My brain hurts (0)

The zany (née: f'd up) antics of the current administration can't get any crazier...I hope. But a 1994 interview with Dick Cheney on invading Iraq really puts things into perspective. Or not. I can't tell any more.

Iggy's Apology (0)

Just read this past weekend's NYT Magazine and what do I see? Iggy's mea culpa, "Getting Iraq Wrong"; or "my bad," as we say around the playground. I read it, then read it again, and I didn't know quite what to feel. It felt like an non-apology in the way only Iggy can do, but I wasn't willing to go through it again like I did for "If Torture Works..." (and "Lesser Evils").

Fortunately, Ram linked to David Rees' piece (ahem...),Cormac Ignatieff's "The Road", that did the heavy lifting for me (bless you internets). (note: you shouldn't read this "cyber-essay" until you actually read Iggy's first).

I just loved this part:

In conclusion, this part of Ignatieff's essay should have been called "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten-- But It Didn't Actually Sink in Until Thousands and Thousands of Iraqis Went to Heaven."

And this:

"We might test judgment by asking, on the issue of Iraq, who best anticipated how events turned out. But many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology. They opposed the invasion because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong."

[...] You anti-war people have got to admit, Ignatieff has you nailed. You dumb-asses who were right about everything for the wrong reasons, instead of wrong about everything for the right reasons. You lose.

Phew (5)

So Cherniak called it. I'm surprised Kennedy was able to do so well on the first and second ballots. Hopefully he'll take some extra French lessons so he can run in a decade. By switching after the second ballot I'm sure he'll be taking a senior position in the future Dion cabinet. It'll be interesting to see how it all turns out.

I wonder when Iggy's gonna go back to Boston?

Can't Study (0)

Not until the results are in.

November Surprise (0)

Well, there it is. No they didn't capture Bin Laden. But Saddam has been sentenced to death. Everyone to the e-voting machines and let's get this democracy underway.

update nov 6 @ 8pm: Talking Points Memo gives a bit more insight into the "November Surprise"

The full verdict, a document of several hundred pages, explaining how and why today’s judgment was reached was not released. U.S. officials said it should be ready by Thursday. So why issue the verdict today? U.S. court advisors told reporters today it was delayed mainly for technical reasons. All insist the verdict was not politically timed and that it was an Iraqi decision; there is no reason to doubt their word.

Nope, no reason at all.

Boycott? (0)

An internal ABC Radio Networks memo [...] indicates that nearly 100 ABC advertisers insist that their commercials be blacked out on Air America Radio affiliates. According to the memo, the advertisers insist that "NONE of their commercials air during AIR AMERICA programming."

Josh Silver over at the Huffington Post explains why this is a bad thing:

All or most of these firms advertise on politically conservative talk radio programs and/or stations. And the crime isn't even being "liberal." Some of these advertisers have moderate or liberal executives who donate to Democratic candidates and are far from rabid conservatives.

So what is the problem? While "liberal" Air America clearly favors big D Democrats, unlike virtually all other programming on commercial radio and television, it gives airtime to reports that are critical of corporations and the powerful politicians they keep in Washington.

This is the heart of the problem: Air America commits a crime called journalism. Almost none of the so-called conservative radio shows or networks do any semblance of actual reporting. They merely pontificate -- repeating talking points that seem to be emailed straight from Karl Rove's laptop.

Air America does its share of pontificating as well, and we leave it to others to compare its integrity to that of Limbaugh and Hannity. But we can say that Air America journalism occasionally focuses on corporate malfeasance. It examines closely the deeply corrupt relationship between corporate power and government officials.

This is the list of companies, transcribed by Specious Reasoning. The problem is, how do you even start to boycott when it involves the computer you use every day [Microsoft...okay fine, I can switch], the food you eat every day [Kraft Foods (all brands)], or everything else consumed in the world [GE]. I think it might be more productive to write these companies and express your dissatisfaction. I've highlighted the ones that could affect me:

Allstate
American Heart Association
-unknown-
Avon
Bank of America
Bayer (All Products)
BMW Motorcycles
Chattem – Gold Bond Foot Powder
Chattem - Capzasin-HP
Chattem - Phisoderm
Chattem - Selsun Salon Shampoo
Cigna
Cingular
Clorox
-unknown-
Coly
Dear’s Morningstar Foods
-unknown-
Denny’s
Discovery Channel
e-harmony.com
Epson
Expedia.com
Exxon Mobil
Farmers Insurance
FedEx
Foot Action
Frito-Lay
GE
Gillette Venus Razor
Good Year
Heinekin / Amstel Light
Hershey’s
Hewlett Packard
Home Depot
Hormel
Interstate Batteries
JC Penney
Johnson & Johnson
Kohl’s
Kraft Foods
Levi’s
Masterfood USA
McDonald’s
Merial – Frontline
MGM
Michelin
Microsoft
Morningstar
National Cattlemen's Beef
Nestle
Nissan
NYSE
Office Depot
Outdoor Life Network
P&G – Bounty
P&G – Charmin
P&G – Fabreeze
P&G – Ima’s Dog and Cat Food
P&G – Pepto Bismol
-unknown-
Pepsi
-unknown-
Pier 1 Imports
Red Lobster
ReMax
REX Sporting Goods
Rent-way
Robert Haft
Schering-Plough
Sherman Williams
Sony
State Farm
Toys R’ Us
Travelocity.com
True Value
United Healthcare
US Navy
USPS
Visa
Walgreens
Wal-mart
Welch’s
Wrigley
-unknown-

