I have a busy day (and busier tomorrow) so blogging will be lightfor the rest of the weekend. Thread is open for your tips.
54 Replies to “Reader Tips”
January 03, 2007
The Push In The New Direction
Michael Ledeen covered the latest news from Iraq yesterday, which Eli Lake reported for the New York Sun. New intelligence has produced evidence of Iranian support for both the Shia and the Sunni insurgencies, a feat that completely undermines the ISG’s notion that Iran has no interest in chaos in Iraq:
Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq.
The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.
An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms “that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups.” The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran’s revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.
In other words, Iran has played both sides against the middle in order to ensure the destabilization of the democratic government in Iraq. They have had a good deal of success so far, with the rise of the Mahdi Army and the tenacity of the al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists both sourced from Teheran. That new information has caused a great deal of consternation, Ledeen reports, with the people who have to calculate a new strategy for Iraq and beyond:
I am told that this information has reached the president, and that it is part of the body of information he is digesting in order to formulate his strategy for Iraq. If he sees clearly what is going on, he must realize that there can be no winning strategy for Iraq alone, since a lot of ‘Iraqi’ activity—not just lethal materiel such as the latest generation of explosive devices, now powerful enough to penetrate the armor of most of our vehicles—is actually Iranian in origin. We cannot ‘solve’ the Iraqi problem without regime change in Iran.
===== ED, CaptainsQuartersBlog.com
This is an excellent and accurate outline.
Wish I had summarized it = TG
Bill and Belinda
=================
I see the lib-left’s favorite media darling (Clinton) is back in the news with another Liberal media darling (Stronach). Funny that there has been no mention of it in the Canadian media … I am joking of course!
But Clinton’s new, er, friendship isn’t helping his wife’s presidential aims …
… As potential girlfriends go, Belinda Stronach would rank as a true catch. http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=2&subID=578&p=2
My view is that it isn’t up to the US alone to promote ‘regime change’ in Iran. It’s up to the Arab States – such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq – who don’t want a Persian domination of the Middle East. They ought to be the key agents and they shouldn’t let the West and in particular the US, fight their battles for them.
Fragmented Future
Multiculturalism doesn’t make vibrant communities but defensive ones.
by Steve Sailer
In the presence of [ethnic] diversity, we hunker down. We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.
—Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam
It was one of the more irony-laden incidents in the history of celebrity social scientists. While in Sweden to receive a $50,000 academic prize as political science professor of the year, Harvard’s Robert D. Putnam, a former Carter administration official who made his reputation writing about the decline of social trust in America in his bestseller Bowling Alone, confessed to Financial Times columnist John Lloyd that his latest research discovery—that ethnic diversity decreases trust and co-operation in communities—was so explosive that for the last half decade he hadn’t dared announce it “until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it ‘would have been irresponsible to publish without that.’”
In a column headlined “Harvard study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity,” Lloyd summarized the results of the largest study ever of “civic engagement,” a survey of 26,200 people in 40 American communities:
When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. ‘They don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions,’ said Prof Putnam. ‘The only thing there’s more of is protest marches and TV watching.’
Lloyd noted, “Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, ‘the most diverse human habitation in human history.’” …- http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_01_15/cover.html
Breaking the Hold of Hegemonist Doctrine By J.R. Dunn
Hegemonism is the doctrine holding that every American action on the international stage should be examined under suspicion of evil intent. And what does it foresee occurring in Iraq – and the Middle East at large – after the United States pulls out?
This is no trivial question. Hegemonist doctrine is a major factor in the rush toward abandonment of American responsibilities in the Persian Gulf. The hegemonist worldview is today dominant in American culture. With the effective collapse of the conservative consensus over the past half-decade, there is nothing to stand against it. It is the controlling ideology in the media, in the entertainment world, in the schools, and in the Democratic Party. If asked to bet on the fate of American Middle East policy in the near future, the safe move would be to put money on general withdrawal before the 2008 election. The only thing opposing this outcome is the boldness and determination of George W. Bush himself – not a good situation in a democracy.
So how does hegemonism portray the near future? …- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763352/posts
On tomorrow’s CTV question period ,Jane and Ollie will be probing the unbiased mind of Garth Turner for his reaction on Khan’s crossing.Balancing the point of view will probalbly be the equally unbiased Scotty Reid,if he isn’t too hungover.
Uncle Al and General Bullmoose – now in the same state of affairs. a welfare/retirement healthcare program with a company attached to pay for them.
‘Blame it on Uncle Al’
Alcan is a business, not ‘a welfare agency that produces aluminum to pay for it’: Kitimat can either accept 1,000 high-paying jobs for half a century, or be stuck with zero in a decade, says Kirk Grossmann, Alcan’s casting superintendent. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=9de7928d-1d76-465d-ae77-35ff1ecf43ac&k=79178&p=2
Here’s the text of the Message that Prime Minister Stephen Harper put out on the distribution list I’m on (I would have given a link to save space, but I don’t know what it is):
[begin quote]
WAJID KHAN JOINS CONSERVATIVE CAUCUS
January 5, 2007
Ottawa, Ontario
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today welcomed Wajid Khan, Member of Parliament for Mississauga-Streetsville, as a Conservative member of Canada’s New Government.
“Despite our past partisan differences, I have always been impressed with Wajid Khan’s intelligence, inspiring life story and his obvious love of our country,” said Mr. Harper. “I would like to formally welcome him to the Conservative Caucus.”
The former Liberal MP volunteered to serve as the Prime Minister’s Special Advisor for Middle Eastern and Central Asian Affairs last June. As they worked together, the Prime Minister said, “both of us began to realize that politically, we have a lot in common.”
“I have come to admire the Prime Minister and his government over the last year,” said Mr. Khan. “Eventually I came to the conclusion that my ideals and priorities, and the interests of my constituents, would be better served if I sat as a Conservative MP.”
