Politically Canuck

According to this CBC story, a prosecutor in Texas is accused of using the word "Canadian" as a racial slur in a 2003 email. The prosecutor wrote in an email, "He overcame a subversively good defense by Matt Hennessey that had some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right thing."
There were no Canadians on the jury. But there were some African-Americans, and some are claiming the lawyer used the word "Canadian" as a racial slur against them.
The prosecutor defended himself by saying he had been led to believe that were actual Canadians on the jury, suggesting that somehow some Canadian nationals had slipped through the system designed to eliminate non-U.S. citizens as prospective jurors. He also said that other lawyers use the word "Canadians" to describe "liberals."

Time Really Flies....

And it was 38 years ago today....

Time Flies....

It was 31 years ago today...

Cheney v. The Daily Show

As mentioned at In These Times...

"Cheney’s long overdue need for ridicule is why we should be grateful that so many young people get their news from The Daily Show. Cheney’s office made the preposterous assertion that he didn’t have to comply with the Executive Order mandating the annual reports to the National Archives because he wasn’t part of the executive branch. Unfortunately for a dignified correspondent like ABC’s Martha Raddatz, the constraints of her job confined her to reporting, with a straight face, that Cheney has used “the opposite argument in the past, citing executive privilege when asked for information about his travel and visitors to his office.”
Jon Stewart, under no such proscriptions, can provide the level of disbelief that matches the outrageousness of this latest Cheney gambit. What The Daily Show consistently does best is juxtapose video of administration officials making their bogus pronouncements with video clips from the past, showing them saying the exact opposite. So Stewart showed Cheney on tape emphatically asserting executive privilege because he’s in the, er, executive branch. Stewart then looked into the camera to tell Americans that Cheney has always meant “to come up to us personally and say ‘go fuck ourselves.’ “"

Hottest. Day. Ever.

While it should be noted that one warm day does not necessarily constitute a global warming trend, last night was the warmest night ever recorded in Victoria (19.6 degrees Celsius), and today, at 36.3 degrees Celsius, was the warmest day ever recorded in Victoria.
The warmest day ever.
Ever.
Mind you, the forecast for Sunday is cool and showers....

Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart?

A 7-11 in Coquitlam (1198 Landsdowne Street to be precise) was one of the dozen or so in North America chosen to be turned into a Kwik-E-Mart to tie-in with the upcoming Simpsons' Movie.
So head there right away and go crazy, Broadway style! (But don't Bogart that Squishee.)

It Gets Worse

According to this CBC story, NASA scientists are finding that the Antarctic ice shields are melting much faster than previously thought.

The 2005 melt was extensive enough to create a layer of ice when the water refroze, but was not long enough for the water to flow to the sea ... if enough water from melted snow is created, it could slip through the cracks of the continent's ice sheets and potentially affect their movement.

What this means is that areas like the Ross ice shelf is in more danger of breaking free and sliding into the ocean, and when that happens, the Pacific basin will face a tsunami that will make the 2005 Boxing Day Tsunami look like a splash in a kiddie pool.
But it gets worse.
It seems that the Antarctic Ocean carbon sink, thought to account for 15% of the world's carbon sinks, has already reached its upper limit in its ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

"Ever since observations started in 1981, we see that the sinks have not increased [in their absorption of CO2]," Corinne LeQuere told the BBC's Science in Action programme.
"They have remained the same as they were 24 years ago even though the emissions have risen by 40%."

We may have vastly underestimated the speed at which our environment is falling apart. We're in trouble, and we're not catching any breaks.

Falwell Meets His Maker

I note that Jerry Falwell met his maker yesterday. Of course, Falwell's maker was the guy with the red complexion, the horns, pitchfork, pointed ears and the fire fetish.
It is ironic that Falwell, who blamed the 9/11 terrorist attacks on "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians," should pass away yesterday, the National Day Against Homophobia.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.

2007 Vancouver Canucks Playoff Team Portrait

Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation

According to Alternet.org...

...[o]n Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.
It's a hugely significant development. Lawmakers demanding an end to the occupation now have the upper hand in the Iraqi legislature for the first time; previous attempts at a similar resolution fell just short of the 138 votes needed to pass (there are 275 members of the Iraqi parliament, but many have fled the country's civil conflict, and at times it's been difficult to arrive at a quorum).
Reached by phone in Baghdad on Tuesday, Al-Rubaie said that he would present the petition, which is nonbinding, to the speaker of the Iraqi parliament and demand that a binding measure be put to a vote. Under Iraqi law, the speaker must present a resolution that's called for by a majority of lawmakers, but there are significant loopholes and what will happen next is unclear.

