifice"

What does it take to win a war? A young Canadian soldier thinks out loud...

Taking the system by the scruff of its neck

Bill Clennett, who became the answer to a trivia question after his run-in with Jean Chretien, is a candidate in the Quebec provincial election:

The activist once grabbed by the neck and wrestled to the ground in 1996 by then-prime minister Jean Chrétien is running for office in the Quebec election.

Bill Clennett is running as a candidate for Québec Solidaire, a left-wing sovereigntist party, in western Quebec's Hull riding, which has been held by the Liberals since 1981.

Clennett said the sovereigntist Parti Québécois has turned its back on its socially progressive roots, and his party is trying to fill the gap.

Damian P.

Afghanistan: An answer to media spin

This is the headline for the link at Afghanistan Watch: "Minor PTSD Cases May Benefit from Afghanistan".

This the headline on the CTV story itself: "Soldiers with mental illnesses return to combat".

The CTV story is based on this top of the fold front page screamer at the Globe and Mail: "Stressed-out soldiers sent back to Kandahar".

Read the stories and vote for the most accurate headline.

Mark C.

First they came for the idiots

Rubert the martyr:

If he’s reading this, I’d like to ask Professor Ed Morgan of the CJC when the fuck is his organization going to start defending their allies, who fight shoulder to shoulder with them against anti-semitism, from the many false accusations that they themselves are anti-semites? When they come for us Prof. Morgan, why do Jews such as yourself remain silent? [emphasis added]

Damian P.

Another unfortunate accident

This kind of thing seems to a lot of Vladmir Putin's enemies, doesn't it?

A military correspondent for Russia's top business daily has died after falling out of a window, and some media alleged today that he might have been killed for his critical reporting.

Ivan Safronov, the military affairs writer for Kommersant, died Friday after falling from a fifth-story window in the stairwell of his apartment building in Moscow, officials said. His body was found by neighbors shortly after the fall.

With prosecutors investigating the death, Kommersant and some other media suggested foul play.

"The suicide theory has become dominant in the investigation, but all those who knew Ivan Safronov categorically reject it," Kommersant said in an article Monday.

Safronov's colleagues and relatives have described him as a strong, cheerful person who would be extremely unlikely to kill himself.

[...]

Safronov, who had served as a colonel in the Russian Space Forces before joining Kommersant in 1997, frequently angered the authorities with his critical reporting. He was repeatedly questioned by the Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor, which suspected him of divulging state secrets.

You know how I feel about conspiracy theories. But coming so soon after this, it's one hell of a coincidence, at least.

Damian P.

Update: more here.

Intelligence 101

Prof. Wesley Wark is doing a splendid job at the Air India Commission of Inquiry in explaining intelligence matters in general, and the Canadian system in particular. CPAC has video.

Mark C.

Update: "Intelligence 501" would have been a more appropriate title.

NDP turns on Rubert

About time. Jason Cherniak gives us the goods:

"Blogging Dippers should revolt"

"NDP condemns McClelland".

I wonder if the major media will notice. Can you imagine the reaction if such stuff had been written by a conservative blogger of any note?

Mark C.

Damian adds: the hilarious thing is that Rubert's latest comments about Jews ("When next they come for the Jews I doubt I’ll even be able to muster up a 'what a shame'.") come in a thread about his post accusing the religious right of antisemitism. He should know, I guess.

Update: Terry Glavin notes...

...the moral and intellectual slovenliness on the left these days, which I keep getting in trouble for pointing out...

Whilst chuckercanuck gives context.

Al-Qaida today

The bad news: they're rebuilding. The good news: three-quarters of its 9/11-era leadership have been killed or captured, leaving Al-Qaida largely in the hands of novices.

Damian P.

Blogging in Egypt

The jailed Abdel-Karim Suleiman - a.k.a. "Kareem" - is probably Egypt's best-known blogger, but he's not alone:

"Despite their small number, the bloggers have established themselves as an alternative media outlet," said Ehab el-Zalaky, a senior editor at the independent weekly newspaper al-Dustor, who has written extensively on bloggers.