Prior to entering public life, Mr. Khan was a successful entrepreneur and community leader in the Peel Region. Born in Pakistan, he served as a fighter pilot with Pakistan’s Air Force before immigrating to Canada in 1974.
Prime Minister Harper said Mr. Khan would continue to advise him on the Middle East and Central Asia, and assist the government on outreach to new Canadians.
[end quote]
Problem of Palestinian violence solved
Who knew… all they had to do was ask nicely.
— Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Ismail Haniya have agreed to urge armed men from their rival Fatah and Hamas factions to leave Gaza’s streets.
Problem of Palestinian violence solved
Who knew… all they had to do was ask nicely.
— Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Ismail Haniya have agreed to urge armed men from their rival Fatah and Hamas factions to leave Gaza’s streets.
My view is that it isn’t up to the US alone to promote ‘regime change’ in Iran. It’s up to the Arab States – such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq – who don’t want a Persian domination of the Middle East. They ought to be the key agents and they shouldn’t let the West and in particular the US, fight their battles for them. Posted by: ET
Agreed. The corollary to this view — with which I’m confident you will agree — is that we should not “engage” rogue regimes on the false premise of realpolitik/stability which James Baker III and his ISG (Insanely Stupid Group) recommended.
Bernard Lewis has observed that the friendlier we get with these regimes the more the people hate us. With reference to an earlier exchange, this is my main bone of contention with the State-ified (Steyn’s word) Condi Rice. She’s gone all pin-stipe.
However vis-a-vis the Persia/Arabia divide I do believe this would be trumped by anti-US/anti-Israel hatred.
“I was also greatly pleased by the final resolution of the Dilpazier Aslam/Guardian case, in which the Ablution played a role. Readers may remember that Mr. Aslam, author of the sensitive “We rock the boat” Guardian editorial that appeared just days after the 7/7 bombings, was sacked after it emerged that he was an unrepentant member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamist extremist group. Not taking kindly to this, Mr. Aslam threatened the Guardian with action before an employment tribunal, and the case was subsequently settled privately.
I confess to mixed feelings as to my preferred outcome. While one can hardly help relishing seeing the likes of the Guardian being threatened with action on grounds of Islamophobic discrimination, one really doesn’t want to see Mr. Aslam substantially enriched either.
That’s why the story of the settlement (as reported in Private Eye last month, but unfortunately not online) is so utterly delicious. It seems that Mr. Aslam was offered the handsome sum of £100,000 to go away and leave the Guardian alone – but, finding the amount unsatisfactory, Mr. Aslam declined the offer.
According to the Eye report, Guardian lawyers then discovered similar cases in which the payout was considerably lower, leading their offer to be reduced to a mere £30,000. Acting on the advice of his lawyer, Mr. Aslam accepted.
To reflect on the £70,000 his arrogance cost him always brings a smile to my face – especially when I consider how painful the outcome must be for him, and how often – and how bitterly – he must reflect on his unfortunate decision.”
Scott Burgess of the Daily Ablution awakening from
his recent “hibernation”.
neo: Yeah, I gulped when I read that. The US gives them $87 million and they assure us that they will stop the display of weapons on the streets. I also found it blackly amusing that one of the “diplomats” argued that they should stop this interval strife and all aim their weapons at Israel.
Isn’t this whole Fatah/Hamas thing a kind of weird riff on the good cop/bad cop act: slow jihadists/fast jihadists?
Realpolitik I guess: you go with the slower mass-murderers!
To show your support of Wajid Khan,you may want to e-mail him… khanw1@parl.gc.ca
maz2 quotes Jason Cherniak in another thread: “That is why I started a petition to demand Khan’s resignation.[The following portion is italicized.]However, the Tories created so many fake signatures so quickly that it is now meaningless. Glad to know that they are so scared of seeing what people really think.”
LOL!
First, it would seem that Jason doesn’t believe that signaTories to this petition are “people” or that they think. Give me a break.
It would appear from the (hilarious) signaTories to the petition–and from the dearth of signa-l/Liberals to the petition (too lazy and entitled? the LPC hasn’t near the number of supporters Jason imagines that they do?)–that:
The people HAVE spoken.
It’s just that Jason, in Liberal-La-La-Land, can’t accept it. So, he gathers up his marbles and goes home. He shuts down the petition with the lame excuse that the Tories are to blame.
Jason’s going to have to find another line. “The Tories are to blame” is overused and no longer has any credibility.
Angus Reid poll; Should Canada be continuing to contribute troops to the Nato mission in Afghanistan?
66% Yes
34% No
me no dhimmi – I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your point. I think it’s my problem in that I’m unsure exactly who you mean by ‘rogue states’ engaged by Baker. I also don’t know what your metaphor of ‘she’s gone all pin-stripe’ means.
Sorry, but, to the uninformed – could you clarify?Thanks.
ET: By “rogue states” I meant Iran and Syria and was referring to the Baker Iraq Study Group’s insane proposal to “engage” Syria and Iran in an attempt to get them to assist the US in stabilizing Iraq (insane because of course they are actively and otherwise “engaged” in killing American soldiers, inciting sectarian strife and everything else possible to to have the Iraq project fail.)
The “pinstripe” allusion is a long-standing metaphor for the State Department presumably referring to the pinstripe suits of the career diplomats of yesteryear.
Like you, I have great admiration for Condi Rice’s intelligence, achievement and personal character; however after the move from National Security Advisor to the State Department she seems far less effective. There seems to be some kind of stifling, excessively nuanced cultural environment at State that sucks the energy out of good people.
I gather also that State has had a primarily Arabist outlook for a very long time.
I continue to greatly appreciate your comments, BTW, and marvel at how lonely you must be in academia!
Canada’s Liberal Party leader Citoyen Dion is the epitome of the post-modernist French flunky. Dion’s bon mot/cliche is: c’est la vie, which is used widely in France and Rwanda by Dion’s fellow countrymen.
