small dead animals

Iraqi Bloggers

After tense reporting from Baghdad followed by a two week absence, Alaa checks in to assure everyone he's safe and well. Hopefully, there will be news soon from Zeyad.

Five Finger Wave

I watched the landing of Air Force One today while on a break. It's not anti-Americanism that has Canadians so uptight. It's planus envy. The CBC couldn't stop reminding viewers of the "armour plated limousine" and "snipers on the rooftops". As the entourage made their way down the red carpet on the tarmac, was it just me -- or did George W. Bush glance at the yattering Prince Adrienne like a dog who wouldn't stop licking himself in public?

It all seems to have been too much excitement for Pierre Berton. He was 84, doddering beloved old lefty historian. The non-fiction railway track genre mourns a giant.

Peaktalk has a good roundup of more useful Canadian reaction and commentary.

For the most part, I spent the day up to my elbows in automotive base coat, and haven't caught on my own reading. (Or bathing, to be unnecessarily honest....) Some links of interest I've spotted here and there:

Chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Senator Norm Coleman calls for Kofi Annan's head in the WSJ.

Websters announces "A four-letter term that came to symbolize the difference between old and new media during this year's presidential campaign tops U.S. dictionary publisher Merriam- Webster's list of the 10 words of the year."

Related: Dan Rather, still crazy after all these years. Brian Williams - because his parents didn't know how to spell "brain".

And, in local news: best. agribition. party. ever.

"Not All Beer And Donuts"

With four years as a Canadian resident behind her, Norma Jacobson has some advice fo Americans considering a move to the Great White North - don't.

Although I enjoy my work and have made good friends here, I've found life as an American expatriate in Canada difficult, frustrating and even painful in ways that have surprised me. As attractive as living here may be in theory, the reality's something else. For me, it's been one of almost daily confrontation with a powerful anti-Americanism that pervades many aspects of life. When I've mentioned this phenomenon to Canadian friends, they've furrowed their brows sympathetically and said, "Yes, Canadian anti-Americanism can be very subtle." My response is, there's nothing subtle about it.

The anti-Americanism I experience generally takes this form: Canadians bring up "the States" or "Americans" to make comparisons or evaluations that mix a kind of smug contempt with a wariness that alternates between the paranoid and the absurd.

Thus, Canadian media discussion of President Bush's upcoming official visit on Tuesday focuses on the snub implied by his not having visited earlier. It's reported that when he does come, he will not speak to a Parliament that's so hostile it can't be trusted to receive him politely. Coverage of a Canadian athlete caught doping devolves into complaints about how Americans always get away with cheating. The "Blame Canada" song from the "South Park" movie is taken as documentary evidence of Americans' real attitudes toward this country. The ongoing U.S. ban on importing Canadian cattle (after a case of mad cow disease was traced to Alberta) is interpreted as a form of political persecution. A six o'clock news show introduces a group of parents and children who are convinced that the reason Canadian textbooks give short shrift to America's failed attempts to invade the Canadian territories in the War of 1812 is to avoid antagonizing the Americans -- who are just waiting for an excuse to give it another try.

[...]

Part of what's irksome about Canadian anti-Americanism and the obsession with the United States is that it seems so corrosive to Canada. Any country that defines itself through a negative ("Canada: We're not the United States") is doomed to an endless and repetitive cycle of hand-wringing and angst. For example, Canadians often point to their system of universal health care as the best example of what it means to be Canadian (because the United States doesn't provide it), but this means that any effort to adjust or reform that system (which is not perfect) precipitates a national identity crisis: To wit, instituting co-payments or private MRI clinics will make Canada too much like the United States.

She has seen us as we are. Read it all.

hat tip - Cosh.

Beaujolais Wisdom

On the eve of his first official visit to this country, A Canadian Bush Backer Speaks Out. The letter is featured at Pieter Dorsman's Peaktalk.

Recently I got into a discussion with a few Canadian friends about the Bush victory in the 2004 Presidential election and the ongoing war in Iraq. These friends are well educated and cultured people with a preference for European wine and movies with sub-titles. I suppose they could be described as middle-of-the-road liberals and made for pleasant company at dinner over a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau ... at least until the subject of George W. Bush came up.

Their reaction to the re-election of the President was unequivocal. Choice of language included adjectives such as "dreadful", "shocking", "appalling" and even "bizarre". Their self-righteousness was more akin to arch inquisitors passing judgement on a proven devil worshiper, rather than dinner companions airing views on a President of the United States.

When I offered a contrary opinion, there was a hush and eyes widened with genuine horror - as though the late hour had induced the first physical evidence of my 'werewolf within'. One of them even said - "are you feeling alright Aidan?"

Or, maybe they just thought they were being cool.

I've seen a little of this myself. When the subject was raised a month ago at a family gathering, my aunt expressed unspecified outrage at the US President, put her hands over her ears and left the room. She didn't elaborate beyond that. But then, I suspect she spends more time in Beaujolais-sipping circles than I do.

Obesity Tourism

Times Online reports on efforts to solve Zimbabwe's food crisis;

The so-called Obesity Tourism Strategy was reported last week in The Herald, a government organ whose contents are approved by President Robert Mugabe's powerful information minister, Jonathan Moyo.

Pointing out that more than 1.2 billion people worldwide are officially deemed to be overweight, the article exhorted Zimbabweans to "tap this potential".

"Tourists can provide labour for farms in the hope of shedding weight while enjoying the tourism experience," it said, adding that Americans spent $6 billion a year on "useless" dieting aids. "Tour organisers may promote this programme internationally and bring in tourists, while agriculturalists can employ the tourists as free farm labour. "

"The tourists can then top it all by flaunting their slim bodies on a sun-downer cruise on the Zambezi or surveying the majestic Great Zimbabwe ruins."