Blogs also provide a platform for religious and social minorities whose issues rarely find space in traditional media.

[...]

Since Suleiman's arrest, said fellow blogger Wael Abbas, 32, Egypt's blogosphere has changed. "I cannot say I am not afraid," he told Reuters. "With this government one has to expect the worst."

Bloggers broke a major story in November when a number of them posted video footage and pictures of an Egyptian minibus driver screaming as he was sodomized, purportedly at a police station. The images led to the arrest of two police officers who now stand trial on charges of torture.

More torture footage has since appeared on the Internet, with the latest clip posted by Abbas showing a man in a police uniform beating and insulting two civilians. Viewed nearly 26,000 times on Abbas's blog, the video's authenticity could not be verified.

The Interior Ministry said allegations of systematic torture were exaggerated and part of a campaign to tarnish the image of the police.

Late last year, Abbas and another blogger reported what they said was mass sexual harassment of women in downtown Cairo by scores of young men. The government denied the incident but the bloggers' detailed description sparked an outcry in the independent Egyptian media.

"The time when they (authorities) thought they had control over everything has come to an end," Abbas wrote on his blog.

Damian P.

The greatest Hollywood figure of the last half century

Just to provoke. After Kubrick, perhaps Eastwood. I saw Play Misty for Me at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing in 1972 (16 mm). The bicycle ride back home was spooky.

Dead rabbits?

...many critics acknowledged [Fatal Attraction's] striking similarities to Clint Eastwood's 1971 film Play Misty for Me...

Mark C.

Liberal principles and consistency

National defence critic Denis Coderre says the Canadian Air Force does not need C-17 strategic airlifters. But, since the government is buying them anyway, Quebec should get its fair share of industrial offsets--a "big issue" in the next election (his English makes M. Dion seem Shakespearean).

M. Coderre has earlier said that a Liberal government would cancel the C-17 contract. Where's the pork then? What is the issue?

Such a person as national defence critic for the Official Opposition means the Liberals are not a serious party.

Mark C.

Backing away from the blood libel

Italian professor Ariel Toaff, who came under fire on this site for his controversial book about the alleged murder of Christian children by medieval Jews, says his book has been grossly misrepresented. They love him in Egypt, though.

Damian P.

Unfriendly fire

No matter what really happened during this incident, the damage is done - and it will probably get worse and worse as the story (with some embellishments) makes its way around Afghanistan:

Afghan authorities and witnesses dispute a U.S. military claim that militant gunfire may have caused Afghan civilian deaths after a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of U.S. Marines.

Up to 10 people were killed and 35 were wounded in Sunday's incident. The U.S. military puts the toll at eight, while the Afghan interior ministry uses the higher toll.

The death toll had been pegged as high as 16 in earlier reports. One U.S. soldier was also wounded in the clash.

[...]

Lt. Col. David Accetta, the top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, said the retreating Marines may have come under fire from multiple points.

"It's not entirely clear right now if the people killed or wounded by gunfire were killed or wounded by coalition forces gunfire or enemy attackers gunfire," he said.

Zemeri Bashary of the Afghan interior ministry said the chief of the ministry's criminal division would travel to the area on Monday to lead an investigation.

"The coalition says they have proof that gunmen opened fire," said Bashary. "But I think more of the gunfire was from the (U.S.) side."

Village elder Malik Shan told AP, "I can assure you 100 percent" that there were no militants firing.

Accetta said it's possible villagers wouldn't have seen any attackers firing from covered positions and that they would have focused more on the U.S. vehicles.

Damian P.

Update: another disastrous mistake, according to the Associated Press:

A NATO airstrike destroyed a mud brick home, killing four generations of an Afghan family _ nine people in all _ during a firefight between Western troops and militants, Afghan officials and relatives said Monday.

Militants late Sunday fired on a NATO base in Kapisa province, just north of Kabul. When fighter aircraft returned fire they hit a civilian home, killing five adults and four children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years, said Gulam Nabi, 51, a relative of the victims.