As AdScam Chretien, ex-Unity Minister Dion’s boss, would say: Wad’s 800,000 peoples murdered? so wad? …-
Le Hotel Rwanda
The UK Times describes the gloom at the French mission after its ambassador was expelled from Rwanda after the African country charged that France had masterminded the genocide. Here’s more background from the UK Times:
Rwanda has recalled its ambassador to France as the row between the two countries over culpability for the 1994 Rwandan genocide spiralled to a new low. The decision to bring Emmanuel Ndagijimana home from Paris was made after a French judge issued arrest warrants for nine high-ranking Rwandans accused of involvement in the assassination of then-President Juvenal Habyarimana – an occurrence which triggered the mass slaughter. …
Rwanda has accused Paris of making the allegations as a means of covering up its own role in training soldiers who carried out the genocide. Yesterday, 25,000 Rwandans protested in Kigali against France, accusing it of complicity in the slaughter – a charge Paris has always denied.
Commentary
Whichever of the two is guilty, it’s interesting to compare the International mode of justice to that which hanged Saddam Hussein. Milosevic died in captivity. In the case of Rwanda, no major statesmen, just a few flunkies, have been indicted for the genocide. It’s already on its way, after some theatrics, to the dustbin of history or perhaps more appropriately, to its graveyard. Yet there is some preference for running the world in this indefinite manner. Letting stuff just happen. Like Darfur. And deciding that stuff just happened, like Rwanda. It’s the perfect postmodern world. A world with many narratives all of which may be incompatible. But ces’t la vie. Or as Willie Nelson was once rumored to have pronounced it: sest lah vee.
Read more! posted by wretchard at Belmont Club….-
And more here:
Blood on their hands
REVIEWED BY RW JOHNSON
SILENT ACCOMPLICE: The Untold Story of France’s Role in the Rwandan Genocide
by Andrew Wallis http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23110-2442888,00.html
me no dhimmi – many thanks. I get it.
Yes, I fully agree; the Baker plan to ‘negotiate’, ie, talk with Syria and Iran is insane. Syria is run by Iran and Iran has very clear imperialist agendas over the whole ME. That includes their desire to ahhh…’stabilize’ Iraq by destroying its democracy and taking over the country.
Yes, it’s a lonely world in academia as far as politics is concerned. Most academics, especially in the social sciences and humanities are, in my view, brain dead elitists, living comfortably on a cloud, tenured, urban and removed from all results of their innane pontificating comments about the world. I deal mostly with people in the sciences where reality isn’t hidden by talk, talk, talk and indeed, if you mix X and Y, it can explode in your face.
ET: Yes, now I remember you pointed out that before: that you’re in the “hard subjects” not the “bird courses” [hoping I’m not carbon-dating myself].
I’m reading Daniel Pipes’ “Militant Islam Reaches America” and was startled to learn about the very high percentage of Islamists with backgrounds in science, engineering and medicine.
Misleading headline of the day–top of front page, Ottawa Citizen:
“Afghan mission ‘doomed to fail'” http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=87414256-04d1-442f-a43b-03855cfc8da2&k=75000
The phase in quotes appears nowhere in the Foreign Affairs article, “Saving Afghanistan”, on which the story is based. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101faessay86105/barnett-r-rubin/saving-afghanistan.html
Indeed, a headline writer with a different agenda could have written this using a phrase that actually is in the article:
“Battle for Afghanistan ‘is still ours to lose'”.
And of course the positive bits are buried at the end of the Citizen’s story:
‘Mr. Rubin offers a few threads of hope. He says the formation of the Afghan National Army, now with 30,000 troops, “has been one of the relative success stories of the past five years.”
And he says despite the country’s increasing woes, “no one I spoke to (there in 2006) advocated giving up.’
The story does not quote this from the same paragraph in the Foreign Affairs piece:
“he [an elder] and his colleagues still called Karzai the country’s best leader in 30 years — a modest endorsement, given the competition, but significant nonetheless.”
Mark
Ottawa
Globe and Mail Poll:
It’s been unseasonably warm in Canada this week. What do you think is going on?
Global waming (sic) caused by man 8015 votes (44%)
Global warming, natural causes 5426 votes (30%)
Nothing, it’s just nice weather 4575 votes (25%)
I think it should have said “unseasonably warm in eastern Canada” as I look out my window to a normal 2 feet of snow. It’s nice to see that the climate cultists are only fooling less then half of the people.
The logic of cross-pollination
Carol Goar — Collectively, Canada’s top politicians have most of the attributes voters look for in a leader. Individually, each is missing a few key skills.
Reason suggests that they should learn from one other. Pride and politics militate against it.
Even if they don’t take the logical path, it is worth exploring. It provides a useful reminder of the talent that exists in public life and the potential to put it to better use.
Stephen Harper is a shrewd, decisive and disciplined prime minister. What he lacks is the willingness to meet Canadians halfway, listen to their points of view and respect their intelligence.
[…]
Note: “I don’t know about that, Carol. He listens to me just fine. Sometimes I ‘wonder’ who’s in charge. ‘Me’ or ‘Him’.” …-
jack’s newswatch
Here is the link to: Angus Reid poll about Dion
Will Stéphane Dion be the Next Canadian Prime Minister?
YES
NO
So far no-69%. 31%-yes http://rm.angusreidforum.com/?cid=48&rs=GgEnSD
Poll still up
privacy test…1,2…thank you.
Climate change killed golden civilisations
The Sunday Times ^ | 1/07/07 | Michael Sheridan
NEW research suggests that climate change led to the collapse of the most splendid imperial dynasty in China’s history and to the extinction of the Maya civilisation in Central America more than 1,000 years ago. There has never been a satisfactory explanation for the decline and fall of the Tang emperors, whose era is viewed as a highpoint of Chinese civilisation, while the disappearance of the Maya world perplexes scholars. Now a team of scientists has found evidence that a shift in monsoons led to drought and famine in the final century of Tang power. The weather pattern may also…- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763567/posts
So what is climate change?