I can't believe Scott Ott hasn't thought of this.

A Pretoria, By Any Other Name

The government of South Africa is casting a reformist eye to country's place names. They are too white.

Residents of Pretoria, named after an early war hero of the white Afrikaners who later invented apartheid, won a battle last year to keep the capital city's name on the map, albeit as part of a broader metropolitan area called Tshwane.

Next year those towns celebrating British royalty and other figures will be under scrutiny, and several may face the chop.

Two that look set to go are the industrial city of Port Elizabeth, named after the wife of a Cape Colony governor, and George, a sleepy town on the south coast, more famous for its lush golf courses than the English king to whom it pays homage.

National Geographical Names Council chairman Tommy Ntsewa said: "Personally, I would support such a move, because why should we be honouring King George? For what? For colonising us?"

These problems are an inevitable consequence of the march of human progress and politics - coupled with more recently acquired sensitivites to the politically incorrect, place names are going to be a perpetual source of irritation. The ribbon-cutting celebration opening "Winnie Wharf" today may well become the offensive Port Elizabeth of tomorrow. And as we are coming to understand, the right of future citizens not to be offended ought to be enshrined in law.

On the practical side, though, ad hoc renaming of cities, towns and rivers is likely to be a cumbersome and contentious process. To address this, we should apply a sunset clause to all place names, so that they will automatically expire at set intervals. This way, each new political generation can respond more efficiently to those most recently insulted by the historical fact of their choosing.

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

In the basement laundry room of the family farm home is a refrigerator like the one pictured above. The International-Harvester deepfreeze is a few feet away, under the stairwell. A farm equipment company, IH began making refrigeration appliances in 1947, but only manufactured them for a few years before selling the division off. At $700 for a freezer, the price was out of reach for most households.

Both are at least 50 years old. My grandparents purchased the freezer used in the mid 1950's and sold it to my dad in 1965. Its colourful history includes rescue from a house fire through timely intervention with a chainsaw through an exterior wall. Both appliances continue to function as well as the day they were built.

It is nearly impossible for a woman of my size to move an IH refrigerator by herself. The new Sears Kenmore I bought a couple of years ago (to replace the leaky harvest gold 70's model that came with the house) weighs about as much as a styrofoam box. Then again - nobody ever had to move an International freezer because it quit working. Five decades of hard-won technological advances have cut the weight, energy consumption and functioning lifespan of kitchen appliances like these by two-thirds.

I don't know that this is progress.

"Lawyers Against The War" Sheltered Workshop

Proof postiive that the legal profession is robbing the recycling industry of its best and brightest.

Via Instapundit

More here.

Blogpulse Data

Blogpulse has a comprehensive roundup on the rankings and "buzz" of blogs during the US election campaign. (It might be worth noting that links to Oliver Willis blogs for the purpose of ridicule will produce an equal "link value" to one intended for thoughtful reflection or endorsement.
 

Maybe It's Just Me, But...

If I must subject myself to anything resembling this view, I had better be standing behind someone who's working hard to resolve an urgent household drainage problem. And, to be honest, that's a cliche'd cheap shot and completely unfair to the plumbers I know - all of whom are prompt, efficient, reasonably priced, and professional in their attire.

So, then, if it is within the capacity of a plumber to select a wardrobe that covers the equatorial realms of his anatomy, is it too much to expect of a waitress?

I didn't have my camera at brunch today. But, to the young woman who seated us at our table, and swished by on too frequent a basis, may I offer the following observations:

1. Jewelry located anywhere between the collarbone and ankle is not intended for public consumption.

2. The protrusion of post-pubescent lardy tissue between the upper lip of your low rise pants and the lower edge of that shrunken t-shirt resembles a uncooked roll of pork sausage. This may not have occured to you, but with a breakfast menu in my hand, it certainly occured to me.

3. The only women thin enough to expose a midrift forcibly confined in such away are in a hospital bed and subject to medically supervised feedings.

4. People are trying to eat, dammit.

There. I feel better already. Next time, I will bring a camera, and I will make you famous.

Sgroed Over

Well, think about this way - just maybe, after these east European prostitutes fresh faced bright young girls have worked a few years, and have a little nest egg built up, they'll use it to pay their way through medical school and help to offset the doctor shortage in Canada.

It could happen!

And, just maybe, when she's canned completed her work as Immigration Minister, Judy Sgro can apply her talents in a field she's equally qualifed for. After all, she's made all the right connections.

It could happen!

Letter from Fallujah

Mike is an Army officer serving in Task Force 2-7 CAV.

After 12 hours of massive air strikes, Task Force 2-7 got the green light and was the first unit to enter the city. There is a big train station on the city's northern limit, so the engineers cleared a path with some serious explosives and our tanks led the way. While this was happening, my intelligence shop was flying our own UAV to determine where the enemy was. It is a very small plane that is launched by being thrown into the air. We flew it for 6 hours and reported grids to the tanks and bradleys of where we saw insurgents on the roof and moving in the street---so our soldiers knew where the enemy was, before they even got to the location.

We crossed the train station just before midnight and led the way for the Marines by killing everything we could in our way. It took our tanks and brads until 10 am the next day to get 2 miles into the city. They killed about 200 insurgents in the process and softened the enemy for the Marines. 5 of our soldiers were wounded in this first 10 hours, but we accomplished our part of the plan.