Maj. William Mitchell, a U.S. military spokesman, said officials were looking into the incident. The NATO base in Kapisa is staffed by U.S. forces and sits some 50 miles northeast of Kabul, the capital.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene said a large mud home in a compound of five buildings was destroyed, leaving only exploded bits of mud.

Why do the Taliban (not to mention Iraqi and Palestinian "militants") attack from populated areas? Because it works.

The Bloggers' Hotstove

I'm on the latest edition of Greg Staples's political podcast, along with James Bow and Dan "Calgary Grit" Arnold. (No, I don't have a speech impediment - the microphone must have been too close to my mouth.)

Damian P.

Chinese threats

The near term:

...the focus is squarely on China. Just as the Pentagon once published annual reports on "Soviet Military Power" and "Soviet Space Power," it now issues annual reports on Chinese military capabilities; they are far better than the old analyses of Soviet power, but the analysis remains spotty. For instance, the recent congressionally mandated report, "Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2006," from the defense secretary's office, covers many Chinese military innovations — including a new doctrine of modern warfare and the purchase of more advanced weapons systems — but failed to predict a "hit to kill" anti-satellite test...

The longer term:

China advances and we decline because, among other things, its vision is disciplined and clear, while ours is burdened by fear, decadence and officials who understand neither Chinese grand strategy nor its nuclear component.

This has led the United States unwittingly to encourage China to move toward nuclear parity. In the next five years, as we reduce our arsenal from 10,000 strategic warheads to 1,700 [or up to 2,200 actually, emphasis added - MC], China's MIRV'd silo-based missiles and imminent generations of MIRV'd mobile and sea-based ICBMs will easily allow a breakout from warhead numbers now variously estimated to range from 80 to 1,800.

[...]

[The Chinese] know that every facet of America's economy, military and society depends on individual and networked electronic devices. Were these to fail all at once and irreparably, the nation would seize up, perhaps for years.

Faced with victory, or with loss, they might choose to -- and who would venture to guarantee that they would not? -- detonate half a dozen high-megatonnage nuclear charges in the mesosphere, in an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) strike perhaps not even in American airspace, cooking almost every circuit and semiconductor, rendering the American government blind, deaf and dumber than it is already and the country unable to resist the inroads that would surely follow...

The long run:

...Mann argues...foreign critics of China's human rights abuses are told not to be so outspoken. After all, there is no point in hurting Chinese feelings or making the Chinese authorities dig in their heels. Mann is particularly scathing about what he describes as the "Lexicon of Dismissal." Criticism of China is dismissed as "bashing," "provocative" or "anti-China" (a favorite of the Chinese themselves), and any such censure always runs the risk of turning China into an enemy.

In his anger over this muzzling trend, Mann comes close to seeing a conspiracy by well-meaning but self-serving American elites -- with, of course, the happy acquiescence of the Chinese communists -- to keep the United States investing in and trading with China.

[...]

...What would it mean for the United States -- and, indeed, the world -- if 20 or 30 years from now a much richer and more powerful China proved to be every bit as authoritarian a state as it is today? What if that China were one in which the middle classes decided, much as they did in Hitler's Germany, to opt for stability and prosperity over democracy?

Mann thinks that scenario highly likely, even if he does not share the alarmist view now taking root in some Washington circles that China is going to challenge the United States militarily...[?]

Indeed. As the case of Nazi Germany clearly indicates, there is no necessary correlation between an advanced economy and good domestic or international behaviour--to put it mildly. One might note also that many these days see Bush's America as an almost equally "rogue state".

Mark C.

Update: There are lies, damn lies, and statistics:

China will boost defence spending by 17.8% in 2007...

...international experts have estimated that China's true military spending may be three or more times the official figure, with much money involving weapons development and purchases, secret programs and businesses, and paramilitary forces not shown in the public books...

Negotiate what, exactly?