It’s the weather, stupid.
Here is the forecast for Pickle Lake, Huron, Moose Creek, ….: more weather.
ET and MeNoDhimmi,
That was interesting.
=======
Bush wasted two hours talking to Maliki.
I watched Maliki*s raptured expression when he met with * Madmud Almondjeans* and the kissing of both cheeks.
There may be some deception in how Maliki relates to Muqtada al Sadr, [to fool Bush], but there will not be any real change in loyalty at all!
Grand Ayatollah Sistani could offer some stability in Iraq, but al Maliki never will. = TG.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_jamil_hussein_1
“…Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.
The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP’s initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in
Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein’s identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.
Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein’s existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record.
Hussein was not the original source of the disputed report of the attack; the account was first told on Al-Arabiya satellite television by a Sunni elder, Imad al-Hashimi, who retracted it after members of the Defense Ministry paid him a visit. Several neighborhood residents subsequently gave the AP independent accounts of the Shiite militia attack on a mosque in which six people were set on fire and killed…”
I hope all of the “Global Warmers” in Ontario and Quebec enjoy the snow that that will finally arrive on Sunday, followed by?
need to have the global warming poll in Vancouver or Denver to see how they feel.
Since Ontario has a larger population they should get to control the weather.
“Angus Reid poll; Should Canada be continuing to contribute troops to the Nato mission in Afghanistan?
66% Yes
34% No”
And yet – the headlines scream about the “diminishing support” for the mission.
Sigh…
Here’s a shocker! Under that labour outfit in Great Britain ? The military is being decimated, denigrated and swept under the carpet as never before…see the whole story here—– http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=WFAXA4BHIMW4NQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/01/07/nmod07.xml
(excerpt)
Patrick Mercer, the Tory spokesman for homeland security who was an infantry commanding officer, said: “The Armed Forces are not a political organisation but they have simply had enough of being treated with contempt by this Government.”
Mr Fox said: “The reason that leaks are appearing is because of the build-up of frustration and anger in the Armed Forces about the way in which Labour are increasingly willing to commit our forces to combat without giving the support they require.
“These are men and women who are prepared to pay the ultimate price for this country’s security but who have been betrayed by a Government which is possibly the most self-serving and party political in our history.”
Is there anyone out there that can tell me how Canada has been embarassed internationally because of Kyoto. All the liberals and media keep using that stmt. Sheila Copps uses it today in the Sun. Have any of you been out of the country and had anyone come up to you and say anything re Kyoto. Sheila also states dion had an excellent record re Kyoto. That is a lie and we all know it, unless naming your dog Kyoto is the thing to do. I think, when we hear that phrase, embarassed internationally, we should demand examples of this. Considering the lineups at passport offices, of cdns, waiting for a passport to fly to the USA, not many cdns care, or are concerned they may be mocked for the governments stand on Kyoto. If our not following Kyoto was a big deal with other countries, they would be telling us that unless we change, they will not send teams to the olympics in BC.
I just about choked on my morning coffee while reading Copp’s this a.m.!Of more interest tho,was Weston’s column re:Adscam.The saga continues,and it will really be interesting what gets dug up now.
Over at Spin Central for the Libs,Jason wets his pants again..crying about “misinformation”about the Great Leader,Dion! Takes big pout, mainly about the blogosphere,and how they make fun of his “God-Like leader”Can we look forward to another petition? Can you imagine the head-explosion,if msm start in on Libs/Dion,and do some hardcore questioning,,rather than pandering?
Worse than Watergate — But Invisible in the Media By Alan Nathan FrontPageMagazine.com | January 5, 2007
President Clinton’s Former National Security Advisor was caught stealing and destroying classified documents from the National Archives (before the 9/11 Commission could read them), but his actions have garnered less media attention than a fly breaking wind.
Sandy Berger illegally removed four documents, hid them under a construction trailer for later retrieval, then cut three of the four with scissors upon returning to his office. He admitted to lying about it when first questioned by their officials, according to a December 20, 2006, report by Inspector General Paul Brachfeld.
We already knew that in September of 2005, Berger was sentenced to pay a $50,000 fine and complete 100 hours of community service for taking and destroying documents never meant to leave the Archives in October 2003. However, at the time of his plea bargain, much of this story was never reported, and most of us were unaware of just how premeditated had been his cloak and dagger exercises.
Well, now we know, but little of it is making the headlines or the airwaves. Why? Why is it that secret material failing to reach the 9/11 Commission never ignited explosions of press inquiry? …- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763739/posts
Hoax/Scam # 43 ;
The Environment Secretary(no-less) of the UK(no-less) has been quoted in the BBC(no-less) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6238227.stm
saying that organic food has not, nor has ever been, proven to be better than the other 96% of our food supply. Oh, and so we have been scamed for decades. Who is liable for this scam ?? Will they be prosecuted ?? When ?? Was the so-called Organic Food industry and the Media recently called on the issue ?? By Blogs ?? The enviro-nuts must have put up strong opposition to this admission of guilt but seemingly were ignored.
The majority of cdns did not know that Gomery was not allowed to investigate anything that might lead to charges, so therefore bought the report that Martin and his gang were free and clear. Now, with a new mountie in charge, maybe the truth will finally come out and many may go to jail, or have their reputations ruined. Dion says it is in the past and will have no impact. Didn’t he also say Khan would remain a liberal. He is wrong re his dual citizenship and wrong about adscam. As for Harper embarrasing Canada on the world stage re Kyoto, Dion would be a disaster as a spokesman for Canada. Wasn’t it the British press that dubbed Martin the ditherer. Dions first priority should be to learn to speak english, so he could be understood by the majority of cdns. What were the libs thinking by electing him as leader. Oh, thats right, he named his dog Kyoto. What else did he do as environment minister other than collect a cabinet paycheque. As for the environment being the no. 1 issue, I really don’t think so. Will you vote for a party that promises to eliminate your job and standard of living.