I realize the Canadian arms of these companies may not share the same values so it'll be interesting to see what their response will be, if any.

Kerry's Response to GOP Attacks (0)

“If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.”

- via funkaoshi

Anchored Numbers (0)

[A]nchoring — when you don't know the answer to something, whatever starting point you have plays a powerful role in determining what you think is the right answer.

...

A Johns Hopkins study published in a respected peer-reviewed journal finds the number of Iraqis killed as a consequence of the 2003 invasion to be about 650,000.

Critics immediately get up in arms; U.S. President George W. Bush declares the result "not credible."

Although the debate over the study has been largely driven by the political implications of the number of Iraqi casualties, psychologists say the fact that many Americans find the new number hard to digest is a perfect example of anchoring>.

Previous estimates had put the number of Iraqi casualties at 30,000 to 50,000. Once that number was anchored in people's minds, it was a foregone conclusion that most people would find it very difficult to accept a much larger number.

Leadership Race Continues... (0)

Iggy said something about not knowing where Rae stands on the Afghanistan mission. But then Rae said that's pretty rich coming from a guy who changed his mind on the Middle East three times in a week. Did not, said Ignatieff. Did too, said Rae. At that exact moment, though he was hundreds of miles away, Stephen Harper paused at what he was doing, shivered slightly and remarked: “Suddenly, I feel incredibly horny.”

By the way, Ignatieff says he will travel to Israel next month to learn more about the missile attack that he first said he wasn't losing sleep over, then declared a war crime, and - judging from this pattern - will soon describe as his favourite episode of Sanford & Son.

From my new favourite political blog/podcast, Scott Feschuk's Weekday Update.

US of A (0)

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.
Charles Austin Beard
US historian (1874 - 1948)

Watching Fox News prompted that quote above; I honestly have no idea how this country will vote in November's midterm or in '08. I guess it depends on how many terror alerts there are in the run-up.

That aside, I really do love coming down to the US to visit. I'd really like to live in NYC. Someday...

And I had White Castle again. It's becoming less of a pilgrimage and more of a sickness I think. Still, new flavours of chicken rings for a limited time!

I'll toss some pictures up when I get back.

With Friends Like These... (0)

"We want to find out why this United Nations post was attacked and also why it remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war during obvious danger to these individuals."
- Stephen Harper

What an incredible piece of bullshit.

Guess what Steve. National Defence Headquarters knew there was a Canadian in that interim force and had the authority to withdraw him at any time. So, since you seem to know so much about such things, why didn't you order all Canadian members of UNIFIL out of Lebanon?

...

Think for a minute what Harper would have said if Hezbollah had hit a UN observation post, accidentally or otherwise. Imagine Harper's response, even if, after the event, Hezbollah stated that they had no intention of hitting a UN post and apologized. Do you think you would hear Harper saying, "I doubt it was intentional."?

Yeah right.

My only real problem with this Galloping Beaver post is that the author derides Harper for taking sides with Israel again. It's fine, you can take sides with countries. Especially one of our free trade partners. You should take sides in many cases. I did think of two notable exceptions:

• Your country typically positions itself as a mediator; or


• Your citizens are dying as a result of your "trading partner's" assaults.

With both of those scenarios, Canada should not be taking the stance that Harper is currently maintaining.

As an aside, I had a question. By all accounts this current conflict can be traced back to Hezbollah^* kidnapping two Israeli soldiers. Since when are attacks on military targets "acts of terrorism"?

I've also updated the Independent's cover from July 21 to reflect current situation. [via kottke]



In trying to establish the consensus on the spelling of Hezbollah, I ran a quick comparison through Google Trends.

melancholy (0)

Boingboing linked to this Spike Jonze produced campaign video for Al Gore in 1999. It's available through google video.



It brought back the feelings I had after watching Going Upriver.

The citizens of the United States had a rare opportunity to elect two excellent candidates and both times they chose Dubya.

That means either I am, or ~51% of Americans are, a bad judge of character.