"Negotiate with the Taliban," demands Eric Margolis:

Anti-Western forces are quickly gaining ground in Afghanistan. What Washington and Ottawa keep claiming is an "anti-terrorist operation" against a handful of al-Qaida fighters and Taliban has, in fact, turned into fast-growing Afghan national resistance to foreign occupation. Were it not for the U.S. Air Force's might and ubiquitous presence, U.S., Canadian, and British troops would soon be driven from southern Afghanistan.

[...]

Negotiating a deal with Taliban and other Afghan resistance forces is the only way out of this morass, not expanding a war that is already lost.

I don't think it's fair when people call Jack Layton "Taliban Jack." I have no problem with "Taliban Eric," though, to describe a writer who sounds downright giddy about one of the most repressive governments in recent history being restored to power.

Damian P.

"What went wrong?"

Norwegian blogger Bjorn Staerk has a lengthy, heartfelt post about his earlier positions on Iraq, terrorism and Islam. Read it all.

Damian P.

Reform in Saudi Arabia?

Stephen Schwarz, a stalwart critic of Wahabbism, and Irfan al-Alawi look for signs of hope.

Damian P.

Charter-compliant

Bob Tarantino knocks another one out of the park.

Damian P.

Afghanistan: James Laxer beats Scott Reid

It is truly stunning to find better analyis at rabble.ca, from a far-left professor, than in the Toronto Star from a former Liberal prime minister's director of communications.

Mr Reid writes:

Election's polarizing issue could be Afghanistan

...this is Harper's war and he alone is responsible for our current predicament. It was his desire to eschew peacekeeping in favour of a more muscular combat focus...

This is what Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Hillier said in July, 2005, when Mr Reid was Mr Martin's close adviser; peacekeeping is clearly eschewed:

Canada's elite JTF2 soldiers are heading to Afghanistan as part of a 2,000-troop deployment that will target the "detestable murderers and scumbags" behind the rise in international terrorism, General Rick Hillier said yesterday.

In a blunt briefing that signalled a new aggressiveness at the top of the Canadian Forces, the Chief of the Defence Staff said the impending operations are risky but necessary in light of last week's bombings in the British public-transit system.

[...]

"We're not the public service of Canada, we're not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people."

Previous Canadian missions in Afghanistan have provided security in Kabul, the capital. But the next three missions, involving 2,000 troops, will be heavily centred in the southern mountains, where soldiers will be called upon to hunt down and fight the insurgents...

Mr Reid is either suffering from acute loss of memory or is engaging in shameless mendacity. Too much beer and popcorn, I guess.

Mark C.

What increasing gap?

Andrew Coyne does the math that left-leaning think thanks (and our major media) seem unwilling to do themselves:

Did you know that most Canadians -- 80 per cent of them -- are actually poorer now than they were thirty years ago? No? But it says so right here. According to CTV News, “a new study shows that nearly 80 per cent of Canadian families are working more and earning less than they did 30 years ago.”

Over at CanWest News Service, the picture was even gloomier. Not only were the poor getting poorer, but it seems the rich were getting richer: “These are the best of times for Canada’s richest families, who keep getting richer, while the rest of Canadians are working harder and seeing no pay-off, a new study has found.” The CBC sounded the same theme: “Canada's rich are getting richer while the incomes of poor people continue to stagnate in a time when the wage gap should be shrinking, a new report on the Canadian economy said Thursday.”

But when it comes to rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer stories, nobody beats The Toronto Star. The paper splashed the study across its front page, with gallons more coverage inside. And why not? The title of the study, from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, might have been written by a Star headline writer: The Rich and The Rest of Us.

[...]

...All of the above figures are for pre-tax incomes, before the tax-and-transfer system goes to work. What do the figures show after tax? They show the system redistributes more from rich to poor than ever before. The richest 10% of families earned 31 times as much as the poorest 10% before tax in 1976; by 2004, they were earning nearly 82 times as much. But after tax, the ratio barely moved: from 8.1 to 9.9. Put another way, the tax system compressed the earnings gap by a factor of 4 in 1976. In 2004, it was working twice as hard, compressing the earnings gap to less than one-eighth its pre-tax ratio.