The Marines' mission was to follow TF 2-7 and fight the enemy by clearing from building to building. A lot of the insurgents saw the armored vehicles and hid. They waited for the Marines to come and took their chances by fighting them since the Marines weren't protected by armor like we were. In that first day of fighting, the Marines took 5 x KIA and many more wounded, but they also did their job very well. Along the way, they found HUGE caches of weapons, suicide vests, and many foreign fighters. They also found unbelievable amounts of drugs, mostly heroin, speed, and cocaine. It turns out, the enemy drugged themselves up to give them the "courage" and stupidity to stay and fight.

The enemy tried to fight us in "the city of mosques" as dirty as they could. They fired from the steeples of the mosques and the mosques themselves. They faked being hurt and then threw grenades at soldiers when they approached to give medical treatment. They waived surrender flags, only to shoot at our forces 20 seconds later when they approached to accept their surrender.

[...]

In Fallujah, the enemy had a military-type planning system going on. Some of the fighters were wearing body armor and kevlars, just like we do. Soldiers took fire from heavy machine guns (.50 cal) and came across the dead bodies of fighters from Chechnya, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Afghanistan, and so on...no, this was not just a city of pissed off Iraqis, mad at the Coalition for forcing Saddam out of power. It was a city full of people from all over the Middle East whose sole mission in life was to kill Americans. Problem for them is that they were in the wrong city in November 2004.

The regular citizens of Fallujah are getting financial assistance to help rebuild damaged homes or lost possessions, and 100 million has been set aside to help in the general reconstruction.

The intelligence value alone is already paying huge dividends. Some of the 900 detainees are telling everything they know about other insurgents. And the enemy never expected such a large or powerful attack and they were so overwhelmed that they left behind all kinds of things, including books with names of other foreign fighters, where their money and weapons come from, etc.

Read the whole thing.

That's A Relief

Finally, I can get a good nights sleep. It's not my fault, after all.

It was all because of those Cro-Magnan SUV's.

Kim Jong Gone?

First it was the great works of art.... time to start hoarding the Kim Jong-Il trading cards...?

C'Mon Kid, Just Give Me The Gun

"What are you going to do? Shoot us all?"

"No, Ace - just you."

(h/t)

Calvert's Cuba - A Theme Park

As Eastern Europe struggles out from under the economic policies of Marxism, and China races towards free market capitalism, while old Europe staggers towards reform under the increasing burden of welfare state entitlements and "red state" voter blocks in the US grow with increasing middle-class prosperity... Saskatchewan finds itself presented with a unique opportunity.

We can become a world leader in Econo Tourism. Think theme park.

First, we must request our status as a Canadian province be revoked, and ask for new designation as a World Heritage Park - a "living museum" for failed political experiments. With fewer and fewer regimes to use as educational tools for the business and political leaders of the future, .Saskatchewan can fill a need.

For $15 a head, "econo-tourists" can board authentic government-owned STC buses and delight in the province's features ... "to your left, ladies and gentlemen, is a defunct government potato company, and scene of a multi-million dollar lawsuit and settlement ... the remnants of a small shovel mark the spot of an ethanol plant never built ... there, on the horizon, is an oil "pump jack". The government demonstrated for decades - against all odds - how to keep this commodity from being pumped to the surface. There is more uranium than any other jurisdiction on the planet, but the NDP have successfully prevented its transformation into electrical energy.. the cars that are meeting us on this trail are heading to Alberta. Saskatchewan's top export are future business leaders and educated young professionals."

With the leadership of Lorne Calvert and the Saskatchewan Government Employees Union, Saskatchewan can play a unique role in the world. Benign, well behaved, absent a military - we pose no threat to our neighbors - the ideal political science exhibit for others to study and learn from.

The latest step in this eventual transformation - the Calvert government is considering a prohibition on hiring of new part time employees, through forced implementation of seniority rules for all private business. This really shouldn't come a surprise. The NDP is not a party in the usual sense of the word - it's the political wing of organized labour.

Saskatoon Star Phoenix:

Province considers part-time seniority rule

Saskatchewan is once again considering regulations that would mandate employers to give any extra hours of work to the part-timer with the highest seniority level.

But Larry Seiferling, a labour lawyer with the Chamber of Commerce, doesn't like the idea. He says if it is adopted, Saskatchewan would be the only jurisdiction in North America to have such a regulation and companies would leave.

Labour Minister Deb Higgins says she hopes to have a set of workable regulations ready for discussion by the end of the year. 

An idea whose time has come.

Are you listening, Lorne Calvert? Let's get Sask Tourism on this project.

And You Thought You Had A Rough Day

VISITS TO DRUDGE 11/23/04 - 009,461,140 IN PAST 24 HOURS

Moore® Oven Bags And Thanksgiving Safety

Which Moore® oven bag for which job?

Oven bags are available in Super Size in addition to the popular Berkeley Big-Mac Weanling size. Use Weanling size (2' 0"x 6' 0") for easy, everyday single-serving meals for socialist filmakers that eat other people's young, Super Size for DNC national conventions.

Why do you add flour to Moore® Oven Bags?

Always shake one tablespoon of flour in a Moore® Oven Bag before cooking. Or granola. This flour should remain in the bag during cooking to blend the fat and juices and to protect against bursting. More than one tablespoon of flour may be added to the bag for recipes with thickened
sauces or gravy. Remove Birkenstocks, or gravy may be slightly gamey.

Can I use Moore® Oven Bags in electric roaster ovens, crock pots or as a "boiling bag"?

Oven bags should not be used under a broiler, on the stovetop, on barbecue grills, in toaster ovens, crock pots, countertop convection ovens, electric roaster ovens, or as boiling bags. The possibility of exposing the bag to the heating elements or to heat extremes makes these cooking methods unacceptable for oven bags.