Gore and the Red-Green Bull, Hybrid Bull.
Media/MSM barred by Bully Gore. …-
Gore bars press from talk
Former VP will meet with students but not media
By BEN SHOUSE bshouse@argusleader.com
Reporters and TV news cameras will be banned from almost all of former Vice President Al Gore’s appearance Jan. 23 in Sioux Falls.
Gore is the Boe Forum speaker at Augustana College and plans a talk called “Thinking Green: Economic Strategy for the 21st Century.”
Kalee Kreider, a Gore staffer in Nashville, confirmed by e-mail that news media will be asked to leave his talk after the introduction and that Gore will not hold a press conference.
Gore has agreed to meet with college and high school students before the speech, said Arthur Huseboe, executive director of Augustana’s Center for Western Studies, which sponsors the forum.
Still, the rule does not quite jibe with the image of Gore the tireless crusader from the movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” spreading urgent warnings about global warming.
The only other Boe Forum speaker to decline a news conference was Queen Noor of Jordan, Huseboe said. Past speakers have included former President George H.W. Bush, former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and former British Prime Minister John Major.
Kreider said copyright issues necessitate closing Gore’s slide show to the press. She did not give a reason for declining to hold a news conference.
“Do I find it odd? I guess if I were a speaker, and I had to do this kind of stuff all of the time, I might have some odd requests, too,” Huseboe said. “I don’t even like to judge the requirements of people who come. They have requirements for their hotel room and all kinds of transportation.
“For example, he really would like to have a hybrid vehicle drive him from the airport,” he said. But the company Augustana uses for transportation does not have a large enough hybrid, so the plan is to pick Gore up in a sedan that burns 15-percent ethanol. …- http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070107/NEWS01/701070303/1001/NEWS
Of the approx. three million Muslims attending the Hajj in SA what percentage were Sunni, Shia or other sects? The event apparently was without serious mishaps this year in that noone died in an stampede at the stoning ritual. Increased high-tech security measures by Saudis met with complete success over three million Muslims experienced “peace for a few brief days.” Not to go unnoticed. Hey, proving the “can do” it.
B. Hoax Aware: Add milk/cream marketing boards to your list, along with the Canadian(!)Wheat Board (CWB), Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), Egg Farmers of Ontario (EFO), etc., etc., etc., …
Cartels, boards, agencies, monopolies,oligopolies; Da Canadian values, loved, nurtured, kept-prostitutes of/by the left-liberals/socialists.
B. Hoax Aware: Remember the Germ Warfare Hoax, perpetrated by the left-communists during the Korean War? …-
Dairy farmers make suckers of consumers
The Gazette
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Canadians are drinking 18 per cent less milk than they did in 1980, consuming 30 per cent less butter and 24 per cent less ice cream. Cheese production is barely holding steady. The Canadian dairy herd has dwindled.
Sounds like a disastrous portrait of a collapsing industry, doesn’t it? In fact, these realities are all the result of careful manipulation of the dairy industry by federal and provincial governments and dairy producers themselves. This systematic conspiracy against consumers goes by the name of “orderly marketing,” and it has resulted in an average profit margin for dairy farms of 25 per cent of operating revenue, almost double the figure for all farms in Canada.
Now, at the beginning of a new year, both the federal and provincial governments dipped into consumers’ pockets yet again to fatten the profits of politically well-connected dairy farmers. Year after year this scandal goes on because consumers don’t know how to fight back.
As usual, consumers don’t know how to fight back. One group that does, a little, is the Canadian Restaurant and Food Service Association, which operates an informative website called dairyplanet.ca, which claims that Canadian dairy prices are the world’s highest. …- http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=ee6c13f7-4d94-4a12-a04d-fe42d8232e81
The subsequent zoom in oil prices in 1999 afforded Iran fiscal breathing room but does not solve Iran’s structural economic problems. Iran’s current president Ahmadinejad has promised sweeping economic reform, including widespread social services and an elimination of Iran’s stock market.
economyofiran.quickseek.com/
Closing down the Iranian stock market?
Talk about a blind hatred of Western ideas.
=TG
Anyone catch Harper on QP, and the little dig he put out. “I don’t think cdns will accept they may have to heat their homes 1/3 less, to meet targets.” I hope that is the first in many stmts about what Kyoto will mean to the average cdn. They have to know it is not just about punishing Alberta, altho both craig and giggles kept hitting on Alberta this morning, trying to make us out as the only enemies.
New York Times Admits to a Blatant Lie
Concerned Women for America
A major journalistic scandal was finally acknowledged during the long news hole leading up to the New Year’s celebrations when the headlines were consumed by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s execution and the funeral of former U.S. President Gerald Ford. It was revealed last week that in April 2006 The New York Times Magazine published a long cover story that hinged on a blatant lie.
The facts of the case came to light in November through the efforts of a pro-life Web site, LifeSiteNews.com. At first, The Times editors stonewalled over the facts, then they covered up the reporter’s biased sources and denied unethical journalistic practices. Finally, the newspaper’s ombudsman, Byron Calame, wrote a column on December 31, 2006 detailing the newspaper’s malpractice in the April 9 story. Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the newspaper’s editors saw no reason to “doubt the accuracy” of the story, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So, no retraction, no recriminations and no firings. …- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763813/posts
CP, the Canadian Values Press, outlines their crystal ball, for all youse dummies.
It’s down to a handful of voters: 4 voters, not counting Tom Thumb. CP says these voters are “engaged”! To be married? Liberals are pushing to make polygamy legal in Canada?
