Crossing over

The decline of the SUV and minivan, the rise of the CUV:

The switch from sport utility vehicles to crossover utility vehicles in North America is helping to keep some Canadian auto plants humming, says a Bank of Nova Scotia report.

Crossovers, which combine the ride of a car with the space of an SUV, should become the largest segment in the North American market next year [emphasis added - MC], displacing mid-sized cars, Carlos Gomes, a senior Scotiabank economist, said in his monthly examination of the auto industry.

"CUVs have existed as a segment only since the 2000 model year and, like SUVs in the 1990s, the segment has witnessed phenomenal growth, climbing from only 7 per cent of overall Canadian and U.S. vehicle sales in 2002 to more than 17 per cent so far this year," Mr. Gomes said. "However, in contrast to the SUV craze, which peaked in 2003, demand for crossovers should continue to expand over the next decade."

[...]

High gas prices and a proliferation of new models in the CUV segment are helping to drive sales. Fuel economy of CUVs is better than that of SUVs in part because they are lighter in weight.

In addition to knocking mid-sized cars out of the leadership spot, CUVs have also helped to send minivan sales skidding [emphasis added].

Sales of minivans are down 18 per cent from 2006 and are on pace to slide to 1.1 million units in Canada and the United States this year, down from 2.1 million at the peak in 1999.

More here. The sales rise may in part be simply a question of definition. According to the second link the Toyota RAV4, which used to be considered an SUV, is now a CUV (Toyota says it's "Too intelligent to be categorized"). I guess the Honda CR-V is now a CUV too ("Total pleasure, "zero guilt"; "crossover-sized frame").

Mark C.

Damian adds: some of these "crossover" vehicles are quite nice, especially the Mazda CX-7 and Ford Edge. But if you want a family hauler, I still think you're better off with (gasp!) a minivan - or, even better, a Mazda 6 wagon (now discontinued, unfortunately, but there might be a few left).

How to get your house toilet-papered this evening

If raisins, toothbrushes or even Jack Chick tracts don't get the desired result, this ought to do the trick.

Damian P.

Halloween horror

Can your heart stand the terror of...Mr. B. Natural?

Part two here - if you dare.

Damian P.

And as for Mr Steyn...

The superspooks are going to get you--in the movies if not in the real world:

...In Hollywood, The Bourne Ultimatum is the standard template: Every plot has a government agency or well-connected corporation behind it. And anyone who doubts the influence of the medium should consider that a substantial proportion of the population now watches the news like a movie. The World Trade Center got taken out? Interesting. Who did it? Mohammed Atta and a gang of Saudi males? Yeah, yeah. But what’s the plot twist? Who really did it? Someone in the government, right? The planes were switched in mid-flight and the passengers were “disposed of in the Atlantic Ocean” (Professor A K Dewdney of the University of Western Ontario), and voice-modification technology was used to fake the phone calls to loved ones, and Flight 93 was “taken out by the North Dakota air guard” (retired Colonel Donn de Grand Pre), and anyway everyone knows fire can’t melt steel (Rosie O’Donnell), so Bush must have done it, and, if you don’t believe me, ask yourself why World Trade Center Tower 7 had to be destroyed.

And, if you point out that having a bunch of planes hijacked and replaced by Predator drones and the crew and passengers dumped over the Atlantic would seem to be a big enough conspiracy that somebody would have leaked something by now, if only to get a book deal, well, that just shows how cunning it is. Or that you’re in on it. There have always been conspiracies, of course, but today there’s only one, with the same relentless message: The bad guy is us, our government agents, our cabinet officials, our corporations. America is one unending director’s cut of The Usual Suspects, with Karl Rove as Keyser Sose. And yes, yes, I know Rove is supposed to have “left” the White House, but doesn’t that strike you as a bit convenient?

This sensibility is something worse than mere liberal bias. It corrodes reality itself...

Mark C.

Damian adds: Steyn on 9/11 conspiracy theories: "if 9/11 was really an inside job, you wouldn't be driving around with a bumper sticker bragging that you were on to it."

Andrew Coyne on the march

This should really give Maclean's a fighting chance (via Paul Wells, also of the magazine--along with Mark Steyn). Early National Post redux?

TORONTO, Oct. 30 /CNW/ - Ken Whyte, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Maclean's, today announced the appointment of renowned journalist and columnist Andrew Coyne as National Editor of the magazine. One of the most original and compelling voices in Canadian media, familiar to millions of newspaper readers and TV viewers, Coyne will join Maclean's in early November. "We are delighted to have Andrew at Maclean's," says Whyte. "He's a great addition to our enviable roster of correspondents. He's a brilliant journalist -- funny, insightful, profound. He'll write a column as well as longer pieces. We'll also benefit from his editorial guidance in our coverage of national affairs in print and online. Andrew knows Canada and its politics as very few others do but his interests are broader than just Ottawa and we intend to use the full scope of his talents at Maclean's."

AC's own post is here.

Adam Daifallah thinks Maclean's "...is fast becoming the best newsweekly anywhere." I think AC is the best journalist working primarily in the Canadian major media. He makes one think.

Mark C.

"The best-looking car of 1974"

"Though it wasn't really a great car, there's just something about the AMC Matador X that makes me want to buy one and drive around with the windows down, listening to Stevie Wonder."

Damian P.

The end of SNN?

"Tom Paine" of Shire Network News, a podcast to which I've been contributing audio commentaries for some time now, interviews the leader of Belgium's far-right Valaams Belang political party - and confronts him about the racist elements of the party platform.

Unfortunately, the interview has caused a schism between some of the people who put together SNN every week. But I think Tom did the right thing in calling out this neo-fascist, and that mainstream conservatives should have nothing to do with European ultra-right political movements like the VB, the Sweden Democrats, the Swiss People's Party or the British National Party.

A commenter at LGF put it best: "Anti-Islamofascism is not anti-Muslim or anti anything but anti-fascist. An alliance with fascists who are opposed to Islamofascism is still an alliance with fascists."

Damian P.

The killer soda machine

Just in time for Halloween, The A.V. Club compiles a list of the most ridiculous horror-movie monsters of all time.

I'm glad Maximum Overdrive made the cut (that gem also featured a killer drawbridge, a killer electric carving knife, and a bank machine calling Stephen King an "asshole") but the list if marred by the egregious omission of 1991's Body Parts and its villain - namely, the arm of a serial killer, transplated onto Jeff Fahey's body. No one remembers this movie except me, and the Simpsons writing staff.

Damian P.

Hate literature

That loaded phrase accurately describes material being sold in mosques all over Great Britain. No prizes for guessing which country is financing it:

Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain’s leading mosques, according to research seen by The Times.

Some of the fundamentalist works were found at the bookshop in the London Central mosque in Regent’s Park, which is funded by the Saudi regime and is regularly visited by government ministers. Its director, Ahmad al-Dubayan, is also a Saudi diplomat and was among those greeting King Abdullah when he arrived in Britain last night for his official state visit.

[...]

A key theme of the books was a “strident sectarianism” which told Muslims that they should remain separate from other faiths and resist integration. The report stated: “Simply put, these notions demand that the individual Muslim must not merely feel deep affection for and identity with his fellow believers and with all that is authentically Islamic. The individual Muslim must also feel an abhorrence for nonbelievers, hypocrites, heretics, and all that is deemed ‘unIslamic’. The latter category encompasses those Muslims who are judged to practise an insufficiently rigorous form of Islam.” Most books stopped short of calling for violence. But they created a climate of intolerance and contempt for nonMuslims that could be exploited by violent jihadists, the researchers said.

The report called for a radical overhaul of Britain’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, which it argued has a “powerful and malign” influence over British Islam and sponsored the export of fundamentalist Islamic doctrine.

Melanie Phillips, as you might expect, has more. The full report (warning: it's a 202-page PDF document) can be found here.

Damian P.

Hitler savages Brits for not fighting anti-semitism

That headline would make about as much sense as this:

U.K. Soft on Terrorism? Saudi King Says So in BBC Interview

[...]

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia accused Britain of not taking international terrorism seriously in an interview with the BBC.

The Saudi monarch said Britain failed to act on intelligence provided by Saudi Arabia that could have prevented the 2005 bombings on London's transit system.

But a May 2006 report by the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee on the attacks found that Saudi Arabia's intelligence was "materially different from what actually occurred on 7 July and clearly not relevant to these attacks."

Oh, I agree that the Saudis are taking international terrorism seriously. Very seriously indeed.

Damian P.