This is a remarkable finding. If there is one thing the CCPA believes to its soul, it is that the last three decades have been pretty much one long neo-conservative nightmare of deregulation, free trade, tax cuts and the like. Yet their own figures show the system has grown more redistributive, not less, in that time. You’d think that would have been the headline.

Mark C.

No comment

From the New York Sun, Feb. 27 (via BOTW):

The ruins of two large synagogues in evacuated Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip have been transformed into military bases used by Palestinian Arab groups to fire rockets at Israeli cities, according to a senior leader of a Gaza militant group.

[...]

"We are proud to turn these lands, especially these parts that were for long time the symbol of occupation and injustice, like the synagogue, into a military base and source of fire against the Zionists and the Zionist entity," Mr. Abir [a spokesman] said.

Mr. Abir blamed the Jewish state for the desecration of the Gaza synagogues by Palestinian Arabs, claiming the decision to leave the structures intact was part of an Israeli conspiracy.

Israel "left the synagogues behind so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them," Mr. Abir said. [emphasis added]

Damian P.

Kooky Koulter

Rick Moran has had enough. So have many of the top conservative bloggers. So have I.

Damian P.

A nation in denial

While American icon Clint Eastwood portrays the Japanese sympathetically in Letters from Iwo Jima, the Prime Minister of Japan denies that his nation's well-documented war crimes ever happened:

Anyone who doubts the Japanese army forced Asian women into sexual slavery in World War II should "face the truth," South Korea's foreign minister said yesterday as outrage grew over comments by Japan's prime minister that there was no evidence of the enslavement.

Women's rights activists in the Philippines and a group of politicians in South Korea denounced the remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday that there was no proof so-called "comfort women" were forced into prostitution during the war.

[...]

Historians say some 200,000 women – mostly from Korea and China – served in Japanese military brothels throughout Asia in the 1930s and 1940s. Witnesses, victims and even some former Japanese soldiers say many of the women were kidnapped or otherwise forced into brothels, where they could be raped by scores of soldiers a day.

Abe on Thursday said there is no proof the women were forced into prostitution: "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion."

It is nothing short of scandalous that the Japanese - who were never "de-Nazified" as thoroughly as was Germany - have been allowed to look like the victims of World War II, instead of the aggressors. The Allies' actions during the war, including the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are valid subjects for debate and discussion - but Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking should be essential reading in every school.

Damian P.

No refuge in the outback

"Australian Hicks charged with war crime".

Mark C.

Fly me to the moon

Jupiter and Mars are just too far. Charles Krauthammer argues the case for manned exploration. Much as I love the idea, I just don't see liftoff for quite some time.

...then there's the glory. If you find any value, any lift of the spirit in a beautiful mathematical proof, in an elegant balletic turn, in any of the myriad human endeavors that have no utility but only breathtaking beauty, then you should feel something when our little species succeeds in establishing new life in a void that for all eternity had been the province of the gods. If you don't feel that, you are -- don't take this personally -- deaf to the music of our time.

Mark C.

Can you imagine someone like this...

...getting a very senior position in any Canadian government? The depth of talent in the US, and the willingness of administrations of either stripe to use it, really is quite something.

The press will likely focus on the dissenting opinions of the new counselor [to the Secretary of State] over the past two years. He has at times called the White House "incompetent", using "cockamamie schemes" in rebuilding Iraq. As one of the more influential neoconservative thinkers, he has been a gadfly from the right for an administration beset by gadflies in all directions.

Cohen's hiring may mark a shift at State. Rice has received condemnation from the administration's base for her work on the crises in North Korea and Iran, especially the former. Former Rice supporters worry that she has drifted into the Colin Powell/Brett Scowcroft mode of realpolitik rather than emphasize a strong response to nuclear proliferators and terror-supporting states.