It’s down to a trio of “issues”: Is Dion a Kyoto-socialist? Yes. Is Dion a citizen of a foreign country, France? Yes. Was/is Dion a Librano$ of the Ad$cam gang? Yes. …-
Handful of voters, trio of issues, key to Tory and Liberal fates
By BRUCE ANDERSON
OTTAWA (CP) – A fairly small group of women, urban and Quebec voters could make the difference in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s bid to win the next election.
…
And so, female, urban/suburban and Quebec voters will probably turn out to be the “swing voters” who hold the key to whether the Liberals or Conservatives form the next government. They’re engaged, want to be impressed, and their votes are up for grabs.
Like other voters, they enjoy lower taxes, but not if that means dismantling key programs: current advantage to the Conservatives.
More than other voters they value environmental action: current advantage to the Liberals.
And more than other voters, they are unsure about the best course of action in Afghanistan: on this issue, no party has a clear advantage at the moment, as news reports from Washington and Kandahar cause swings in public mood.
At the end of the day, the details of these issues may matter less than how they reflect the underlying values of the parties, leaders and voters. These swing voters want peace, but not at any price, want lower taxes, but not at any cost, and want more effort on the environment, with no qualification or prevarication.
Greg Weston, in his article today on the RCMP’s renewed interest in AdScam, writes, “Whether Dion’s image as Mr. Clean can erase his party’s tarnish remains to be seen, but it won’t be easy.”
He’s right. It won’t be easy.
Stephane Dion is the image of Mr. Clean? Says who?
Maybe Jean Chretien, possibly Paul Martin, certainly David Herle and Scott Reid, every one of them in the throes of wishful thinking.
Stephane Dion is totally tainted and tarnished by the AdScam scandal. Dion was a Quebec minister throughout the Adscam years AND the minister responsible for the Quebec unity file, which means he either should have known what was going on–in which case, he’s culpable–or he was “amiss,” as Weston puts it. Stupid and negligent are more apt.
Dion is quoted as saying, “The ones who abused the program have to face the justice saystem. But we should not have guilt by association. To tarnish reputations with that would be completely unfair.”
What universe is Stephane Dion living in–or on what planet? Of course there’s “guilt by association,” which is completely fair: His Party perpetrated a fraud involving million$ of Canadian taxpayers’ dollar$, and he thinks that as a Cabinet Minister of said Party he gets off Scott-free?
His reputation is wrapped up in the LPC and their affairs. Canadians will not give him a pass on this.
An open question for the Canadian political media
A question for the Canadian political media: Who gave you the impression that Harper and/or the PMO consulted with Dion regarding the motion to recognize Quebec as a nation?
That impression had to have come originally from either the Harper or Dion camps. Well, it had to have come from somewhere, and those two options seem pretty much obvious.
Harper has flat-out said that Dion was not a part of their consultations. Dion has said that since he talked to someone from the PMO, he talked to the PMO. Dion’s characterization is the more suspicious of the two.
You can talk to a former aide of yours that is now with the PMO without being engaged in a formal discussion. If this was a personal consultation, why did Dion allow another version to hold sway for all this time? Why didn’t he ever set the record straight? Was it because he wanted to enhance his federalist image on the eve of the leadership vote? Was it because he seems to have developed a habit of banking on perceived personal reputation rather than the actual record?
That’s why I’d like to know, and I think Canadians would like to know, why the media reported an apparently false story about Dion’s involvement with the PMO for weeks on end. And why was this misperception left dangling until Harper apparently corrected it this week?
If we want as much truth in politics as possible, and if we want our politicians to be sincere about what they do and who they are, then I think we’re owed some answers to some of these questions. Aren’t we? http://secondthots.blogspot.com/
The left in Canada is the same as in the USA, Britain, and the entire Anglo-Saxon world.
In Canada, this is personified in the blogger whose handle is “my blagh”: “defined by a single thing: anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism.” In addition, Blagh hates his country, Canada. Blagh, like American leftists, would deny it. …-
The European and American Left since 1945. (academic leftist) http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=264 Andrei S. Markovits
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall the European-along with the much weaker American-left has been in a crisis that has challenged its very identity. In fact, this profound crisis predated the events of 1989; it was in full swing by the time the Wall tumbled in good part because of the ineptitude and moral bankruptcy of at least part of this left. Still, with the events of 1989 and 1990, a period that began in the late 1860s and early 1870s and entered its political salience in the 1880s came to a close. A political manifestation and social formation that defined the very idea of progressivism in the advanced industrial societies for exactly one century collapsed. Some would say that the radicalism of this period, its revolutionary potential to transform capitalism, ended with the tragedy of 1914. After all, it was then that the left realized that its internationalism and perceived universal class solidarity had lost its primacy to the much more powerful sentiment of particularistic nationalism. The left’s innocence was most certainly lost by the early fall of 1914. Others would date the crisis from the end of World War I, the events of 1918, which already pointed toward the coming of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and National Socialism in Germany. …- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763866/posts
Comment:
To: ventanax5
This guy’s bottom line is interesting, btw — he charts the post-WWII Left through its various stages and adaptations to changing circumstances over the decades (read, the collapse of its ideas), and what he arrives at is a modern Left that’s ultimately, or most clearly, defined by a single thing: anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. And you know what? I get the feeling that most leftists would probably be hard pressed to disagree with that. The only ones who would deny it, and passionately so, would be American leftists. Poor American leftists. Talk about being in an awkward spot: the movement they’re aligned with has come to mean only one thing consistently: the hatred of the country they’re citizens of. The American leftist is in a unique predicament compared to his French or Italian or Swedish counterpart, who at least are able to direct their existential angst outward. …-
January 03, 2007
The Push In The New Direction
Michael Ledeen covered the latest news from Iraq yesterday, which Eli Lake reported for the New York Sun. New intelligence has produced evidence of Iranian support for both the Shia and the Sunni insurgencies, a feat that completely undermines the ISG’s notion that Iran has no interest in chaos in Iraq:
Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq.