Hillary and Afghanistan

A letter of mine in the Globe and Mail:

The next President Clinton

MARK COLLINS

October 29, 2007 - page A22

Ottawa -- John Ibbitson, in his informative essay A Superpower Overstretched, But Surprisingly United (Globe Essay - Oct. 27), points out the likely continuities in U.S. foreign policy if a Democrat, especially Hillary Clinton, becomes the next president. It is odd, however, that he does not mention her policy on Afghanistan, the issue likely of most concern to Canadians. In the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Senator Clinton wrote that "our military effort must be reinforced."

I wonder how our opposition politicians, many of our pundits and the Canadian people will react to that position.

Also Norman Spector's LETTER OF THE DAY.

Mark C.

One small reason to be in Afghanistan

The people we are fighting did this:

People still speak of the Buddhas as if they were there. The Buddhas are visited and debated. A “Buddha road” just opened. It boasts the first paved surface in Afghanistan’s majestic central highlands and stretches all of a half-mile.

But the 1,500-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan are gone, of course, replaced by two gashes in the reddish-brown cliff. They were destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban in their quest to rid the country of the “gods of the infidels.” The fanatical soldiers of Islam blasted the ancient treasures to fragments.

[...]

...The visitor is drawn into the void as if summoned, not by vacancy, but by the towering Buddhas themselves.

Yet they are in pieces. Nasir Mudabir, 29, a director of the site, ushered me into a makeshift shelter where boxes with sandstone and plaster fragments from the two Buddhas are kept. Metal remnants of the bombs that destroyed them are preserved separately: they are jagged where the stones are smooth to the touch.

Why keep evidence of the barbarians’ arsenal? “It’s part of the story,” Mudabir said. “It’s history, bad or good. Instead of going forward, we went backward.”

[...]

Hazara refugees, who have returned from Iran after Afghanistan’s decades of conflict, eke out an existence in Taliban-despoiled caves once covered with bright murals.

That this is a holy place, sought out by Buddhist pilgrims over the centuries, is written in light, form and stone.

The smaller, eastern Buddha, known locally as “Shamama,” stood 125 feet tall and has now been dated to the year 507. The larger, called “Salsal,” rose to 180 feet. It was constructed in 554. One theory holds that the builders were dissatisfied with the first and erected its neighbor in the pursuit of perfection.

[...]

...What began here in March 2001 has spread. The Taliban is back, sort of, seeping across the Pakistani border in a campaign fed by an Internet-borne jihadist message. The Web is a force multiplier for any guerrilla movement.

This was the Afghan burning of the books. The Nazis burned Brecht. The Taliban, then sheltering Osama bin Laden, bombarded the “un-Islamic” Buddhas. The burning presaged war. The destruction presaged 9/11: two Buddhas, two towers.

Heinrich Heine noted that “When they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings.” When Buddhas buckle, people will be crushed...

Before. And then...Now this. Such mindless hatred--including from some Canadians.

Mark C.

Like son, like father

Looks like Charlie won't be the only troofer at the Sheen/Estevez dinner table this Thanksgiving.

Damian P.

Car of ghosts

What would be bid for a Hitler Mercedes, also used by Mickey Rourke? A stretch limo, supposedly owned by Pol Pot, is up at ebay.co.uk for 35,000 pounds. This certainly must add to the vehicle's charm:

The car was also used by Matt Dillon in the making of his cult classic - City of Ghosts - starring Gerard Depardieu and James Caan...

More at Spiegel Online.

Mark C.

Flatrock

I've been in Newfoundland for a couple of days. Here's what the place (specifically, Flatrock, about 20 minutes outside of St. John's) looks like this time of year:

Damian P.

Lies, damn' lies--and The Beer Store

No truth in advertising there. In Ontario most beer is sold through this evocatively named outlet, jointly run by the major breweries in the province. I noticed a sign on a cart today:

Did you know that unlike the liquor store every brand of beer we carry is ice cold?

In fact The Beer Store makes a point of claiming its beer is "ice cold" But, er, all the beer at The Beer Store is, at its lowest temperature, around 15 degrees Celsius. How much ice does one see in those circumstances? Besides which, the beer which the liquor store does sell chilled is actually cold.

Must be an awful lot of frustrated Americans and Quebeckers when they actually open a bottle or can for the first time...

Mark C.

Why "Islamofascism" is a bad term

I agree with Dan Gardner of the Ottawa Citizen about "Islamofascism" (though Damian may not), if fascism is to retain any shred of substantive meaning. However I think Mr Gardner underestimates the long-term existential (and demographic--see Mark Steyn) threat. Remember that a great Muslim oak from little Arabian acorns grew.

At least since the days of Oswald Mosley and the Spanish Civil War, "fascist" has been the preferred slur of campus revolutionaries and other leftists of limited vocabulary. But something curious has happened in the last few years.

Among conservatives, "Islamofascist" has become the standard label for those who butcher in the name of Allah. Practically unknown prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, the term was first embraced in the nether regions of the blogosphere before it seeped into the mainstream. President George W. Bush used it only once, in 2006, but Rudy Giuliani, the Republican with the best shot at succeeding Bush, has made it a crowd-pleasing fixture of his stump speech.

[...]

This is all quite appalling for liberals and leftists. The end of the political spectrum that once saw a fascist under every crew cut now finds the right's use of its favourite epithet offensive, even bigoted.

Nonsense, huffed Christopher Hitchens in Slate. Both fascism and violent Islamism, Hitchens wrote, "are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind. ... Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories." And on it goes, with Hitchens generating a long list of shared characteristics and concluding that if it goose-steps like a fascist, it is a fascist, and should be called what it is.

As usual with Hitchens, his case is clever, compelling and far more substantial than similar efforts of much lesser writers. It is also wrong.

"This is a very dubious term because all radical movements have things in common but they're not the same thing," says Stanley Payne, a leading scholar and author of Fascism: Comparison and Definition. "Fascism and communism have an awful lot in common but communists weren't fascists and it's not helpful to call communists fascist."

A list of the differences between fascism and violent Islamism is as easy to produce as a list of the similarities, Payne notes. Fascism was ultra-nationalistic but Islamism rejects nationalism. Fascism was secular, not religious. Fascism deployed state violence and warfare, not terrorism. And so on.

Payne also worries that "Islamofascism" could be counter-productive, even dangerous. "One of the most important things is to separate the great majority of Muslims who are peaceful from the terrorists, so you have to use terminology that defines and specifies the terrorists and doesn't sound like a broad-brush painting of Muslims in general," he says. Gluing "Islam" and "fascism" together "makes it sound as if Islam in general is fascist." That's no way to win hearts and minds.

More after the jump.

Mark C.

[...]

In this sense, the "Islamofascist" label is part of a larger trend. Ever since 9/11, many writers, commentators and politicians have cast the terrorist threat in ever-grander terms - culminating in the self-evidently absurd notion that small bands of lightly armed fanatics are, like the Red Army and the Wehrmacht before them, a threat to the every existence of civilization. This process is driven, in part, by psychology.

[...]

Inflate terrorism and it ceases to be a mere problem, threat or danger. It is an existential crisis - and the fight against it becomes an existential mission. "What I dread now," wrote George Packer in the New York Times, "is a return to the normality we are all supposed to seek."

Fascists do have their uses.

Iranian halftime show

Not bad, I guess, but they've still got a way to go before they can match the North Koreans.

Damian P.

Baby steps for NATO on Afghanistan

This week's meeting of defence ministers has produced indications of small, additional troop commitments to help the Dutch in Uruzgan:

NATO allies rallied yesterday with pledges to assist Dutch troops in war-torn southern Afghanistan in a move widely interpreted as a dose of political courage as the Netherlands approaches a crucial parliamentary debate on its role in the international mission.

Dutch media reports last night named France, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech republic as either confirmed, or in the process of confirming modest military deployments to Uruzgan, where 1,700 Dutch soldiers are locked in the thick of fighting one province away from the Canadians in Kandahar.

De Volkskrant newspaper said the French commitment, though initially not expected to exceed more than a few dozen military trainers, was especially important for the Netherlands as public pressure mounts for a withdrawal of troops.

The promises, discussed during a closed-door meeting of NATO defence ministers at the Dutch seaside resort of Noordvijk, included pledges from five other nations to send more military personnel to Afghanistan. But the cumulative numbers are expected to fall far short of the battalion-sized increases sought by U.S. officials.

[...]

Dutch military analysts told the Toronto Star that beneath the façade of high tension, the Netherlands is quietly cobbling a pragmatic solution, including symbolic support from other allies, which will enable a one-year extension of the Dutch mandate in Uruzgan.