Asymmetrical Warfare (0)

But what they won't tell you is that they only committed suicide as part of a diabolical ruse to trick the world into thinking our secret torture camp is the kind of secret torture camp that drives its prisoners to commit suicide!

From Fafblog! via BoingBoing

Other Shoe Drops? (6)

No aspect of responsible government is more fundamental than having the trust of citizens. Canadians' faith in the institutions and practices of government has been eroded. This new government trusts in the Canadian people, and its goal is that Canadians will once again trust in their government. It is time for accountability.

...

Effective checks and balances are important, but they are not enough. The trust of citizens must be earned every day. The Government will work to earn that trust.

Stephen Harper doesn't care about national journalists.

"Unfortunately, the press gallery has taken the view they are going to be the opposition to the government," Mr. Harper told London's A-Channel.

...

The prime minister does not want to hold press conferences unless his staff choose which journalists ask questions from a list they compile. The Ottawa press gallery has refused to play by those rules.

Is that what transparency and accountability looks like? Silencing opposition and hand picking friendly media?

Inept[itude] (0)

Okay...maybe I'm not seeing the full picture, but the latest salvo from the US military "information" machine is, well, what's the word? Insane.

The US military found some propaganda of Zarqawi's and they've used some bits of it to mock him. Seems like that's a clever thing to do. Use their own words and actions against them. Kinda like how the Daily Show skewers the Bush Administration.

But this NY Times piece gave me pause:

In releasing the outtakes, the American military sought to show that Mr. Zarqawi is a phony who cannot even fire a basic infantry weapon without help and who walks around the desert in comfortable Western jogging shoes.

"What you saw on the Internet was what he wanted the world to see," General Lynch said. "Look at me, I'm a capable leader of a capable organization, and we are indeed declaring war against democracy inside of Iraq, and we're going to establish an Islamic caliphate."

"What he didn't show you were the clips that I showed, wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grab the hot barrel of a just-fired machine gun," he said.

"We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage," the general said. "It makes you wonder."

They're giving me the mental image of an inspector Clouseau-esque, bumbling terrorist, barely able to hold a rifle; This is who the highly trained US military is fighting? And they can't restore order?

Maybe he's not the best shot but he's clearly been able to avoid capture for over 3 years. The US declared "Mission Accomplished" but lost hundreds of men since then due to Zarqawi's leadership/training/recruitment/whatever.

Demonizing your enemy is one thing. It makes it much easier for the enlisted men to feel comfortable killing when you see your enemy that way. But to portray him as little more than a comical weeble-wobble seems counter-productive. It just highlights your own inadequacies.

And just imagine if an outtake reel of Bush was ever found...

The Igznock (12)

It's interesting to see how the various contradictory stances Ignatieff has taken over the years provides so many reasons to detest the idea of him as the future PM.

I started reading Ahab's Whale a while back and I like how they approach Canadian politics and Guinness with equal enthusiasm. In any case, James has thrown his hat in Ignatieff's ring and he's critiqued Warren Kinsella's post today regarding Ignatieff's recent article in Prospect Magazine on torture. I do think Kinsella has taken Ignatieff out of context. In context, I think the message is even worse. I believe Ignatieff tacitly supports torture through clever doublespeak about "coercive interrogation" and suggesting that he's willing to pay the price of foregoing torture but BOO! there might be another terrorist attack.

Those of us who oppose torture should also be honest enough to admit that we may have to pay a price for our own convictions. Ex ante, of course, I cannot tell how high this price might be. Ex post——following another terrorist attack that might have been prevented through the exercise of coercive interrogation—the price of my scruple might simply seem too high. This is a risk I am prepared to take, but frankly, a majority of fellow citizens is unlikely to concur.

Yes Michael, you're very moral and very good and the price of your scruple is very likely not going to be borne by you. Like I've said before, if you're going to "advocate" torture, or in this case, we're calling it "coercive interrogation," then you should experience it yourself. McCain has; and he calls for an all-out ban. I object to it on more conventional grounds.
From a November 21, 2005 Newsweek article McCain writes:

Some view more coercive interrogation tactics as something short of torture but worry that they might be subject to challenge under the "no cruel, inhumane or degrading" standard. Others, including me, believe that both the prohibition on torture and the cruel, inhumane and degrading standard must remain intact. When we relax that standard, it is nearly unavoidable that some objectionable practices will be allowed as something less than torture because they do not risk life and limb or do not cause very serious physical pain.

[...]

Those who argue the necessity of some abuses raise an important dilemma as their most compelling rationale: the ticking-time-bomb scenario. What do we do if we capture a terrorist who we have sound reasons to believe possesses specific knowledge of an imminent terrorist attack?