Will the US ever leave Iraq?
Scarecrow doesn't think so.

"All this reminds us there is something seriously wrong with the Bush/Cheney logic and their strategic assessment. All that rhetoric about “them” “following us home” — what Richard Clarke calls the White House’s “puppy dog theory” — sounds pretty ludicrous, because it’s exactly backwards. Instead of worrying about al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia following us home, American policy should stop breeding wannabe terrorists here by what we’re doing there. We should worry that this Administration has an incoherent, and dangerously delusional understanding of the threat to America that bears no relationship to reality. And that’s the real danger to the country."

According to Think Progress, Condi thinks the US is staying.

In an interview last night on the Charlie Rose Show, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointedly said, “[O]ur friends in the [Middle East] need to know and the Iraqis need to know that we are not looking to leave Iraq.” “Ever?” Rose asked. Rice responded, “We are not going to leave an Iraq that is not capable of defending itself and with a foundation for future reconciliation.”
Rose then asked Rice if she believed she’ll have the support of the American people to continue the war. Rice claimed the American people are looking for “progress.” Rose replied, “But nobody can answer the question: If it doesn’t happen, what?” Avoiding discussion of a Plan B, Rice answered, “Charlie, because as the President said to you, we’re focused on having it happen.”
In the interview, Rose also noted that Rice once worked for President George H.W. Bush, who was “famous for insisting there be an exit strategy. [But] no one seems to know what’s the exit strategy [now],” he said. Rice responded that Iraq is “a long-term proposition.”

Richard Clarke is not optimistic, either.

"For as long as I'm alive, there will be Iraqis who hate us," Clarke told about 300 people gathered in the Gaiser Hall Student Center.
In the "battle of ideas" crucial to U.S. success in the Middle East, "We're not only losing, we've never really started," he said.
In fact, al-Qaida terror cells have multiplied much faster since the 9/11 terror attacks and subsequent American offensive in Afghanistan, Clarke said. The United States let al-Qaida "off the ropes" to invade Iraq, he said.
That was one of many failures Clarke listed as he recounted steps before and after the Iraq invasion that have left many Americans numbed and millions of Muslims seething, he said.
"The question is, how quickly can we undo that mistake?" he asked.

The Best Headline Ever

Associated Press wins the award for a story about high-wire artists crossing a river in South Korea. The headline:
Skywalkers in Korea cross Han solo.

Found: The Loch Ness Monster

Finally, a creature has been found at the bottom of Loch Ness.
It turns out that the Loch Ness monster is a toad??!??

Arctic Ice is Melting Three Times Faster Than Thought

According to this CNN story, Arctic ice is melting three times faster than previously believed.
We're screwed.

There Is No Exit Plan...

...because the Bushies don't plan to ever leave.

"The United States maintains 737 military bases in 130 countries across the globe. They exist for the purpose of defending the economic interests of the United States, what is euphemistically called "national security." In order to secure favorable access to Iraq's vast reserves of light crude, the United States is spending billions on the construction of at least five large permanent military bases throughout that country.
A new Iraq oil law, largely written by the Coalition Provisional Authority, is planned for ratification by June. This law cedes control of Iraq's oil to western powers for 30 years. There is major opposition to the proposed law within Iraq, especially among the country's five trade union federations that represent hundreds of thousands of oil workers. The United States is working hard to surmount this opposition by appealing directly to the al-Maliki government in Iraq."