Pretty small beer, but, I'm confident, enough for the Dutch to extend their mission. If Canada can also get help at Kandahar that will make it simpler for our government to extend our own mission (though doubtless with a reduced combat role--my analysis is here).

Sadly, as far as I can see, the story above was not carried in the NY Times, Washington Post or LA Times; two solitudes, or something. This is a story that I don't think you'll see in our media, more solitudes:

Dutch troops launch offensive against Taliban in southern Afghanistan

This story also gives some more detail about the NATO meeting:

On Wednesday diplomats said nine nations had pledged more troops to bolster the 41,000-strong NATO force. The offers ranged from 20 to 200 troops from countries including Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and non-NATO members Georgia and Croatia. Officials said it could add around 1,000 extra troops in total.

Germany offered about 100 instructors and France 50, but there was no sign those nations, along with Italy, Spain and Turkey, were dropping a refusal to send combat forces to the battlefields in the south and the east.

The Chief of the Defence Staff is asking for rather more (where's the minister?):

...General Rick Hillier was asked about this week's NATO decision to rent helicopters flown by civilians [maybe from a Canadian company?] for use in southern Afghanistan, and why no military aircraft could be found to do the job.

Gen. Hillier said there were helicopters available in European countries, and called on his European counterparts to provide more equipment and troops on the ground.

[...]

Gen. Hillier specifically listed three things on his European wish-list: helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and ground troops. He said he has spoken regularly to his European counterparts about the issue, and pointed to some positive steps taken by countries such as Portugal, which recently sent a company of troops to the dangerous Panjwai district west of Kandahar city emphasis added]...

Here's a view that will find little acceptance in Germany (or most of quasi-pacifist Western Europe):

Time for the Bundesmacht

See the table at the bottom of this link for a list of country troop contributions to ISAF (the Canadian total is considerably less than the standard 2,500 figure because quite a few of our personnel committed to the mission are not included, e.g. "National Support elements").

The Danes, for their part, have had a bright idea.

Mark C.

Update: More good stuff from the Danes:

Denmark is in the process of ramping up its own force in Helmand to almost 700 from just under 400 and is adding four Leopard 2 tanks, inspired in part by Canada's successful use of tanks in neighbouring Kandahar...

Congratulations to Airbus

The A380 makes its first commercial flight (with video at second link). Notice the curved rise from the wingroot to the main wingspan--just struck me, unique I think but would welcome correction.

I don't think the six-month delay to the Boeing 787 will hurt significantly.

Mark C.

Leaving Islam

Johann Hari explains what ex-Muslims are going through - not in Saudi Arabia or Iran, but in tolerant, secular Europe:

Ehsan Jami is an intelligent, softly-spoken 22 year-old council member for the Dutch Labour Party. He believes there should be no compromise, ever, on the rights of women and gay people and novelists and cartoonists. He became sick of hearing self-appointed Islamist organisations claiming to speak for him when they called for the banning of books and the “right” to abuse women. So he set up the Dutch Council of Ex-Muslims. Their manifesto called for secularism – and the end to the polite toleration of Islamist intolerance. As he put it: “We want people to be free to choose who they want to be and what they want to believe in.”

Ehsan was immediately threatened with death. He was kicked to the ground outside the supermarket. He was grabbed in a street with a knife put to his throat. He can’t afford to be glib about the risk: he remembers the daylight decapitation of Theo Van Gough on the streets of Amsterdam. Yet instead of rallying to Ehsan, his party condemned him. The Dutch Vice-Prime Minister Wouter Bos said they disapproved of an organisation that “offends Muslims and their faith”.

In Britain, my friend Maryam Namazie recently set up the British Council of Ex-Muslims. She was immediately flooded with calls from frightened people who wanted to join but were too intimidated. Endless phone threats inform her she will soon be beheaded – but she has learned that the police just aren’t interested. “They have never been very helpful,” she says. “They act as if it’s your fault for ‘provoking’ these people, when in fact the Islamist movement uses threats and intimidation as a tool to silence their critics.”

[...]

If Christian fundamentalists were doing this – as they used to, and would like to again – none of us would hesitate in erupting in rage. But because Islamic fundamentalists are doing it, we feel awkward, and fall silent. The only difference is the colour of their skin. There is a word for this: racism.

Women like Mina expose a hole in the stale logic of multiculturalism. She shows that secularism is not a ‘Western’ value: she thought of it all by herself, in a rural village in Iran. Yet the attitudes that lead to the persecution of apostates are widespread even within British Islam, because we patronisingly assume it is ‘their culture’ and do not challenge it. Some 36 percent of British Muslims between the ages of 18 and 24 think apostates should be murdered. The younger British Muslims are, the more they believe it – a bad sign for the future, unless we start arguing back. This isn’t just kids sounding off. Some act on it: a Despatches documentary earlier this year, ‘Unholy War’, found dozens of cases of apostates having their cars blown up, their kids threatened and even being beaten and left for dead, on British streets.

More thoughts from Oliver Kamm and Harry's Place.

Damian P.

X1/9 + 510

It wasn't very fast, and it made Ladas look reliable by comparison, but I've always had a soft spot for this old Fiat.

I was taken to my first day of Kindergarten in one of these. Too bad it disintegrated so quickly (ah, the seventies), because I'd love to have one now.

Damian P.

Bubba bashes blackshirts

Bill Clinton smacks down a gaggle of 9/11 conspiracy idiots. (Which proves that he was in on it, of course!)

Damian P.

They're welcome where, exactly?

Andrew Sullivan responds to the banning of Ron Paul supporters from RedState.com:

...here's a simple message to Ron Paul supporters. You're welcome here. The Dish believes in expanding the range of debate among conservatives, not crushing it.

That's nice, but wouldn't it help if Sullivan had a comment section?

Damian P.

Yawn

Ted Rall is still desperate for attention. So why are we giving it to him?

Damian P.

Why the right rules talk radio

Lots of interesting speculation here, in response to Air America getting bounced off the dial in Austin, Texas (a very liberal city in a very conservative state).

In Austin, at least, I wonder how many potential Air America listeners instead tune into this Austonian.

Damian P.

The big government party

It's now the GOP, and not just because of defense and homeland security spending:

Take almost any yardstick and Bush generally exceeds the spending of his predecessors.

When adjusted for inflation, discretionary spending — or budget items that Congress and the president can control, including defense and domestic programs, but not entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare — shot up at an average annual rate of 5.3 percent during Bush’s first six years, Slivinski calculates.

That tops the 4.6 percent annual rate Johnson logged during his 1963-69 presidency. By these standards, Ronald Reagan was a tightwad; discretionary spending grew by only 1.9 percent a year on his watch.

Discretionary spending went up in Bush's first term by 48.5 percent, not adjusted for inflation, more than twice as much as Bill Clinton did (21.6 percent) in two full terms, Slivinski reports.

Defense spending is the big driver — but hardly the only one.

[...]

Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, points to education spending. Adjusted for inflation, it's up 18 percent annually since 2001, thanks largely to Bush’s No Child Left Behind act.

The 2002 farm bill, he said, caused agriculture spending to double its 1990s levels.

Then there was the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit — the biggest single expansion in the program’s history — whose 10-year costs are estimated at more than $700 billion.

And the 2005 highway bill, which included thousands of “earmarks,” or special local projects stuck into the legislation by individual lawmakers without review, cost $295 billion.

“He has presided over massive increases in almost every category … a dramatic change of pace from most previous presidents,” said Slivinski.

Could a Democratic President and Congress spend even more money than this? Yeah, actually, they might. But the Republicans can't be given the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Damian P.

Conservatives the new, improved Liberals Wimps?

The current government certainly is an improvement. But at what point does putting power before principle start overly corrupting?

The fact is we don’t really have a conservative party in this country. Of course, we have a party which calls itself “Conservative.” But it doesn’t actually believe in conservatism.

Rather, it believes in a new philosophy or ideology, which former Conservative Party campaign manager Tom Flanagan outlines in his recent book, Harper’s Team. This new ideology is seemingly based on four points: Winability, Incrementalism, Moderation and Persistence. I prefer to summarize it by the acronym W.I.M.P.

What do WIMP Conservatives believe in?

Well they actually don’t believe in anything. They don’t believe in conservative principles or values or ideals. And they certainly don’t believe in any kind of conservative vision for Canada. WIMP Conservatives, in fact, regard ideals and principles as nothing but obstacles to winning elections. And that’s all that really matters to them — winning elections. If they have to act like Liberals or Greens or New Democrats to win elections, well that’s what they will do.