In such an urgent and rare instance, an interrogator might well try extreme measures to extract information that could save lives. Should he do so, and thereby save an American city or prevent another 9/11, authorities and the public would surely take this into account when judging his actions and recognize the extremely dire situation which he confronted.

But I don't believe this scenario requires us to write into law an exception to our treaty and moral obligations that would permit cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. To carve out legal exemptions to this basic principle of human rights risks opening the door to abuse as a matter of course, rather than a standard violated truly in extremis.

It is far better to embrace a standard that might be violated in extraordinary circumstances than to lower our standards to accommodate a remote contingency, confusing personnel in the field and sending precisely the wrong message abroad about America's purposes and practices.

I just reread through the two main articles I referred to and found this comparison revealing.

Ignatieff:

I submit that we would not be "waterboarding" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—immersing him in water until he experiences the torment of nearly drowning—if our intelligence operatives did not believe it was necessary to crack open the al Qaeda network that he commanded. Indeed, Mark Bowden points to a Time report in March 2003 that Sheikh Mohammed had "given US interrogators the names and descriptions of about a dozen key al Qaeda operatives believed to be plotting terrorist attacks." We must at least entertain the possibility that the operatives working on Sheikh Mohammed in our name are engaging not in gratuitous sadism but in the genuine belief that this form of torture—and it does qualify as such—makes all the difference.

McCain:

[T]here has been considerable press attention to a tactic called "waterboarding," where a prisoner is restrained and blindfolded while an interrogator pours water on his face and into his mouth—causing the prisoner to believe he is being drowned. He isn't, of course; there is no intention to injure him physically. But if you gave people who have suffered abuse as prisoners a choice between a beating and a mock execution, many, including me, would choose a beating. The effects of most beatings heal. The memory of an execution will haunt someone for a very long time and damage his or her psyche in ways that may never heal. In my view, to make someone believe that you are killing him by drowning is no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank. I believe that it is torture, very exquisite torture.

Obviously, to defeat our enemies we need intelligence, but intelligence that is reliable. We should not torture or treat inhumanely terrorists we have captured. The abuse of prisoners harms, not helps, our war effort. In my experience, abuse of prisoners often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear—whether it is true or false—if he believes it will relieve his suffering. [...] It seems probable to me that the terrorists we interrogate under less than humane standards of treatment are also likely to resort to deceptive answers that are perhaps less provably false than that which I once offered.

Both agree it's torture, but one thinks it gets results and the other doesn't. One has lived a comfortable academic life and the other has actually been tortured.

Alright, this is far too long, with way too many quotes. No one's gonna read this in it's entirety but Kev prolly, but oh well. It's done.

Rewriting History (0)

There are so many horror stories that arise out of the current US Administration that it's hard to be shocked anymore. And yet I am once again. It's readily apparent that history is being rewritten, especially with respect to Iraq. A recent Time article highlights a recent example of this.

On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other.

[...]

In January, after Time presented military officials in Baghdad with the Iraqis' accounts of the Marines' actions, the U.S. opened its own investigation [and] acknowledged that, contrary to the military's initial report, the 15 civilians killed on Nov. 19 died at the hands of the Marines, not the insurgents.

[...]

According to Eman [Waleed, 9], the Marines then entered the living room. "I couldn't see their faces very well -—- only their guns sticking into the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny."

[...]

[Eman] still does not comprehend how, when her father went in to pray with the Koran for the family's safety, his prayers were not answered, as they had been so many times in the past. "He always prayed before, and the Americans left us alone," she says. Leaving, she grabs a handful of candy. "It's for my little brother," she says. "I have to take care of my brother. Nobody else is left."

[emphasis added]

That's the past. The present. What about tomorrow?

Hansen is arguably the world's leading researcher on global warming. He's the head of NASA's top institute studying the climate. But this imminent scientist tells correspondent Scott Pelley that the Bush administration is restricting who he can talk to and editing what he can say. Politicians, he says, are rewriting the science.

[...]

"In my more than three decades in the government I've never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public," says Hansen.

[...]

"If [a declining rate of growth of CO₂ emissions] doesn't happen in 10 years, then I don'’t think we can keep global warming under one degree Celsius and that means we'’re going to, that there's a great danger of passing some of these tipping points. If the ice sheets begin to disintegrate, what can you do about it? You can'’t tie a rope around the ice sheet. You can'’t build a wall around the ice sheets. It will be a situation that is out of our control."

But that's not a situation you'll find in one federal report submitted for review. Government scientists wanted to tell you about the ice sheets, but before a draft of the report left the White House, the paragraph on glacial melt and flooding was crossed out and this was added: "straying from research strategy into speculative findings and musings here."

It's one thing to rewrite history; an independent media would have to expose the lies for it to become public knowledge.

But to rewrite the future?

Now that's a new level of arrogance.