The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.
An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms “that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups.” The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran’s revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.
In other words, Iran has played both sides against the middle in order to ensure the destabilization of the democratic government in Iraq. They have had a good deal of success so far, with the rise of the Mahdi Army and the tenacity of the al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists both sourced from Teheran. That new information has caused a great deal of consternation, Ledeen reports, with the people who have to calculate a new strategy for Iraq and beyond:
I am told that this information has reached the president, and that it is part of the body of information he is digesting in order to formulate his strategy for Iraq. If he sees clearly what is going on, he must realize that there can be no winning strategy for Iraq alone, since a lot of ‘Iraqi’ activity—not just lethal materiel such as the latest generation of explosive devices, now powerful enough to penetrate the armor of most of our vehicles—is actually Iranian in origin. We cannot ‘solve’ the Iraqi problem without regime change in Iran.
===== ED, CaptainsQuartersBlog.com
This is an excellent and accurate outline.
Wish I had summarized it = TG
Bill and Belinda
=================
I see the lib-left’s favorite media darling (Clinton) is back in the news with another Liberal media darling (Stronach). Funny that there has been no mention of it in the Canadian media … I am joking of course!
But Clinton’s new, er, friendship isn’t helping his wife’s presidential aims …
… As potential girlfriends go, Belinda Stronach would rank as a true catch.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=2&subID=578&p=2
My view is that it isn’t up to the US alone to promote ‘regime change’ in Iran. It’s up to the Arab States – such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq – who don’t want a Persian domination of the Middle East. They ought to be the key agents and they shouldn’t let the West and in particular the US, fight their battles for them.
Fragmented Future
Multiculturalism doesn’t make vibrant communities but defensive ones.
by Steve Sailer
In the presence of [ethnic] diversity, we hunker down. We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.
—Harvard professor Robert D. Putnam
It was one of the more irony-laden incidents in the history of celebrity social scientists. While in Sweden to receive a $50,000 academic prize as political science professor of the year, Harvard’s Robert D. Putnam, a former Carter administration official who made his reputation writing about the decline of social trust in America in his bestseller Bowling Alone, confessed to Financial Times columnist John Lloyd that his latest research discovery—that ethnic diversity decreases trust and co-operation in communities—was so explosive that for the last half decade he hadn’t dared announce it “until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it ‘would have been irresponsible to publish without that.’”
In a column headlined “Harvard study paints bleak picture of ethnic diversity,” Lloyd summarized the results of the largest study ever of “civic engagement,” a survey of 26,200 people in 40 American communities:
When the data were adjusted for class, income and other factors, they showed that the more people of different races lived in the same community, the greater the loss of trust. ‘They don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions,’ said Prof Putnam. ‘The only thing there’s more of is protest marches and TV watching.’
Lloyd noted, “Prof Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, ‘the most diverse human habitation in human history.’” …-
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_01_15/cover.html
Breaking the Hold of Hegemonist Doctrine By J.R. Dunn
Hegemonism is the doctrine holding that every American action on the international stage should be examined under suspicion of evil intent. And what does it foresee occurring in Iraq – and the Middle East at large – after the United States pulls out?
This is no trivial question. Hegemonist doctrine is a major factor in the rush toward abandonment of American responsibilities in the Persian Gulf. The hegemonist worldview is today dominant in American culture. With the effective collapse of the conservative consensus over the past half-decade, there is nothing to stand against it. It is the controlling ideology in the media, in the entertainment world, in the schools, and in the Democratic Party. If asked to bet on the fate of American Middle East policy in the near future, the safe move would be to put money on general withdrawal before the 2008 election. The only thing opposing this outcome is the boldness and determination of George W. Bush himself – not a good situation in a democracy.
So how does hegemonism portray the near future? …-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763352/posts
On tomorrow’s CTV question period ,Jane and Ollie will be probing the unbiased mind of Garth Turner for his reaction on Khan’s crossing.Balancing the point of view will probalbly be the equally unbiased Scotty Reid,if he isn’t too hungover.
Uncle Al and General Bullmoose – now in the same state of affairs. a welfare/retirement healthcare program with a company attached to pay for them.
‘Blame it on Uncle Al’
Alcan is a business, not ‘a welfare agency that produces aluminum to pay for it’: Kitimat can either accept 1,000 high-paying jobs for half a century, or be stuck with zero in a decade, says Kirk Grossmann, Alcan’s casting superintendent.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=9de7928d-1d76-465d-ae77-35ff1ecf43ac&k=79178&p=2
Here’s the text of the Message that Prime Minister Stephen Harper put out on the distribution list I’m on (I would have given a link to save space, but I don’t know what it is):
[begin quote]
WAJID KHAN JOINS CONSERVATIVE CAUCUS
January 5, 2007
Ottawa, Ontario
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today welcomed Wajid Khan, Member of Parliament for Mississauga-Streetsville, as a Conservative member of Canada’s New Government.
“Despite our past partisan differences, I have always been impressed with Wajid Khan’s intelligence, inspiring life story and his obvious love of our country,” said Mr. Harper. “I would like to formally welcome him to the Conservative Caucus.”
The former Liberal MP volunteered to serve as the Prime Minister’s Special Advisor for Middle Eastern and Central Asian Affairs last June. As they worked together, the Prime Minister said, “both of us began to realize that politically, we have a lot in common.”
“I have come to admire the Prime Minister and his government over the last year,” said Mr. Khan. “Eventually I came to the conclusion that my ideals and priorities, and the interests of my constituents, would be better served if I sat as a Conservative MP.”
Prior to entering public life, Mr. Khan was a successful entrepreneur and community leader in the Peel Region. Born in Pakistan, he served as a fighter pilot with Pakistan’s Air Force before immigrating to Canada in 1974.