Or to put it another way, the Conservative Party wants to hang onto power simply for the sake of hanging onto power. Without a vision or an ideological compass, WIMP Conservatives are like a rudderless ship, floating along with the current of public opinion...

I admit to considerable frustration too. But there is a real, political, Canadian world. Let's just see what they do if they win a majority government--though even writing that is probably "scary".

Mark C.

Blackberry rules

Doesn't look like another Nortel...

Research in Motion becomes Canada's most valuable company

And it's taking over the world:

RIM reaches key deal to sell in China

But is the Blackberry a Good Thing, all things considered?

Mark C.

Damian adds: Molson, meanwhile, is banking on the iPhone coming to Canada. Sometime. Eventually.

Happy UN Day!

Meryl Yourish has some suggestions for how bloggers can celebrate the big day.

Damian P.

Rudy and the Sox

True, Yankees fans don't hate the Red Sox the way Red Sox fans hate the Yankees. (Until the Sox won the World Series a few years ago, people said the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry was like the Princeton-Cornell rivalry, of which only people at Cornell were aware.) Still, this is an eye-popping bit of political opportunism:

In baseball-crazed Boston, Mr. Giuliani, a die-hard Yankees fan who often wears a Navy Yankees jacket to games, said he was backing the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series. "I'm rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series. I'm not saying that just because I'm in Massachusetts," Mr. Giuliani said in comments likely to reverberate over the airwaves in New Hampshire, a center of fanatical Red Sox support. "I'm an American League fan. I go with the American League team maybe with the exception of the Mets because of my loyalty to New York." Mr. Giuliani's comments were in contrast to a slogan often seen on t-shirts throughout New England, "my favorite team is the Red Sox … and whoever is playing the Yankees."

In that spirit, Mr. Fehrnstrom said, "if Colorado wants Mayor Giuliani to root for the Rockies, they're going to have to move their primary up."

If Giuliani and Hillary Clinton win their respective primaries, we'll have a fight between the fake Red Sox fan and the fake Yankees fan. My opinion of Ron Paul would improve dramatically if he came out in support of a team that didn't use public money to build its stadium, if such a team exists.

Let me assure you, in the unlikely event that I become a serious contender for Prime Minister of Canada, that I will never under any circumstances say I'm rooting for the Montreal Canadiens.

Question for baseball fans: do any of you really cheer for the American League or National League, depending on where your team plays? When Super Bowl time comes around, I don't cheer for the NFC just because the Bears are an NFC team.

Damian P.

Into Kurdistan

The Turks are almost certain to send in at least some troops:

Desperate to avoid war on yet another front, the Iraqi government vowed yesterday to crack down on Kurdish rebels using the north of the country as a base to attack into neighbouring Turkey.

The offer didn't seem to mollify Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who repeated that his country was ready to invade northern Iraq "at any time" in order to hunt down fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party, better known as the PKK. Two days after a daring PKK ambush that left 12 soldiers dead, Turkish troops continued to mass along the country's 300-kilometre border with Iraq.

Debate in this country yesterday was not about whether to invade northern Iraq, but over how big and how deep such an incursion should be. Funerals held yesterday for the dozen dead soldiers turned into emotional political rallies, as tens of thousands of mourners waved the national flag and chanted for action against not only the PKK, but the Kurdistan Regional Government that administers the north of Iraq, and its President, Massoud Barzani.

As the mood in Turkey grew angrier, the government banned television channels from discussing Sunday's deadly ambush, saying such broadcasting was having a "negative impact on public order" and creating the impression of weakness in the Turkish military.

[...]

Mehmet Ali Kislali, veteran military correspondent at the Radikal newspaper, said that while a full-scale invasion isn't likely in the cards, the military is contemplating establishing bases on the Iraqi side of the border - akin to the "security zone" Israel once maintained in south Lebanon - in order to cut off the PKK's routes through the mountains into Turkey.

Mr. Kislali said that while the mildly Islamist government of Mr. Erdogan and the staunchly secular military have had strong differences in the past, there is no quarrel between them over the need to deal with the PKK. "There is full understanding on this between the military and the government," he said. "The government has left all the decisions to the military."

Some commentators cautioned that an operation launched to deal with the estimated 3,000 PKK fighters in Turkey could end with the country mired in the already multisided fighting raging across Iraq. The country's parliament last week authorized the army to pursue the PKK into Iraq if the general staff deemed it necessary.

"This is not about a cross-border operation any more. If Turkey gets into northern Iraq, it is total war," wrote Yalcin Dogan, a columnist with the Hurriyet daily newspaper. "You might get into northern Iraq, claiming it is about the PKK, but it may turn into a war between Turkey and northern Iraq or even Iraq."

Mr. Barzani has said that he hopes Turkey will not chase the PKK into Iraq, but has promised Iraqi Kurds will defend their territory if Turkish troops invade.

Damian P.

Afghanistan and NDP economy with the truth

This document is generally more accurate that what one has become accustomed to from the buggers-out:

Dissenting opinion of the New Democratic Party To the Standing Committee on National Defence

Respectfully submitted by:
Dawn Black, MP

Yet Ms Black cannot forgo mendacity:

In spite of the establishment of ISAF under UN mandate, the US has maintained its anti-terrorism coalition forces of approximately 8000 soldiers, which have no official UN mandate...

This is from the most recent, Sept. 2007, UNSC resolution--similar to annual preceding ones:

“The Security Council...

“Recognizing that the responsibility for providing security and law and order throughout the country resides with the Afghan Authorities and welcoming the cooperation of the Afghan Government with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)...

“Reiterating its support for the continuing endeavours by the Afghan Government, with the assistance of the international community, including ISAF and the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) coalition, to improve the security situation and to continue to address the threat posed by the Taliban, Al-Qaida and other extremist groups, and stressing in this context the need for sustained international efforts, including those of ISAF and the OEF coalition...

“Welcoming the completion of ISAF’s expansion throughout Afghanistan, the continued coordination between ISAF and the OEF coalition, and the cooperation established between ISAF and the European Union presence in Afghanistan, in particular its police mission (EUPOL Afghanistan)...

“5. Calls upon ISAF to continue to work in close consultation with the Afghan Government and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General as well as with the OEF coalition in the implementation of the force mandate...

Does that not rather sound like an "official UN mandate"? Why do these fools continue to try to mislead people with untruths? Are they no longer capable of recognizing truth, so deep is their hatred and petty mindendness? And are our government and media so dim, or careless, as not to be able to refute them?

Mark C.

Mass murder by Tito

Another reason Yugoslavia broke up; people did not, in private, forget:

After digging for two hours in a chilly forest clearing, the workers had their evidence: bones and the soil-covered, blackened remnant of a shoe confirmed that this was a secret mass grave from World War II.

In the trees a short distance from where the diggers worked, an elderly man looked on. He would not give his name, but said he was at the same spot when he was 16, one morning in 1945, after he heard shouting in the night.

The Lancovo grave is one target of a Slovenian government program to help people come to terms with a hidden legacy of unprecedented slaughter during the war.

So far, 540 such sites have been registered across Slovenia. They are believed to hold up to 100,000 bodies.

"The killings that took place here have no comparison in Europe. In two months after the war, more people were killed here than in the four years of war," said Joze Dezman, a historian who heads the committee for registering hidden graves.

"Srebrenica is like an innocent case compared to that," he said, referring to the Bosnia Serb Army's killing in 1995 of about 8,000 displaced Muslim civilians in Bosnia, their corpses bulldozed into the earth.

Those killed in Slovenia were mostly soldiers who collaborated with the Nazis. Most were slain in the woods without trial. They were victims of a vengeful killing spree by partisans of the Yugoslav leader after British-led Allied troops turned them back from Austria and handed them over [emphasis added].

Slovenia, now a European Union country of two million people, declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, but the graves remained a public secret until excavations in recent years.

"These killings took place in Slovenia because this is where the war was ending: this is where the Iron Curtain was anticipated, this is where refugees found themselves at the end of the war," Dezman said.

[...]

In August, Slovenian researchers confirmed there were at least 15,000 victims in a secret mass grave in Tezno, about 120 kilometers northeast of Ljubljana, where mostly Croat and Montenegrin soldiers were slain and buried.

[...]

Slovenians account for about a fifth of all victims but, so far none of the killers have been brought to trial.

Mark C.