Cohen scolded the White House for an unrealistic approach to certain foreign-policy goals, and worse, for allowing itself to fall into a policy cocoon that punishes dissent. His hiring shows that the administration has listened to his criticism and wants to fix the problem. His arrival could signal a strengthening at State after a season of flirting with appeasement.

Or maybe Ms Rice is just hoping he can come up with some bright ideas to deal with situations that seem increasingly insoluble.

Mark C.

Pulling away

An Angus Reid poll puts the federal Conservatives a staggering fourteen points ahead of the Liberals:

The online survey of 3,189 Canadians by Angus Reid Strategies, conducted between Feb. 20 and 27, suggests the governing Conservatives may be on the brink of a majority at 40%, with two out of five decided voters indicating they'd cast ballots for them if an election was called tomorrow. The Liberals are 14 percentage points behind at 26% while the NDP are at 15% support. The Bloc Quebecois is fourth at 10%, followed by the Green party at 8%.

The Angus Reid Strategies poll surveyed 3,189 Canadian adults, but did not state the poll's margin of error.

Even I think this one might be a rogue poll. But on the heels of a Decima survey giving the Tories a nine-point lead, the Liberals must be in total chaos right now.

What's going on here? I think Canadians are seeing that Stephen Harper and the Conservatives just aren't as frightening as they'd been led to believe, while Stephane Dion and the Liberals seem to be moving away from the political center:

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion will deliver what his party is billing as a major speech on "social justice" in Dartmouth today, continuing an assault he began this week on what he calls Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s "neo-conservative agenda."

Mr. Dion will tell a town hall meeting at the North Dartmouth Community Centre that the Tories are moving the country in the wrong direction.

"The economy alone is not decreasing the gap between the rich and the poor, and I will explain why and I will explain how much it is important for us to stay strong on social justice in order for us to have a country that is prosperous, green and fair," he said in an interview Thursday.

Mr. Dion said the Tories are ignoring parts of society.

"Women, aboriginals, the fight against poverty, to help the disabled, to help the people who are the most vulnerable in our society," he said.

I was one of the few people who believed there would be no federal election this year. Now I'm not so sure.

Damian P.

Connect the dots, Luke

Don't get angry, you sheeple, we're just asking questions:

Why was the rebel pilot who supposedly destroyed the Death Star reported to be on the Death Star days, maybe hours, prior to its destruction? Why was he allowed to escape, and why were several individuals dressed in Stormtrooper uniforms seen helping him?

[...]

How could a single missile destroy a battle station the size of a moon? No records, anywhere, show that any battle station or capital ship has ever been destroyed by a single missile. Furthermore, analysis of the tape of the last moments of the Death Star show numerous small explosions along its surface, prior to it exploding completely! Why does all evidence indicate that strategically placed explosives, not a single missile, is what destroyed the Death Star?

A Hot Air commenter adds, "there are many more questions that we need to demand answers to–like why the original Death Star explosion footage was clearly doctored to make it appear more dramatic."

Damian P.

Gentlemen, synchronize your watches

Amazing what can get overlooked in today's world (Feb. 26, p.18, text subscriber only):

The F-22 continues to encounter bumps in its first air expeditionary force deployment to Okinawa. The 12 aircraft from Langley AFB, Va., spent an unscheduled week at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, after the leading four had to abort the trip's last leg. As the Raptors reached the International Date Line, the navigation computers locked up so the aircraft returned to Hickam until a software patch was readied. "Apparently we had built an aircraft for the Western Hemisphere only," says a senior U.S. Air Force official. When the F-22s arrived at Kadena AB, Okinawa, some Japanese citizens held a protest against the aircraft's noise.

Mark C.

Afghanistan: Three months without a Canadian fatality

Bruce Rolston at Flit reports an important fact the MSM have not. Just like a month ago:

Canadian Afghanistan update you didn't read

In the "News you didn't read in your weekend papers" column, it has been over two months since the last Canadian fatality in Afghanistan.

No, it's not going to last forever. Let's hope it lasts as long as possible, though.