Or campfires. Goes without saying.

The Diplomad

"A blog by career US Foreign Service officers. They are Republican (most of the time) in an institution (State Department) in which being a Republican can be bad for your career.."

Judging by the quality of posts like this, the Diplomad is going to become a popular stop.

Well, we know the secret of the UN bureaucracy machine. It exists to exist. To do that it has going one of the best scams imaginable. While most media and ordinary folks focus on the occasionally contentious UNSC resolutions and debates on Iraq or Iran, in fact, 99% of UN "work" has nothing to do with such high-visibility issues. No, it deals with scores, hundreds, in fact, of resolutions passed every year in the UN General Assembly, its main Committees, and in bodies such as the Human Rights Commission. It lives off those resolutions.

Slightly simplified, this is how it often works. A UN bureaucrat gets hold of a delegate from a sympathetic country and gets that country's delegation to propose some often innocuous sounding resolution -- let's make up a typical one right here, "The Effect of Deforestation on the Development of Sub-Saharan Africa." It will have a few bland paragraphs expressing concern about deforestation in Africa, note the impact it has on the livelihood of Africans especially the "most vulnerable sectors of the population," and then will have a little paragraph at the end calling on the Secretary General to submit a report to the next General Assembly on the impact of deforestation in Africa.

[...]

So the resolution passes. The UN bureaucracy gets tasked with writing a report. Usually these reports are short, based on pre-existing information that in the age of the internet would take an intern a couple of hours to put together, but, nevertheless, for some odd reason seem to require lots of travel by UN bureaucrats. The report will conclude that there is need for further study of this critical topic and might perhaps recommend the holding of a special conference or meeting on the topic. It goes to the next UNGA which agrees that further work is needed and asks the UN Secretariat to go ahead and provide another report to the next UNGA, and so on and on. The topic is now firmly embedded in the UN agenda -- almost impossible to remove -- and highly paid bureaucrats now have sinecures producing endless reports calling for more reports and conferences that will call for more reports and conferences. The US and a handful of other major donors pay for all this.

The Canadian Conservative party should be grabbing up this political football and running with it. This rancid and corrupt body has too long been used by Liberal politicians as a default position for Canadian foreign policy. You want to see real "soft power"? Make temporary withdrawal of Canada's financial support of the United Nations a formal part of Conservative Party policy. Make the Liberals debate and defend the institution.

The Oil-For-Food scandal provides the perfect opportunity to leverage this argument and bring the legitimacy of the UN into the public debate. Carpe diem.

War Crimes In Fallujah - Photo Evidence

Via Dean's World;

A slide show of war crime evidence from Fallujah, including those our media seems disinterested in showing. The site is likely to come under heavy load, so be patient.

Slide show.

Alexander!

John Podhoretz reviews Alexander...

Oliver Stone's Alexander, which opens today, isn't just bad. It's Springtime for Hitler bad. I haven't guffawed this hard since I saw Airplane for the first time 24 years ago. This is one of the colossal catastrophes of all time. At a screening on Monday night, during the death scene of Alexander's lover Hephaiston, people were screaming with laughter as Alexander made a big speech while, behind him in soft focus, Hephaiston went into a conniption fit and croaked. Plus, Angelina Jolie plays Alexander's mother like she was Natasha from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. It's almost worth seeing, but don't, because if you're like me and want to see OliverStone utterly destroyed for his artistic and political crimes, you will make sure not to contribute to the box-office coffers of what is sure to go down in the annals of moviedom as Heaven's Gate with rampaging evil elephants (no, I'm not kidding).

If it's that funny, I might just try to get out for that one.

$7.7 Billion Of Anti-Terrorism Initiative

Exerpts from the audit of The 2001 Anti-Terrorism Initiative from the March 2004 Report, Office of The Auditor General.

The government as a whole failed to achieve improvements in the ability of security information systems to communicate with each other. Consequently, needed improvements will be delayed by several years. Moreover, even as the government was launching programs that would create new needs for fingerprint identification, projects that would have helped it to deal with the increased demand were not included in the initiative.

... gaps and inconsistencies in the watch lists used to screen visa applicants, refugee claimants, and travellers seeking to enter Canada. There is no overall quality control of this vital function, which is spread over several departments and agencies. No one monitors delays in the entry or the quality of the data on watch lists.

... criminal intelligence data are not used to screen applicants for clearance to restricted areas at airports, meaning that security clearances are issued without checking applicants for criminal association

We found no evidence that officials of the Privy Council Office, Finance Canada, and the Treasury Board Secretariat had based their review of departmental proposals on a national threat and risk assessment...

... Other projects appeared designed to maintain the government's existing public safety and policing programs, not to respond directly to the increased need for security after September 11. [eg.] Public Security and Anti-Terrorism funds were allocated to the Solicitor General to combat organized crime and the illegal drug trade in First Nations communities, including the cultivation of marijuana...

We expected also to see a lessons-learned study that assessed how the Government of Canada had responded to the attacks in the United States. We found a wide variety of reports. In some cases, extensive analyses were carried out but never endorsed by senior management; lack of support by senior management undermines any effort to implement change. In other cases we were given basic reports that appeared to be summaries but that provided no detailed analysis.

...front-line officers at airports still do not receive passport information.

Terrorist Watch Lists ... In our initial audit work we found significantly fewer terrorist lookouts in the Service's tracking system than in Immigration's database ... Immigration's records were in such disarray that we were unable to complete a full reconciliation during the course of our audit.