So that's why she won

9/11 was no big deal, according to Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing:

Doris Lessing, the Nobel Prize-winning British author, has called the attacks on New York on Sept 11, 2001, "not that terrible", compared to the campaign of terror waged by the IRA in the UK.

Lessing, 88, who won the Nobel Prize for literature earlier this month and was praised by the judges for her "scepticism, fire and visionary power", said the attacks were not as "extraordinary" as some Americans thought they were.

"September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible,” she told Spanish newspaper El Pais.

"Some Americans will think I'm crazy. Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it was neither as terrible nor as extraordinary as they think. They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be," she said of the Americans.

"Do you know what people forget? That the IRA attacked with bombs against our Government.”

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the Sept 11 attacks of 2001. More than 3,500 died and thousands more were injured in more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland. (via Tim Blair)

Yeah, the stoic Brits never, ever get hysterical in the wake of a tragedy. If, God forbid, a remnant of the IRA kills 3,000 people in one shot, then we can compare apples to apples.

Damian P.

Budding McVeighs

They were once inspired by The Turner Diaries. Now, they're more likely to be inspired by Loose Change.

Some of them are already seeking out targets.

Damian P.

People's car?

The European Court of Justice opens the way for Porsche to buy VW. (Now, how about more free trade within Canada?):

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg overturned Germany's so-called "Volkswagen Law" on Tuesday morning, saying it was protectionist. The decision clears the way for a potential takeover of Europe's largest carmaker by the much smaller automobile manufacturer Porsche.

The VW law dates from 1960 and was intended to save the company from foreign takeover. The European Commission has been waging a war of attrition on such laws because they block free trade within the European Union. Tuesday's court ruling should help the Commission -- the EU's executive branch, which brought its case against Volkswagen in 2005 -- challenge the convention of "golden shares," or special stakes held in publicly-traded companies by governments to reserve certain rights and shield the firms from unwanted takeovers.

[...]

An analyst with Merrill Lynch in London wrote to shareholders on Monday, ahead of the ruling: "We have believed for some time that there is a 60 percent chance that Porsche will move to an above-50-percent ownership of Volkswagen. We believe the starting gun for any move by Porsche could well be a favorable ruling from the Court of Justice."

Both Volkswagen and Porsche shares rallied on the news Tuesday morning, with Porsche's share price jumping 6 percent.

Mark C.

Quote of the Day

Kate McMillan: "There's a reason that the Saskatchewan Roughriders have never won a Grey Cup with the NDP in office."

Damian P.

Just wondering...

How would Andrew Sullivan react if Giuliani, Romney or Clinton supporters were advertising on white-supremacist websites?

I know Ron Paul is not a neo-Nazi, and I don't think his official campaign had anything to do with this. I'll even give him the benefit of the doubt about being a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. (He is a NAFTA conspiracy theorist, though.) But as illustrated by his regular appearances on the Alex Jones radio show, he obviously has no problem associating with questionable characters who will support him.

Which, come to think of it, makes Ron Paul pretty much exactly like every other politician in the world.

Damian P.

Update: don't ban the Paulestinians from your blog, says Captain Ed. (The Cap'n hopes to interview Paul for his internet radio show. That's one I'd really like to hear.)

Update II: Sullivan gets huffy about my use of the term "Paulestinians." I have to admit, it isn't nearly as classy as "Christianist" or "Weimar watch."

When they're good, they're very, very good...

...and seldom, I think, horrid. Excellent Canadian journalists [perhaps better described as "commentators" - DP]--because, like most of those Brits, they can write:

Colby Cosh:

It was early in the morning when I got Jonathan Kay's e-mail telling me about the paper's new series on the theme "If you had the power to change a single thing about Canada, what would it be?"... I found myself thinking, "Well, for starters, I'd make the damn place a little bit warmer."

[...]

Canada has set out on the right direction under recent governments, and the gravitational force of the brain drain probably seems less severe to a young person now than it did in 1990. But weather remains an intractable inherent factor in the quality-of-life differential between Canada and, say, Silicon Valley or Texas. Many of my friends and acquaintances would never have left for warmer climes if they had foreseen Alberta's economic boom, and for some, departing was an objective error. But when they imagine coming home now, they think of minus-30 February days and natural-gas bills and shovelling snow.

[...]

It is difficult to enumerate all the ways in which our cruel winters affect us. We normally consider them a given. But it's hard to avoid the suspicion that a few extra degrees of mean temperature might provide enormous net benefits to an icebound state such as ours. On cold days, when we're not concerned with looking like good internationalists who care deeply about Vanuatu and the Maldives, we all joke about being in favour of global warming. And heaven forbid we should act on our own interests when it comes to climate; but is it at least fair to ask what those interests really are?

The thing is that from Oshawa (just east of T.O. for the geographically challenged) west to Windsor, the centre of the Canadian universe, winters are hardly harsh. So people there--such as the "national" media in the ultimate centre of the universe--don't quite get the pan-Canadian picture.

As for attracting (other than to Vancouver and the GTA) the best and the brightest from India or almost all China...

Mark Steyn:

...The notion of a national interest, or strategic goals, or even (for Pearsonian nostalgics) a moral foreign policy, all are absent. That brave Canadian warriors (to use a word M. Chrétien never would) are performing heroically in Afghanistan is an entirely accidental by-product of the Liberals' shrivelled political calculus. For all his talk about "values," the great survivor of Canadian politics is closer to Oscar Wilde's man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. On, say, gay marriage, what does M. Chrétien actually believe? He might be for it, but reckoned the Canadian public weren't ready to be sold it. He might be against it, but figures he's got no choice but to string along with the court decision. He might have no view either way, but discerned an opportunity to tar the opposition as intolerant and bigoted. Who knows? And, given (as he says) "how few gay couples actually bothered to tie the knot," who cares? "While homosexuality, multiple divorces, and babies born before the honeymoon may be upsetting for many traditional people, they are the modern realities we have to recognize." And M. Chrétien's great skill is in recognizing modern realities without being encumbered by principle.

[...]

...The case for pre-emptive war [Iraq], pronounces Chrétien, would not have convinced "a judge of the municipal court in Shawinigan." This is the logical reductio of Trudeaupian foreign policy: a second-rank power that has attitudes rather than policies.

And, while Jean Chrétien may not have cut an impressive figure on the world stage, no doubt he still commands respect at that Shawinigan courthouse. "Even after I began to do quite well," he muses, "I preferred to build a house near my blue-collar friends in an area that became known as La Place Rouge, rather than in a bourgeois part of Shawinigan" -- never mind Westmount, or (as he snipes of "Mr. Black" during the Conrad peerage episode) Palm Beach, New York and London. As that tinnily paternalistic flourish of "my blue-collar friends" suggests, M. Chrétien was content to be the big shark in a small pond, working the room, dispensing favours, calling them in. It's hardly worth rerunning Shawinigate one more time except to note that, when I stayed at the Auberge Grand-Mère, Chrétien's blue-collar buddy Yvon Duhaime was an amiable mein host but his new publicly funded ensuite bathrooms didn't appear to be built to code: anyone over five-foot-three who sat on the toilet would have had to poke his or her knees out the door into the bedroom. Can't see what the Canadian taxpayer got out of that. But it accords with the Chrétien way of doing business: in a "diverse" nation, the state is the best arbiter of who deserves what slice of the cake.

[...]

...M. Chrétien also, as he says, "did well." He was in "public service" for 40 years, except for 20 minutes in the mid-eighties when he went into private life and amazingly became a multi-gazillionaire overnight. Mulroney's smooth when-Irish-pores-are-oozing gladhanding was aesthetically revolting to his fellow Canadians. Chrétien's liddle-guy shtick was both less oleaginous and far more lethally effective...

Mark C.

Shame on the Ottawa Sun

Outrageous headlines, Oct. 22:

Front page:

BATTLE FATIGUE

Troops overseas divided on future of Afghan mission

P.3 for the story itself:

Troops split on staying

The Canadian Press story itself quotes a total of two--that's right, two--soldiers who express doubts about whether the mission is worthwhile. Some split, some division. In the face of such completely mis-representative headlines like this, no wonder many Canadians have do not support the mission.

And from the Toronto Sun:

Canadian combatants divided

But the Calgary Sun gets it right:

Mission deadline called unrealistic

I guess in Calgary, the headline writer actually read the story closely.

Here's the original CP headline:

Soldiers agree Afghanistan needs Canada past 2009, debate what mission can do

The second part of the report, not included in the Sun stories, also provides considerable useful detail from which to assess the situation.