Colbert is The Man

The Devil and Kyoto

Let's start with the good news, what little there is, and give the devil his due: at least Harper and the Tories have done something on carbon emissions.
Mind you, it's very little and probably far too late, but at least it's something.
The bad news is that our Kyoto commitments will be not be met, in violation of international law, and there is no guarantee that the Tories' targets will result in emissions being reduced anyway.
By using intensity targets instead of hard caps, it will possible for industries to increase their emissions, yet still meet the Tories emission reduction targets. How's that for having it both ways?
And the ultimate kicker is that industries that can prove that they have no way of reducing their emissions, cement factories for instance, don't have to. That makes a lot of sense. I can prove that my industrial waste emissions, which are killing people and the planet, cannot be reduced in any way, therefore I should be allowed to continue to kill people and the planet with impunity. WTF???
The Tories worry that too much emission reduction will damage the economy. I wonder how much the economy will suffer when ocean levels rise in a couple of decades and Canada has a million former-residents of Vancouver as refugees. Of course, that sort of long-term thinking never enters the thoughts of most politicians.
The ultimate irony is that the Kyoto targets are only a start. They are only a small fraction of what needs to be done. Meeting Kyoto is only the beginning: the real hard cuts are yet to come.
If you hear any politician say that we can continue on our merry way and all we need to do change a few light bulbs and drive a little less and everything will be fine, he is woefully ill-informed. Or he is lying.
Vast societal changes are coming. But the politicians, like the rest of us, have their heads in the sand.

So It Goes

Kurt Vonnegut picked my birthday yesterday to die.
What a pisser.
He was a literary giant; moreso, he was a literary giant who wrote science fiction.
Most famous for Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five, my first Vonnegut was Breakfast of Champions, a funny and sad novel that many of Vonnegut's regular cast of characters wandered through, including Kilgore Trout, a science fiction writer who toils away at his craft making no money and gaining no fame. But it is through Trout that Vonnegut answered that age old question.
It is Trout, while sitting in a men's room stall, who sees the question scrawled on the stall wall:
"Why are we here?"
Trout doesn't hesitate for a moment. He whips out a pen and replies:
"To be the eyes and the ears of the conscience of the universe."
And it is in Slaughterhouse-Five that Vonnegut becomes our conscience, bemoaning the madness of war and lives that spin out of control.
Another moment lost, another giant falls.
So it goes.
Hi ho.


The Works of Kurt Vonnegut
A recent Vonnegut Interview in Rolling Stone
An excerpt from his last book, A Man Without a Country: A Memoir of Life in George W. Bush's America

Harper Pulls a Bush

Prime Minister Harper continues to use plays from "President" Bush's neocon handbook, using "hardball partisan politics."
Under fire from opposition MPs over erroneous statements by Defence Minister Gorodn O'Connor to the House of Commons concerning Afghan detainees, Harper responded by saying, "I can understand the passion that the leader of the Opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners. I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers."
Needless to say, all the Opposition party leaders are outraged.
Harper is using an old Bush tactic, attacking the and patriotism and character of his criticizers instead of dealing with the criticism, in this case O'Connor's acknowledged misleading of the House of Commons two weeks ago by saying that the Red Cross would keep Canada informed about the condition of prisoners handed over to Afghan officials by Canadian soldiers. Earl er this week, O'Conner apologized to the House, admitting that the Red Cross is under no such obligation.
Harper would rather ignore the fact that a senior member of his cabinet mislead the House, and would rather insult the people who caught him at it.
That's misplaced priorities, and that's classic Bush.

The Donald Speaks

I never thought that I'd agree with Donald Trump....

Staying on Message

So I'm surfing for news, and surf on over to CNN.com.
I bookmarked the International edition of CNN over the domestic American version because its jingoism and utter disregard for any story that questioned the Bush regime during the run up to the Iraq made me sick, and its choice to wallow in the most trivial of non-stories (Jon-Benet as one example) has not improved over time.
But the International edition does have the occasional story of interest, and today was one of those days.
Here's the front page:

Al Gore is testifying in Congress and using the phrase "global planetary emergency"! Wow, that's big news. Maybe, finally, the Washington politcos will finally wake up. Maybe, finally, the major American media will stop following the Bush line and take climate change seriously.
Maybe, finally, the proven fact of human-caused climate change will get some serious face-time on American media.
Let's see what the domesttic version of CNN has as their front page:

Shades of Jon-Benet. Okay, well, um, at least the front page mentions Gore testifying to Congress.
I think.
Somewhere.
Doesn't it?
There is an article entitled "Sceptics Frosty at Warming Warning." Wonder what we get if we click on that?

Wait a minute. This isn't anything like the International edition headline. What's going on here? Isn't the news the news? Isn't the truth the truth (even if inconvenient)?
How can the same news organization present the same set of facts with one slant for one market, and another slant for a different market?
They can't, of course. They have to stay on message. A single message.
And when I returned to the CNN International home page....