Oddly, The Economist does note this reality--and a more fundamental one:

But it is the rising number of Canadian soldiers being killed in Afghanistan that is most likely to determine whether voters eventually choose to see the job through. Since the first troops arrived in 2002, 44 soldiers and a diplomat have lost their lives. The most recent deaths were recorded in November. But with analysts predicting a new offensive by Taliban insurgents when the snow melts this spring, the already wavering home front may be further tested.

Mark C.

Update: Ted at Cerberus is back and picked up this post.

Upperdate: The National Post published a letter of mine on this March 3: "When no news is good news".

Horror in Alabama

A twister ripped through a high school in Enterprise, Alabama this afternoon, killing at least eight people.

We Newfoundlanders love to complain about the weather, but thank God we don't get tornadoes up here.

Damian P.

How bad are the Liberals under Dion?

So bad that Chuckercanuck sees Bob Rae as their saviour.

Mark C.

Damian adds: the latest Decima poll: Conservatives 36, Liberals 27 (up four points and down three, respectively, since last week).

Why the A-bomb was necessary

Allied prisoners, huge casualties in an invasion, and uncountable deaths in China, Taiwan, Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, most of Indonesia, and parts of the Philippines--all occupied by Japan in August, 1945. The book is First into Nagasaki.

Mark C.

Let those people go

Reed Scowen, former member of the Assemblée Nationale du Québec and adviser to premier ministre Robert Bourassa, suggests the Rest of Canada wake up and discover itself.

It is not going to be easy to get ourselves believing in a Canada of nine provinces and three territories. We are carrying a lot of baggage. For 30 years we have been told about our obligation to correct past injustices; about two founding nations; about learning French for national unity; about the fragility of francophone society; and above all about the impending breakup of our country and the terrible things that might happen to us.

[...]

Quebec has already left Canada. Its name still appears on the door and it sends somebody around regularly to pick up cheques. But Quebecers don't live here any more.

It's time for Canada to move on.

At the same time, the Globe's Lawrence Martin provides (though he does not realize it himself) more good reasons for a divorce--and, boy, does he dislike Alberta:

Canada is a remarkable story for the degree to which one province has been able to define it. Our status as a progressive, liberal, culturally tolerant nation -- a beacon to the world -- owes itself in large measure to Quebec.

The pillar of the right has been Alberta. The pillar of the left has been Quebec. In the battle of the two magnitudes, we all know which side triumphed. Benefiting from having the ship's captain so much of the time, Quebec values have most often become those of the federal government's.

[...]

One can scarcely imagine how different a country would have emerged had it been Alberta pulling the levers of power in Ottawa over the past four decades...

While the Ottawa Citizen's Brigitte Pellerin illuminates the fantasy world of Quebec politics: the RoC cash cow.

You will, I trust, be happy to hear that if Quebec separates, you get to keep sending subsidies. No, really. In this Quebec election the sovereigntists are not content to mess with your emotions by threatening to tear your country apart without giving you a say in the matter. Now they want to tear your country apart and raid your bank account, too...

And this takes the cake:

In Quebec, fair share means 60%

Mark C.

"Consequences" for Wappel

Tom Wappel, the only Liberal MP who voted in favor of extending anti-terrorism laws for three years, will be disciplined by leader Stephane Dion:

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said Wednesday MP Tom Wappel will face unspecified “consequences” for breaking party ranks and voting with the minority Conservative government on an anti-terrorism law vote.

However, several of his colleagues, including three Liberals who also sided with the government but abstained from voting with Dion’s blessing, say they do not believe Wappel will be, or should be, disciplined.

B.C. MP Keith Martin said Wappel should not be penalized and that MPs should be allowed to vote freely on such contentious issues as national security.

[...]

On Wednesday the Liberal leader told reporters Wappel, who declined requests for an interview, remained a member of caucus.

When asked whether Wappel would face some sort of discipline Dion replied yes but that it was an internal caucus matter.

Asked to clarify whether he would be disciplined, Dion said: “There are always consequences in certain circumstances but we don’t comment.”

Dion, however, said abstainers would not be disciplined.