Meanwhile, on the broader war front:

Afstan: The Toronto Star notices the other fighting allies

Congratulations on their recent reporting.

Scott Taylor savages the Liberal governments' handling of Afghanistan. And an American civilian, who has worked in Afghanistan, gives a primer (provoked by comments at the CBC website) on the country's recent history:

Who Are The Taliban?

Mark C.

"The new culture wars"

They're between "phoney and real progressives," according to Sarah Baxter in The Times:

My own test for spotting a phoney liberal is as follows. If you think Bush is a fascist and Castro is a progressive, you are not a democrat. If you think cultural traditions can trump women’s rights, you are not a feminist. And if you think antisemitic rants are simply an expression of frustration with American and Israeli policy, you have learnt nothing from history.

[...]

Nick Cohen, whose book What’s Left? has just been published in paperback, identifies progressives as antitotalitarian internationalists who subscribe to “some kind of universal values”, as he puts it.

“The left are like old-style Tory imperialists, who believe rights are all very well for western Europe but not for Johnny Foreigner, and that the liberation of women is essentially for white-skinned women, not brown-skinned women,” Cohen says.

A case in point is the treatment of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalia-born author of Infidel, who has received an astounding lack of support from liberals and the left. An article in Newsweek described her as a “bomb-thrower”, when it is Hirsi Ali who faces death threats from real bomb-throwers merely for speaking her mind and has had to rush back to the Netherlands because its government will no longer pay for her bodyguards while she is abroad.

Natasha Walter, reviewing her book in The Guardian, wrote blithely: “What sticks in the throats of many of her readers is not her feminism, but her antiIslamism” - as if the two could be separated. It was Hirsi Ali’s culture that led her to be genitally mutilated as a girl, and it was her Muslim former co-religionists who murdered her friend Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker. Why should she remain quiet?

There's also a story about Che Guevara's children visiting Iran, which shows what can happen when radical leftists and Islamic fundamentalists find out they don't have as much in common as they thought. (via Harry's Place)

Damian P.

It might work...

A new protest campaign against the Burmese government. You got a better idea?

Damian P.

The $2,500 car?

Tata, an Indian company probably best known for making the ill-fated CityRover, is promising to build it. The Car Connection's Jerry Flint is skeptical.

Damian P.

Switzerland turns right

More evidence that Europeans are turning to far-right, unabashedly xenophobic political parties in response to mass immigration ("Islamization," some say):

The right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) is set to consolidate its position as the alpine nation's most popular grouping in a parliamentary election on Sunday, outstripping its rivals after a provocative campaign.

Polling booths in Switzerland are due to close around midday (11 a.m. British time). A large proportion of Swiss ballots are cast by mail in advance of election day. The first estimated national result is due at around 1900 local time (6 p.m. British time).

According to the last opinion poll conducted before the election, the People's Party are expected to win 27.3 percent of the vote, a slight increase over 2003 when they raced to the top of the polls amid accusations of xenophobia.

The SVP has again run a controversial campaign calling for the extradition of foreigners who commit serious crimes. It has been criticised by opponents and has ruffled the usually smooth waters of Switzerland's consensus-based politics.

Opposition to the SVP's campaign, which used posters calling for the "black sheep" of Swiss society to be booted out, spilled over into a rare outburst of violence on the streets of Berne earlier this month when police and left-wing activists clashed.

Drudge has a photo of the "black sheep" election poster, which makes "race-baiting" American campaign ads look very timid indeed.

Last month, Reason's Michael Moynihan wrote about the rise of the SVP and other anti-immigration parties:

That Europe is "trending racist" is surely an overstatement, though many of the continent's traditional paragons of racial and social tolerance, like the Netherlands, have travelled a bumpy road towards a multiethnic society and religious pluralism. After the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and the persistent death threats against anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders and Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali, many native Dutch have become noticeably less "tolerant" of Muslim immigrants. According to the New York Times, a 2005 opinion poll found that 35 percent of "the native Dutch questioned had negative views about Islam," while Dutch polling firm Motivaction found that "63 percent of respondents think Islam is incompatible with modern European life." But this, of course, is a two-way street. A study by Frank Buijs of the University of Amsterdam's Institute of Migration and Ethnic Studies showed that Moroccan youth in the Netherlands are deeply skeptical of Dutch liberalism, with 40 percent of respondents saying they "reject western values and democracy."

In Denmark, a country long associated with socialism and sexual liberation, anti-immigrant sentiment has markedly increased, causing a left-wing columnist for Sweden's biggest daily to brand his fellow Scandinavians an unreservedly racist lot: "Our little neighbor is Western Europe's most prejudiced, bigoted and narrow-minded nation." A deeply unfair characterization to be sure, but the far right Danish People's Party, the country's third-largest, with approximately 13 percent voter support, is a vital bit player in the ruling Venstre Party coalition.

The depth of European skepticism towards immigration is difficult to gauge by merely charting the progress of far right parties. Across the continent, fringe parties have watched as establishment politicians appropriate portions of their message. When British political candidates collate the latest opinion poll data—suggesting deep skepticism to increased legal immigration; demonstrating a startling preponderance of illiberal attitudes amongst British Muslims—they respond with alacrity. Yesterday, the Sunday Telegraph reported that "Tens of thousands of immigrant workers will be forced to learn English before they are allowed into Britain under a plan [Labour] Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to announce tomorrow in a speech to the Trades Union Congress in Brighton..." Not exactly Enoch Powell, but Prime Minister Brown is clearly not courting the Neil Kinnock-wing of his party either.

Damian P.

The US and Turkey: Armenia and Iraq

Charles Krauthammer takes on the Speaker of the House:

There are three relevant questions concerning the Armenian genocide.

(a) Did it happen?

(b) Should the U.S. House of Representatives be expressing itself on this now?

(c) Was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's determination to bring this to a vote, knowing that it risked provoking Turkey into withdrawing crucial assistance to American soldiers in Iraq, a conscious (columnist Thomas Sowell) or unconscious (blogger Mickey Kaus) attempt to sabotage the U.S. war effort?

The answers are:

(a) Yes, unequivocally.

(b) No, unequivocally.

(c) God only knows.

[..]

Turkey is already massing troops near its border with Iraq, threatening a campaign against Kurdish rebels that could destabilize the one stable front in Iraq. The same House of Representatives that has been complaining loudly about the lack of armored vehicles for our troops is blithely jeopardizing relations with the country through which 95 percent of the new heavily armored vehicles are now transiting on the way to saving American lives in Iraq.

And for what? To feel morally clean?

[...]

...the Ottomans were not friends. They were an enemy power in World War I [actually not--the US and Turkey were never at war with each other - MC], allied with Germany. Now the Turks are indeed friends, giving us indispensable logistical help in our war against today's premier perpetrators of crimes against humanity -- al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan. Friends don't gratuitously antagonize friends who are helping to fight the world's foremost war criminals.

[...]

Is the Armenian resolution her [Nancy Pelosi's] way of unconsciously sabotaging the U.S. war effort, after she had failed to stop it by more direct means? I leave that question to psychiatry. Instead, I fall back on Krauthammer's razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.

Sometimes Realpolitik is in order.

Mark C.

Words I never thought I'd write

Thank you, Bill Maher.

Damian P.

Paul/Fawkes '08

I have a strange kind of respect for their candidate, a man so principled he voted against sending emergency federal aid to Katrina victims, on the grounds that they chose to live in hurricane-prone New Orleans. But the Paulestinians creep me out more and more each day.

Why isn't Paul facing serious media scrutiny for this kind of thing, as Allahpundit asks? It seems to be a case where his maverick candidacy, and relatively low poll numbers, are actually working in his favor. If Ron Paul becomes a serious contender for the GOP Presidential nomination, then I think you'll see the mainstream media start asking some tough questions.

When I first read the LGF post about this video, in which Charles says it used imagery from V, I was hoping he meant this.

Damian P.

Who's afraid of a Harper majority?

Not Canadians, by and large:

Most Canadians say the best outcome of the next federal election would be a majority government, according to a new national Ipsos-Reid poll.

Moreover, the poll conducted exclusively this week for CanWest News Service and Global National reveals that of those Canadians who prefer a majority most think it ought to be led by Stephen Harper.

Fifty-eight per cent of those in favour of a majority would rather have Harper as the prime minister in such a circumstance, compared to 28% who preferred Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.

The vast majority of those surveyed, however, also said there should be no election until the spring at the earliest because there is still "important work" to be done by the government.

[...]