Interpol Red Notices... On average, 48 days elapsed from [Interpol] publication to entry in the [RCMP] police system. At the time of our testing, the RCMP had a backlog of 162 notices to be entered in its database that were two months old, on average.

Lost and stolen Canadian passports not on border control watch lists ... the information system used on the primary inspection line cannot distinguish between active and deactivated passports ... delays between the reporting of a lost or stolen passport and the entering of the information into the RCMP database ... took 70 days, on average.

There is no system that transfers information on outstanding warrants to the border watch lists ...

Reading the report (and between the lines), there are areas of modest progress, many areas in which beaurocracies are resisting change, citing "the Privacy Act" and even the Charter "Freedom of Association" as excuses not to act, while the government funds technologies that are dependant upon other technologies that remain undeveloped. Committees meet, report and do nothing. And there remains no top secret method of communication between agencies, in event of a true national emergency.

About what you'd expect from a government that at its core, really doesn't believe Canada is a target for terrorism.

The Great Awakening

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, apart from living in that stinking hole, which, all things considered, sucked the big black camel dick."

(Hat tip, Head Beeb via Charles Macdonald.)

CAIR vs Frum

David Frum has been served with a notice of libel by the Canadian branch of CAIR -Council on American Islamic Relations. In so doing, he joins a growing club.

Something about having the uncomfortable facts of their association's links to extremists and terrorist organizations brought to light... or in their words, of being "an unscrupulous, Islamist, extremist sympathetic group in Canada supporting terrorism".

Perhaps my wording is clumsy. Oh, well.

Cattlers

Beef farmers launch protest Oh, just stop. They are not "beef farmers". (In fact, if one were to quibble with the details, those critters are Holsteins - dairy cows. Great lean lanky things with bone as heavy as a Budweiser Clydesdale. Holsteins are bred to convert feed to milk. When was the last time you wandered through your meat department and saw a t-bone labelled "Triple A Holstein beef"? There's a clue. And let's be honest - with the quota-controlled protectionist price supports of the dairy industry, dairymen can afford to shoot cull cows.)

Compare:

Angus steer.

Holstein cow.

But back to the original point. As I stated, they are not "beef farmers", for the simple reason that one does not "farm" cattle. Not even guys with mixed grain/beef operations "farm" cattle. They "feed cows", "raise calves", "run a few head". It is no more appropriate to call those who raise beef "cattle farmers" than it is to refer to reporter Ross Marowitz as a news "author" or "non-fiction writer".

I know that a dilemma faces the media when stepping into the dangerous terrain of gender-neutral nomenclature. Unlike the "fishermen", who awoke one day to discover they were now "fishers", the cattle industry is a little tougher to neuter. Really, who can say "cattler" with a straight face?

So, you insufferable fanaticist media twits dear reporters, let's stop pretending that uncomfortable three letter word doesn't exist. It does. The word is "men". M.E.N. Sound it out. "Mmmmmmmm... eeeeeeeeee...nnnnnnnn" . No really - try it. See what happens.

Did your face open up and swallow your tongue? Write it down on that reporter's pad.... "men" .... hold your breath as you wait for the paper to begin to curl in disgust ... Still nothing?

That psychological hurdle cleared, the rest is easy. Append "men" to the word "cattle". Cattle - men. Cattlemen.

Cattlemen launch protest

See: Canadian Cattlemen's Association. Holy Cow! It's even the correct terminology, as in what they call themselves! Who knew? Don't you feel free? Once you've become comfortable with "cattlemen", the world is your prairie oyster. Push the envelope - try "stockmen".

A newsman only lives once.

Rather Overdue

Drudge breaking

ADDRESSES CBS NEWSROOM AT APPROXIMATELY 1:39PM EST [Partial transcript]: No matter what you hear elsewhere, this was a mutual decision. The timing has to do with (wanting to separate) this decision to leave the anchor chair... from the (investigation) of the 60 MINUTES report. The decision got made the way I described. There is nothing more important (to me) than how honored I am to work with the greatest news organization in the world. Thank you for coming. We're not going to spend much time (on questions) because we have news to cover. (Offered to answer questions, but staff simply gave his signature 'hip hip' three cheers.) Let's get back to work. Thanks everyone.

Well, there's half a shoe dropped, I guess. But why, pray tell, is Rather being allowed to stay on at the scene of the crime?

Maybe there's a hope at CBS that his "retirement" will diffuse criticism over Rathergate. I wouldn't bet on it.

Abu Congo

Brace yourself for the flood of disturbing photographs and film clips from this breaking scandal.

The United Nations is investigating about 150 allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. civilian staff and soldiers in the Congo, some of them recorded on videotape, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.
 
The accusations include pedophilia, rape and prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an assistant secretary-general in the peacekeeping department.

Oh. Did I say "breaking"?

Lute, an American, said there was photographic and video evidence for some of the allegations and most of the charges came to light since the spring.

[...]

In May the United Nations reported some 30 cases of abuse among peacekeepers in the northeastern town of Bunia, where half of the more than 10,000 soldiers are stationed.

Last month, one French soldier and two Tunisian soldiers were sent home, U.N. officials said. Three U.N. civilian staff were suspended.

The United Nations has jurisdiction over its civilian staff but troops are contributed by individual nations. Consequently, the world body has only the power to demand a specific country repatriate an accused soldier and punish him or her at home.

Listening to Rawlco radio as I type this. Something about Baghdad... Ozzy Osbourne's house break in...

Perhaps someone should splice in some footage of US Marines or prison guards, in order to bring this story the coverage it deserves.

Listen To What The Man Says

New signposts on the roadmap. Rick Richman takes notes.