Wappel deserves credit for showing some guts on this issue. But any Conservatives thinking about luring him across the floor should remember this.

Damian P.

Why they hate her (continued)

Jay Nordlinger on Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

I actually think that Hirsi Ali makes them ashamed — makes her critics ashamed. They know that she is courageous, that she has put her life on the line, that she sees into the heart of the major problem of our time. They hate her the way people hate anyone who delivers a message they can’t stand to hear. She says, “Act,” and they don’t want to act, so this beautiful and brave and clear-seeing woman is anathema to them.

She makes them ashamed because she is out there defending the Western liberal values that they themselves should be defending. They know they should be defending and protecting Hirsi Ali against the brutes who would kill her, but they won’t — because confronting radical Muslims is something that disgusting right-wingers like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney do.

In addition, they believe that Hirsi Ali and other frank and fearless people stir them up — stir up the Muslims, stir up the radicals. If only they would pipe down, and keep to their own business, they would leave us alone.

Well, they won’t leave us alone.

Finally, it makes matters worse that Hirsi Ali is black — because it means everything to the Left that they are the friends and protectors of the dark-skinned, while their opponents, the Right, are racist louts. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a black woman who escaped from the clutches of a savage and “patriarchal” environment, is everything they should love and protect. But they just can’t, because they fear that Pat Robertson would approve.

Damian P.

Federal spending: Two good news items

Getting one's priorities right:

The pre-budget increase in estimated spending includes a 14.1-per-cent, or $2.1-billion hike in expenditures to $16.9 billion, by the Department of National Defence to cover a variety of additional military expenditures, such as the expansion of the Armed Forces and operations in Afghanistan.

[...]

CBC, meanwhile, will see its funding cut by $68 million or 6.1 per cent, in large part due to reductions in funding for English and French language radio, television and new media...

Mark C.

Airvan

A European aircraft manufacturer slims down:

European aircraft maker Airbus announced 10,000 job cuts and a timetable for slashing its factory network Wednesday, in a bid to solve the crisis caused by problems with its A380 superjumbo jet.

Almost immediately after unveiling its strategy, workers in three factories in Germany downed tools, foreshadowing what is expected to be a bitter struggle between the company and labour organisations.

Airbus said it planned to axe jobs across Europe in the next four years, with 4,300 cuts in France, 3,700 in Germany, 1,600 in Britain and 400 in Spain.

[...]

Airbus said it would sell two production sites in Germany and one in France, and set up industrial partnerships for a factory in Germany, another in France and in Britain.

The future A350 mid-size long-haul airliner, a 10-billion-euro project to serve a vital segment of of the airliner market, is to be built at a French factory in Toulouse, southern France.

Fifty-percent of the manufacturing of the main structures of the aircraft is to be done by sub-contractors.

In return, Germany is to benefit from increased production of the small A320 family of Airbus planes, the most popular jet and consistent earner for Airbus...

As for the A400M military transport, which many in our media and the opposition parties have in effect been touting as a true competitor for the C-17s (CC-177 now for the Canadian Air Force) and C-130Js the government is buying (contract actually signed for CC-177s), consider this from Aviation Week and Space Technology, Feb. 26 (text subscriber only):

...the Airbus Military A400M...project continues to experience delays. The latest setback involves flight testing of the first TP400-D6 turbofan, which has slipped to the summer from the end of March, according to aircraft and engine-maker representatives.

[...]

French government officials are keeping a close eye on the A400M. Francois Lureau, chief executive of the French armaments agency (DGA), suggests it's impossible to predict at this point whether the contractual commitment can be met by industry. Clearly, there's no margin left in the program, he notes. France should be the first A400M recipient, with deliveries slated to begin in October 2009.

The U.K. government publicly maintains it will have an operational capability in 2011; but within the military, there's little confidence that this date can be held.

In recent weeks, Airbus has revealed slight changes in the A400M plan, including a decision to potentially delay start of final assembly of the first flight aircraft by up to three months...

Mark C.