The survey, conducted since Tuesday's throne speech, said the Conservatives hit the magic majority number of 40% for the second consecutive week.

The Liberals trailed by 13 points at 27%, a spread that pollsters attribute to weeks of unrest with Dion's leadership, party infighting and ruptures within the Quebec wing of the party. The NDP garnered 14% support and the Green party had eight.

The Conservatives' lead over the Liberals in seat-rich Ontario widened to eight points from three points last week, virtually guaranteeing they would score a "solid majority" victory if an election were held today, Mr. Bricker said.

Tory support was 42%, up two points from the previous survey, while the Liberals dropped three points to 34%. The NDP had 13%, and the Green party 10.

In Quebec, the sovereigntist Bloc Quebecois led at 36%, but the Conservatives outpaced the Liberals by 26% to 19% as Quebecers preferred federalist option. The NDP registered 12% support and the Green party six per cent.

Full results here, in PDF format. I'm pleasantly surprised to see the Tories at 39% in Atlantic Canada, just four points behind the Liberals, but note the tiny sample size. (That probably explains why the Liberals lead 48-8 among Atlantic Canadians who want a minority government, but the Conservatives are up 52-37 among those who want a majority.)

I'd like to see that broken down between the four Atlantic provinces. My home province of Dannyland, I suspect, is pretty barren territory for the Harper Conservatives. I don't think he's doing much better in Nova Scotia, largely because of the Bill Casey mess, and PEI has given all four of its seats to the Liberals in the last few elections.

That leaves New Brunswick, whose provincial government is not involved in any contentious resource/equalization disputes with Ottawa, and where the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance did considerably better than in the other Atlantic provinces. Might Harper gain a few seats there?

Damian P.

Worth reading

If only any Canadian newspaper (whatever one's prejudices) could produce an op-ed page like this. Or this. Thomas Walkom and James Travers (Toronto Star)--just to choose two easy targets--would never get such prominence in the UK. People without wit, little knowledge, and of infuriating mediocrity.

Canada has three major newspapers, given the two solitudes: The Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post; the UK has four (decreasingly) "quality" dailies, The Telegraph, the Guardian, the Independent, and the Times. Now the UK may have around two and a half times the RoC's population, but that doesn't explain why their papers are so much more well-written in their op-ed sections. And about five times as stimulating--one way or the other.

Which is why I love reading the British papers, in print, when I go there. One the other hand their news reporting, at least foreign, for at least twenty years has been far behind that of the main US dailies. On June 3 this year the Telegraph's "Thomas Harding...[was] the only journalist with the troops..." in Afghanistan. Shocking.

Mark C.

I don't ordinarily condone vandalism

...but for once, I'm willing to make an exception.

Now, if only we could do something about these bloody T-shirts...

Damian P.

LIberals and the Canadian Forces

A post at The Torch:

Expectedly partisan

Mark C.

They want us there

A new poll shows that the people of Afghanistan - you know, the ones supposedly being killed, displaced and humiliated by Canadian and NATO forces - overwhelmingly support our presence in their country:

In a poll of Afghans conducted by Environics Research on behalf of The Globe and Mail, the CBC and La Presse, respondents expressed optimism about the future, strong support for the government of President Hamid Karzai and appreciation for the work being done by NATO countries in improving security.

In Kandahar, where the Taliban is stronger and violence more pervasive, support for the foreign troops was weaker, but respondents still want the soldiers to stay.

According to the survey, conducted between Sept. 17 and 24 with a sample of 1,578 men and women, 60 per cent said the presence of foreigners in the country was a good thing. Only 16 per cent said it was a bad thing, while 22 per cent said it was equally good and bad.

In Kandahar, where the Canadians are centred, Environics added to the number of respondents and asked a series of special questions. There, 61 per cent said the foreign presence was good while 23 per cent responded that it was a "bad thing."

[...]

When it comes to Canada's presence in the country, it has a relatively high profile, ranking fourth in public awareness after the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Asked which foreign countries are present in Afghanistan with soldiers, aid workers and businessmen, 95 per cent named the United States, 63 per cent named Germany, 52 per cent Britain and 46 per cent Canada.

But virtually no Afghans are apparently aware that Canadian soldiers are involved in fighting the Taliban. Asked which foreign counties are involved in battling the Taliban, 89 per cent of Afghans mentioned the United States and none mentioned Canada.

Even in Kandahar, 90 per cent said the United States was fighting the Taliban while only 2 per cent identified Canada. On the other hand, 25 per cent of respondents in Kandahar said that Canada was providing reconstruction assistance, compared with 27 per cent who said Britain and 28 per cent who said Germany.

Yet when the question was asked differently, awareness of the Canadian role was higher. When respondents in Kandahar were asked what the main purpose of the Canadian presence was in the province, 47 per cent responded that the main goal was to fight the Taliban, while 16 per cent mentioned reconstruction and 10 per cent answered that Canada was there to support the Karzai government.

Mr. Neuman said that because the United States has by far the most troops in the country, respondents immediately identified U.S. forces as the major fighters against the Taliban, but in Kandahar, awareness of the Canadian presence was high and their role was well-regarded, particularly when it comes to reconstruction work.

Support for the Taliban was surprisingly low, with only 14 per cent of respondents nationally saying they had very positive or somewhat positive views of the Taliban. In Kandahar, those positives rose to 20 per cent.

Damian P.

Mark adds: "Support for the Taliban was surprisingly low"...that's one way to look at the poll results (which, as I can see, the Globe has reported quite fairly). Damian Brooks does his own breakdown at The Torch:

Why would we abandon them?

CBC video of reaction to the poll, starting with troops at Kanadahar, is here. So far about the only non-Canadian media to notice the poll are Allahpundit and PakTribune.com. Pity.

Damian adds: The Prof noticed the results as well.

Welcome home, Ms. Bhutto

The death toll from a horrifying terror attack in Pakistan, directed at Benazir Bhutto amd her thousands of supporters, is 115 and climbing. Bhutto, who returned to the country after years in exile, survived:

Two bombs went off in a procession welcoming her back to the country after eight years in exile.

Her bullet-proof bus had just passed when the blasts happened.

She was unhurt and has been taken to her house in the city but at least 115 people were killed and around 150 others wounded.

An initial small explosion was followed by a huge blast just feet from the vehicle. At least one of them was thought to be a suicide bombing.

[...]

Militants linked to al Qaeda, angered by her support for the US war on terrorism, had threatened to assassinate her.

Regular updates at Hot Air, where Allahpundit makes a seemingly obvious point:

One of the weapons in the Taliban’s arsenal is an appeal to patriotism among Pakistanis: they’re all technically countrymen so Musharraf’s offensive in the tribal areas is, in theory, an attack on his own people. Bombing civilians who came out to see Bhutto very foolishly undermines that argument.

Damian P.

Living in a bubble

"A Reporter's Ottawa" sure is a tiny town. Rinaldo (dig the music) Hair Designers & Spa (21) has a certain cachet; Hy's (5) is (and I approve) old school red meat--22 oz. porterhouse $44.95. Some day I'll go.

I went to high school near 20.

Mark C.

Kos-acting

A dramatic reading by Charles Johnson. The resemblance to Alex Jones is startling.

Damian P.

Are there any good guys in Darfur?

What is to be done? An international, colonial, takeover of the area (which will not happen)?

...increasingly, the rebels are at risk of becoming the key stumbling block to peace, say analysts. In recent months, the rebels have:

• Split into more than a dozen quarreling factions.

• Accused one another of seeking personal fame, being bought off by Sudan's government, and representing the interests of specific tribes instead of all of Darfur's people.

• Killed 10 African Union (AU) peacekeepers, according to AU commanders, in the worst attack since the troops were deployed in 2004...

Still some Canadians think that by magical "leadership" we can do something substantive to help. I ask: what? And who would follow us?

Senator Dallaire joined opposition MPs and activists who used Parliament's reopening yesterday to showcase their call for Canada to provide more aggressive leadership in the long-frustrated search for peace in western Sudan...

Meanwhile, the peace agreement covering southern Sudan (in which perhaps two million people died over two decades of war) may be unravelling:

...U.N. and African diplomats step up peace efforts in Sudan's other crisis, the conflict in the western Darfur region.

Signers of the 2005 truce ending Africa's longest civil war have missed every major deadline, and tensions in the south have increased amid reports of a military buildup by both sides. Last week, former southern rebels took the dramatic step of withdrawing from a national unity government, accusing northern officials of blocking the peace agreement and failing to remove thousands of its troops from southern oil fields.

As Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir met Tuesday with leaders of the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Movement to discuss the crisis, both sides insisted that they didn't want to go back to war.

Analysts fear that renewed hostilities could trigger a humanitarian disaster even worse than in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people are believed to have died over the past four years.

"I don't think this means an immediate return to war. But it is a serious call for more attention and more robust political support for the process because war is certainly a possibility," said Sara Pantuliano, a Sudan expert with the Overseas Development Institute, a London-based think tank.

During the two-decade civil war, which pitted the Arab-dominated northern government against rebels from the mostly Christian and animist south, about 2 million people died, mostly from hunger and illness. The southerners' plight won support from American activists, particularly evangelical Christians...

What is indeed to be done? More Canadian leadership I guess--if M. Dion is up to speed:

We cannot turn our back on Africa ... and what does the government intend to do in Darfur?” Mr. Dion said...

Fantasyland.

Mark C.

Jack and Gilles went up to the Hill...

...but Stéphane won't go tumbling after them. To the polls, that is--his chances for an electoral crown being broken at the moment.

What is all this nonsense about how "Canadians don't want an election"? From what many pundits and politicians say, one gets the idea that actually causing people to vote in a free election is an outrageously punitive action against the populace. If that's the case, what's the point of democracy anyway?

Prediction: there will never be an election in Canada again!

Pity those poor, oppressed Americans who have to vote for the House of Representatives every two years--those groaning masses, yearning to be free of ballot boxes (oops! electronic voting machines).

Or those French who, in most districts in parliamentary elections, and in most presidential elections, must vote twice in two weeks (gasp!) so one of the candidates achieves a majority. I suppose if they were voting-averse Canadians they'd start another revolution to restore the ancien régime.

But I guess an ancien régime is what the Liberals want...

Mark C.

NCTO (Neil Clark Treaty Organization)

The last of the unrepentant British communists wants Iran, Russia, Syria and Venezuela to form a mutual defence pact against the evil Yanks. He doesn't say Zimbabwe should be included, the racist.

Clark says the Nazis could have been stopped, "had Britain, France, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia signed such a mutual defence pact in the 1930s." Funny, but I've heard about Clark's beloved USSR entering into such an alliance just before Hitler really got going...

Damian P.

It's the (Chinese) economy, stupid

Why Kyoto is deader than Stéphane Dion's Prime Ministerial aspirations:

China’s drive for wealth means end of our low-carbon dreams

Hu Jintao wants to make every Chinese twice as rich by 2020. He has done it once – in just five years, income per capita doubled to $2,000 (£983) - and the only obstacle in the Chinese President’s path is the fuel needed to stoke the boiler in China’s locomotive.

The president needs more copper, iron ore, zinc and natural gas. Above all, he needs more coal to keep the power stations humming nicely and more oil for Chinese cars and lorries. China accounts for more than a third of world demand for coal and the price in Australia soared this year as the People’s Republic switched from being an exporter to being an importer. If Mr Hu had a message for the world in his address to the Communist Party National Congress, it was this: we will burn our coal and, if we have to, we will burn yours, too.

What does this mean? Put bluntly, it means that the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gas emissions is dead and so is any prospect of persuading Beijing to bind itself to other curbs on carbon emissions. We can stop kidding ourselves that China will sign up to any green thingy that hinders his party’s ten-year plan to get rich quick. Instead, the ravenous demand for minerals and metals will continue and the desperate land grab by Chinese state companies in their pursuit of resources in Central Asia, Africa and Canada will become more politically embarrassing...

Mark C.

Might a pustulent boil be lanced?

In light of these sillinesses, should one care?

BBC faces strike over thousands of job cuts

...
The plan is to "transform" the way news is gathered by the BBC by ending the system of journalists from radio, television, News 24 and online all covering the same story backed by their own producers, technical and planning staff.

They will be required, where possible, to work across all three media to reduce duplication. The unions jealously guard the existing system.

A senior BBC source said: "Typically when a newspaper or commercial broadcaster contacts an organisation about a story one or two calls are made. When it's the BBC it is more like 26 because of the duplication. Sometimes three separate producers can be involved handling a report coming from a court case which could be handled by one person...

Mark C.

Update: 1,800 staff cuts announced.

Election unlikely

He'll make up his mind later today, but the Toronto Star says Stephane Dion probably won't bring down the government over the Throne Speech:

Hamstrung by a divided and restive party, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion appears to be leaning against using his 96 MPs to defeat the Conservative throne speech and force an election.

"We know that Canadians want as a priority that this Parliament work," Dion said in his initial response to the Conservatives' agenda-setting address last night.

"They don't want a third election in three years and a half."

However, he hammered the speech for its abandonment of the Kyoto protocol on climate change, its lack of clarity on the future of the military mission in Afghanistan and what Dion said was Prime Minister Stephen Harper's weak economic strategy. He also slammed the Tories' game plan for its "complete and shocking indifference to poverty in this country."

[...]

"I don't see poison pills here," Liberal deputy leader Michael Ignatieff told CBC-TV in a reference to the kind of throne speech policies that would have been completely unacceptable to the Liberals and forced them to topple the government.

"People don't want an election now. They're electioned out," Ignatieff added.

The Liberals' strategic response to the Tory throne speech was obscured in a widening uproar within the party over Dion's leadership.

Facing a revolt within the Liberal organization in Quebec, a frustrated Dion has been tempted to dump the Harper government and clear up questions about his leadership by winning or losing at the polls right away, sources disclosed.

But to do so, he would have to defy his closest advisers and most of the Liberal caucus, insiders said. In yesterday's closed-door Liberal meeting, those who argued in favour of an election were decisively outnumbered by MPs who said the party is nowhere near ready for an election, MPs reported.

With the Quebec wing of the party in total chaos, it's understandable if Dion doesn't want an election. But as Don Martin notes, he risks looking weak and scared, and losing whatever credibility he had left as an environmentalist:

It's only one paragraph in a 16-page Speech from the Throne full of the usual rah-rah rhetoric and resurrected tax cut and crime-fighting promises, but one key point forces Liberal leader Stephane Dion into a policy box shaped like a credibility coffin.

Kyoto -- the international greenhouse gas reduction treaty, not Mr. Dion's gas-generating pet dog -- is dead in Canada. Finally.

"Canada's emissions cannot be brought to the level required under the Kyoto Protocol within the compliance period, which begins on January 1, 2008, just 77 days from now," Mr. Harper wrote.

That acknowledgment makes us the first country in the world to engage a de facto retreat from ratified treaty obligations to reduce greenhouse gases below 1990 levels.

To spare his ailing party from a campaign disaster that would be marked by leadership disarray and party disorganization, the former environment minister now has to support the effective dismantling of a signature Liberal government accomplishment.

Yes, yes, there's the plan to float a symbolic opposition, giving just enough Liberal MPs a voting day off to ensure they don't push the government into an election.

But with the New Democrats testosteroned into the deluded belief they would be the big winner of any fall election, and the Bloc Quebecois believing they have to fight now or face annihilation in Quebec, the dirty job of propping up the government belongs exclusively to the Liberals.

The inconvenient truth behind his Throne Speech predicament is that Mr. Dion must either vote to save the planet or save his political ass. Half measures, desperate hair-splitting and voting shenanigans by the Liberals only justify public cynicism about his party as a band of quivering opportunists interested in keeping their MP paycheques.

Lest we forget, Kyoto still enjoys sacred cow status in public opinion and it was the Liberals whose MP successfully sponsored a bill last spring forcing the government to draft a plan to meet the Kyoto targets.

To accept the Speech from the Throne as an approved government agenda is to agree one of the party's few policy successes is an unattainable farce. It would deliver a hard, if not fatal, hit on the credibility of a leader whose claim to political integrity and personal honesty are his greatest, if not only, strengths.

Bring on the Ignatieff (or Rae? Maybe Kennedy?) era.

Damian P.

Stephen Harper isn't "Bush-lite"

He is, rather, Bill Clinton's younger brother (and note that JFK hairstyle). Here's the Speech from the Throne: talk about triangulation. Flanagan rules.

If there are "poisoned pills", try these:

1) Kyoto: can't be done
2) Afghanistan: the mission, with a (diminishing) combat role should continue until 2011--the Manley panel taken into consideration.

And one sentence:

[Our government] will again ask Parliament to repeal the wasteful long-gun registry...

Mark C.

Quote of the Day

Mike Duffy: "I think for the first time in Canadian history, we have a government which wouldn't mind being defeated, but it can't seem to get the opposition to come out against it."

Damian P.