Now here is the first question and answer from the Bush/Blair news conference on Friday, the day after Bush met with Sharansky:

[Q].  With Yasser Arafat's death, what specific steps can Israel take to revive peace negotiations? And do you believe that Israel should implement a freeze on West Bank settlement expansion?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I believe that the responsibility for peace is going to rest with the Palestinian people's desire to build a democracy and Israel's willingness to help them build a democracy. I know we have a responsibility as free nations to set forth a strategy that will help the Palestinian people head toward democracy. I don't think there will ever be lasting peace until there is a free, truly democratic society in the Palestinian territories that becomes a state. And therefore, the responsibility rests with both the Palestinian people and the leadership which emerges, with the Israelis to help that democracy grow, and with the free world to put the strategy in place that will help the democracygrow.

Six references in four sentences to democracy -- in response to a question about a settlement freeze.

Looks to me like he has a pretty good handle on where the responsibility for that lies, too.

Read it all. The agenda of questions from reporters could just as well be transcribed into Charlie Brown adult talk...."blah, blah,blah,blah". And people wonder why W has a fan club?

Heh.

Bowling For 22 Minutes

What does Carrolyn Parrish have in common with Michael Moore, aside from rabid, seething hatred for America?

Michael Donovan - The producer of This Hour Has 22 Minutes was also co-producer of the Canadian location rich Bowling For Columbine. Bowling was produced by the government subsidized and recently defunct Salter Street Films.

Mr. Donovan seems to be gifted with a special kind of cluelessness (which must serve as an advantage when working with Mr. Moore). NYT:

The full sketch, including the five-second stomping, was finally broadcast on Friday night, a day after Ms. Parrish was exiled from her political party. Before that, the show had received about 1,000 e-mail messages, mostly critical.

"There's been an outpouring here I haven't seen for years, although I'm not sure it's good for the show," Mr. Donovan said. "What's caused a lot of this is that there's a tremendous, deep-rooted anxiety now about Canada-U.S. relations. Canadians have lost their famous sense of humor."

Well, actually no. In his cozy little government-funded Trudeaupian paradise, Donovan and his ilk have never understood that American bashing isn't "comedy", and never was. What he's experiencing is the backlash of Canadians who are fed up having their tax dollars used to support Canadian content arts/media welfare cases.

Fallujah's Hospitality

An email to Rich Lowry at the Corner;

I am also a professor at a military-related institution, and my little brother is an enlisted Marine (a sniper with 1-3) in Fallujah. This weekend he called for the first time since the battle began. He informed us that a large number of the residents of Fallujah, before fleeing the battle, left blankets and bedding for the Marines and Soldiers along with notes thanking the Americans for liberating their city from the terrorists, as well as invitations to the Marines and Soldiers to sleep in their houses. I've yet to see a report in the media of this. Imagine that.

Additionally, he said their spirits are high, but they would certainly appreciate any "care packages" that folks in the States would care to send their way (preferably consisting of non-perishable food items, candy, deodorant, eye-drops, q-tips, toothpaste, toothbrushes, lip balm, hand/feet
warmers, black/dark undershirts, underwear & socks, and non-aerosol bug spray)

It would be great if you could pass this message along to anyone interested in helping out."

(Info on how to participate here.)

Silent America

This exerpt from the Bill Whittle essay entitled "WAR";

There are two images I will never forget, and I expect I will think of them often in the days and weeks to come. For in the front row of this parade of horror and depravity, I have watched a fundamentalist Islamic crowd stone two women to death. They were covered head to toe in shockingly white linen - the better to see the bloodstains. Taken into a field and buried up to their waists, they looked like odd white sails on a sand horizon, until the stones began to fly, leaving red carnations where they landed. One of the women just crumpled, bent at the waist, and I still pray that this person was knocked unconscious within the first minute or so. The other did not go peacefully into that good night. She died fighting and struggling, enduring the most sickening lurches as the unseen stones fell on her, twisting under that now-scarlet hood, trying to protect her face as best she could, as hundreds of her friends and relatives vented their rage, calling out the name of their god as we would cheer on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Allahu Ackbar! Allahu Ackbar! Allahu Ackbar!

I will not forget that image.

And I will not forget another one, either. As long as I draw breath, I swear I will never forget the sight of two people holding hands, and leaping from 108 stories above the hard concrete sidewalks that I myself have walked, gawking skyward at one of the wonders of the world. I will not forget them. I will not forget their fall, the spin that finally tore their hands apart as they fell forever, forever down that quarter-mile. I will never stop wondering what they said to each other in that last moment, or their cries to each other as they launched themselves to their deaths, having watched their friends take the same leap a few moments before. I will never forget what an unimaginable hell that their cozy office, full of coffee mugs and pictures of grandchildren, had become in order for them to make that choice, with the ruins of their friends visible on the streets so far below them.

His book, Silent America, is now out.

Fact Checking Juan Cole

Via Jeremy Brown, who's filling in for Michael Totten - Ali at Iraq The Model, discovers he doesn't know as much about his country's history as he thought.

[Juan Cole] also provide a link to another article by a professor of Arab studies in the university of Colombia and use it as a reference to back up his theory. What Dr. Cole was trying to tell us, as you can see in his article, is that Fallujah is celebrated in Iraq's history as a symbol for the large rebellion/revolution against the British back in 1920.

[...]

After reading the two honored professors' articles I scratched my head vigorously (I'm sure I looked stupid because I felt so!) trying to remember my country's history as I read it in school. Well, my memory is not that strong to help me remember all those poets and decorated writings about our ancestor's bravery that I read in the fifth grade, but I sure do remember the only Iraqi movie that was produced about that rebellion. The director of the movie used a huge budget (Iraqi standards) and hired some British actors including Oliver Reed. He (the director) was rewarded generously By Saddam for showing the truth about that historical event.

[...]

Anyway, I don't know which is worse; that the two experts in Arab world didn't know about Dr. Al Wardi and his writings or that they knew but chose Sadam's version of Iraq's history!?

I suspect there's more of this than we know.

Kevin Sites' Open Letter

Via Wizbang - Kevin Sites, the cameraman who captured the now infamous footage of a Marine shooting a wounded jihadi, has an Open Letter to Devil Dogs of the 3.1 at his blog site.

Addendum:

Now, read this account of the nature of the urban warfare in Fallujah. (Thanks to reader "Reid-O" for the tip)

Farenheit 2008

Hey Mike - just a heads up, you know.

Quote Of The Day

Imagine is "America's alternative national anthem since 9/11”?

Words fail me.

And that's something I have in common with John Lennon at the time he was writing that saccharine totalitarian dirge. - Andrew Stuttaford

Saudization Of The Workplace

ArabNews:

According to stall manager Hassan Saleh Salman Arawiti the serious problems at Alkhobar's produce market began exactly one year and two months back. At that time, as a part of the Kingdom's Saudization efforts, the municipality forced out the Bangladeshis who had worked at the market for more than a decade. Repeated raids involving the police eventually ensured that all the expatriates were permanently driven away.

Apparently, no one stopped to ask why the Bangladeshis were there in the first place. They.... uh.... work.

"The leaseholders of the stalls tried to hire Saudis but it wasn't very successful," Arawiti said. "Those Saudis had no experience in the produce business and couldn't work the long hours the business requires for profitability. Most Saudis stayed just a week or two and they were gone. The labor problems led to some stalls closing at that time."

Customers became dissatisfied with the environment at Alkhobar's halaga. They didn't want to deal with the poor service and variable quality of the produce there. Arawiti explained that many supermarkets had begun offering produce by the carton. Customers, especially women, liked the convenience of buying their fruits and vegetables from the same place they purchased their other groceries. The stall managers found that even after the situation at Alkhobar's halaga stabilized, the customers didn't return. These days only five stalls are functioning.

It takes two Saudis to replace each expatriat worker. One wonders why they went to all the trouble of chasing out the expats, when they could have achieved the same result by simply unionizing them.

Hitler's Jesusland

A Belmont Club history review for the modern Nazi distortionist.

If Hitler was altogether more evil than we can conceive, he arose from a time and circumstance which few if any can still remember. Any comparisons between the 1945 and 2004 are likely to be inexact. Those who point to the shooting of Jihadi in Fallujah by a US Marine as evidence that America is drifting into Nazism would do well to remember that in 1945, American troops who arrived in Dachau were so disgusted by what they saw they executed hundreds of SS guards on the spot. This is a link to remarkable photographs of the incident.

"The killing of unarmed POWs did not trouble many of the men in I company that day for to them the SS guards did not deserve the same protected status as enemy soldiers who have been captured after a valiant fight.

To many of the men in I company, the SS were nothing more than wild, vicious animals whose role in this war was to starve, brutalize, torment, torture and murder helpless civilians." Flint Whitlock, The Rock of Anzio, From Sicily to Dachau: A history of the U.S. 45th Infantry Division.

French Troops Fire On Unarmed Civilians

No word on this from the mainstream media, as far as I can tell, but it's burning up the internet.

Via LGF and Flea at the Shotgun

Video downloads available here. Read the Shotgun post first, though, so you are duly warned about the graphic nature of the film.

Freewillblog has a new, downsized version. Still around 15 megs, so dialup users like me are out of luck. His site is getting hit pretty hard though, so be patient if you can't get through.

"To hell they will go."

Iraq link roundup:

Greyhawk: It's a good thing we're communicating by written words now rather than spoken, because there's a helicopter parked about 50 yards from me, still running, an ambulance next to it with a guy on a stretcher in between. It's loud - but it's also dark out right now so I can't see if it's an American on that stretcher or an Iraqi. Whoever it is they're on their way out now. A must read.

Jeremy Brown on the current peril of Iraqi blogger Zayed. (Healing Iraq).

Rising concerns in Europe about the "growing ethnic tensions as EU nations struggle to absorb a steady stream of poor, mostly Muslim immigrants."

James Joyner has the MSM versions, plus good news on debt forgiveness.

Donald Sensing on the Marine shooting, and how it might be viewed under the Geneva Convention.

Powerline sums coverage up succintly today -

Today, the Associated Press reports: "Violent Attacks Sweep Baghdad; GI Killed": [...] Baghdad is, I believe, a city approximately equal to Los Angeles in area and population. One can fairly question whether incidents occurring in six locations constitute "widespread clashes" "sweep[ing] Baghdad." But, as always, the tone of the coverage of the Iraq war reflects the agenda of those who write the news.

Brainwashing 101

A reader passes along this link to the online documentary Brainwashing 101.

Brainwashing 101 is a provocative short film showing how universities use tools such as "speech codes" to force political views upon students. In this cutting exposé, documentary filmmakers Maloney, Browning and Greenberg shine a light on political correctness, academic bias, student censorship--even administrative cover-ups of death threats--at three schools: Bucknell University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly).

You'll need broadband to download the file. A series of stills and explanation are here.

"Newspapers Should Be Fun"

The Washington Post is coming to grips with a 10% drop off in circulation over the past 2 years, prompting a "self-examination" meeting on the issue. Apparently, newspaper reporters seem to labour under a misconception that readers can see them.

Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. met with hundreds of newsroom staffers yesterday to outline management's latest attempts to combat declining circulation. However, the more intense discussion at the meeting involved diversity at the newspaper, as several minority staff members lamented that a white man recently was chosen over a woman and a black man as the paper's new managing editor.

[...]

"We're crushed," said national reporter Darryl Fears at the meeting. Fears, who is black, organized two meetings of African American staffers in recent days in response to Bennett's promotion. "A lot of our worst suspicions were confirmed about the ability of African Americans and other minorities to rise to the highest level of the best papers in the world," he said.

(Note to Fears - if you can deal with the recognition that comes with promotion, check with the Bush administration.) *

In an effort to win new readers, Downie said Post reporters will be required to write shorter stories. The paper's design and copy editors will be given more authority to make room for more photographs and graphics.

The paper will undergo a redesign to make it easier for readers to find stories. It is considering filling the left-hand column of the front page with keys to stories elsewhere in the paper and other information readers say they want from the paper, which they often consider "too often too dull," Downie said.

"Newspapers should be fun and it should be fun to work at one," Bennett said.

Ah yes, the intellectual mismatch dilemma. Those WaPo folks are just smarting themselves out of readership.

Trudeau, The Next Generation

"We have a great deal to learn from the Soviet Union . . . a country from which we have a great deal to benefit." - Pierre Elliott Trudeau

The torch passes...

So, Alexandre, being stymied in his attempts to convince Russians that communism was actually reallyreallycool, saunters off to find some Russians who need no such convincing... and ends up partying with the National Bolshevik Party:

Go Read it all.

Polish Hostage Safe

CBC

Teresa Borcz Khalifa is "safe and sound," Prime Minister Marek Belka told reporters in Warsaw Saturday.

''Officials of different services took part in her release in co- operation with institutions from many countries,'' Marek said.

Khalifa has lived in Iraq for 30 years, is married to an Iraqi and holds both Polish and Iraqi citizenship. She was kidnapped on Oct. 27 in Baghdad by a group that demanded Poland withdraw its troops from Iraq. Al-Jazeera television aired two videos showing Khalifa in captivity.

Good news.

Google Museum: Ipse Dixit Collection

Keyboard - (Dodd Harris circa 2004)

"Hypocricy"

On Nov. 16th, I dashed off the following email to news@ctv.ca, after the airing of the National at 11 pm.

Subject: Film footage hypocrisy
Time : 11/16/04 11:32 pm

No tape of the aid worker's execution. Too disturbing to show the audience the face of the enemy? Or too truthful?

Two plays of the Marine shooting of the wounded prisoner. (whose unit had lost a member the day before when a boobytrapped body exploded)

And you wonder what the mainstream media is struggling with credibility issues and falling audience share?

--
Kate
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com

I've probably sent about 6 complaint emails to CTV news over the past year - their coverage of the Iraq war and US politics has been abysmal - slanted, inaccurate, selectively incomplete.... in short, pretty typical. But for the first time, I recieved an actual reply from someone who claims to be a "news producer", and it appears I hit a nerve. From which news producer, I can't say - the email was unsigned. I reproduce it here, spelling and typos unaltered.

Ask Us askus@ctv.ca Re: film footage hypocricy Your arguement is specious. Video ot the aid worker being shot in the head was not available in North America. However it was reported on extensively. The marine shooting video -- which on the surface appears in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention -- was frozen before the bullets ripped into the body. I fail to see either a moral equivalency or a moral imbalance. If you think there are credibility issues ... by all means ... check out other forms of media. How many conspiracy theories can you really take. I find it amazing that you think we news producers disucss issues the way you seem to think we do: that masters attend our meetings telling us what and what not to put on air.j News value. It's a concept.

Whew! ...Looks like I'm in over my head...

Uncover Your Personal Anthropology!

A Christmas gift idea for the white supremacist who has everything.

Customers recieve a CDROM with their raw genetic data, a bar graph showing the percentages of each group and a specialized representation of their data called a triangle plot, along with a users manual. Ancestry cannot be determined by any genetics test in a black/white litmus test fashion. Instead, the results are reported as statistical estimates, and are qualified with confidence intervals. From over 6,000 tests so far performed, and extensive mathematical simulation, we know that the test is accurate to from 4-8% and sensitive enough to detect, for many customers, a single (100%) African or European great great grandparent, or a single (100%) Native American or East Asian great grandparent. Most customers use the test in an attempt to confirm recent admixture events such as this - where the family tree is primarily European for instance but one or more recent ancestors are of other ancestry, such as Native American.

[...]

High levels of admixture are highly characteristic of recent admixture events and various populations show systematic types of admixtures. The average African American shows 20% European admixture, and Carribean Hispanics tend to show significant European, Native American and African admixture. Non-African Hispanics tend to show relatively even European/Native American admixture with some showing more (even all) European, and others more (even all) Native American.

Lower levels of admixture, particularly in Europeans, require a bit of detective work to interpret. This is because the test does not only report recent admixture events, but we believe, ancient events as well. Because our genetic history is very complex, and interactions between separated populations occurred many times before recorded history, individuals of certain ethnic groups tend to show specific admixture results. Examples include Russians, Scandanavians and Eastern Europeans showing low levels of East Asian admixture (even without a Chinese great grandparent), which possibly arose from widespread interaction between Europeans and Asians during and before the Hun invasions and subsequent ethnic amalgamation. Greeks, Italians, Middle Easterners and Jews reliably and systematically show low levels of Native American admixture (even without an American Indian great grandparent) for anthropological and genetic reasons that are not yet well understood.

Test kits start at $219 US. Cool.