Prime Minister Harper said Mr. Khan would continue to advise him on the Middle East and Central Asia, and assist the government on outreach to new Canadians.
[end quote]
Problem of Palestinian violence solved
Who knew… all they had to do was ask nicely.
— Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Ismail Haniya have agreed to urge armed men from their rival Fatah and Hamas factions to leave Gaza’s streets.
Problem of Palestinian violence solved
Who knew… all they had to do was ask nicely.
— Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Ismail Haniya have agreed to urge armed men from their rival Fatah and Hamas factions to leave Gaza’s streets.
My view is that it isn’t up to the US alone to promote ‘regime change’ in Iran. It’s up to the Arab States – such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq – who don’t want a Persian domination of the Middle East. They ought to be the key agents and they shouldn’t let the West and in particular the US, fight their battles for them. Posted by: ET
Agreed. The corollary to this view — with which I’m confident you will agree — is that we should not “engage” rogue regimes on the false premise of realpolitik/stability which James Baker III and his ISG (Insanely Stupid Group) recommended.
Bernard Lewis has observed that the friendlier we get with these regimes the more the people hate us. With reference to an earlier exchange, this is my main bone of contention with the State-ified (Steyn’s word) Condi Rice. She’s gone all pin-stipe.
However vis-a-vis the Persia/Arabia divide I do believe this would be trumped by anti-US/anti-Israel hatred.
“I was also greatly pleased by the final resolution of the Dilpazier Aslam/Guardian case, in which the Ablution played a role. Readers may remember that Mr. Aslam, author of the sensitive “We rock the boat” Guardian editorial that appeared just days after the 7/7 bombings, was sacked after it emerged that he was an unrepentant member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamist extremist group. Not taking kindly to this, Mr. Aslam threatened the Guardian with action before an employment tribunal, and the case was subsequently settled privately.
I confess to mixed feelings as to my preferred outcome. While one can hardly help relishing seeing the likes of the Guardian being threatened with action on grounds of Islamophobic discrimination, one really doesn’t want to see Mr. Aslam substantially enriched either.
That’s why the story of the settlement (as reported in Private Eye last month, but unfortunately not online) is so utterly delicious. It seems that Mr. Aslam was offered the handsome sum of £100,000 to go away and leave the Guardian alone – but, finding the amount unsatisfactory, Mr. Aslam declined the offer.
According to the Eye report, Guardian lawyers then discovered similar cases in which the payout was considerably lower, leading their offer to be reduced to a mere £30,000. Acting on the advice of his lawyer, Mr. Aslam accepted.
To reflect on the £70,000 his arrogance cost him always brings a smile to my face – especially when I consider how painful the outcome must be for him, and how often – and how bitterly – he must reflect on his unfortunate decision.”
Scott Burgess of the Daily Ablution awakening from
his recent “hibernation”.
neo: Yeah, I gulped when I read that. The US gives them $87 million and they assure us that they will stop the display of weapons on the streets. I also found it blackly amusing that one of the “diplomats” argued that they should stop this interval strife and all aim their weapons at Israel.
Isn’t this whole Fatah/Hamas thing a kind of weird riff on the good cop/bad cop act: slow jihadists/fast jihadists?
Realpolitik I guess: you go with the slower mass-murderers!
To show your support of Wajid Khan,you may want to e-mail him… khanw1@parl.gc.ca
If you want some frivalous fun, go to this online game.
Rosie Versus Trump
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/01/06/rosie-vs-trump-the-video-game/
maz2 quotes Jason Cherniak in another thread: “That is why I started a petition to demand Khan’s resignation.[The following portion is italicized.]However, the Tories created so many fake signatures so quickly that it is now meaningless. Glad to know that they are so scared of seeing what people really think.”
LOL!
First, it would seem that Jason doesn’t believe that signaTories to this petition are “people” or that they think. Give me a break.
It would appear from the (hilarious) signaTories to the petition–and from the dearth of signa-l/Liberals to the petition (too lazy and entitled? the LPC hasn’t near the number of supporters Jason imagines that they do?)–that:
The people HAVE spoken.
It’s just that Jason, in Liberal-La-La-Land, can’t accept it. So, he gathers up his marbles and goes home. He shuts down the petition with the lame excuse that the Tories are to blame.
Jason’s going to have to find another line. “The Tories are to blame” is overused and no longer has any credibility.
Angus Reid poll; Should Canada be continuing to contribute troops to the Nato mission in Afghanistan?
66% Yes
34% No
me no dhimmi – I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your point. I think it’s my problem in that I’m unsure exactly who you mean by ‘rogue states’ engaged by Baker. I also don’t know what your metaphor of ‘she’s gone all pin-stripe’ means.
Sorry, but, to the uninformed – could you clarify?Thanks.
ET: By “rogue states” I meant Iran and Syria and was referring to the Baker Iraq Study Group’s insane proposal to “engage” Syria and Iran in an attempt to get them to assist the US in stabilizing Iraq (insane because of course they are actively and otherwise “engaged” in killing American soldiers, inciting sectarian strife and everything else possible to to have the Iraq project fail.)
The “pinstripe” allusion is a long-standing metaphor for the State Department presumably referring to the pinstripe suits of the career diplomats of yesteryear.
Like you, I have great admiration for Condi Rice’s intelligence, achievement and personal character; however after the move from National Security Advisor to the State Department she seems far less effective. There seems to be some kind of stifling, excessively nuanced cultural environment at State that sucks the energy out of good people.
I gather also that State has had a primarily Arabist outlook for a very long time.
I continue to greatly appreciate your comments, BTW, and marvel at how lonely you must be in academia!
Canada’s Liberal Party leader Citoyen Dion is the epitome of the post-modernist French flunky. Dion’s bon mot/cliche is: c’est la vie, which is used widely in France and Rwanda by Dion’s fellow countrymen.
As AdScam Chretien, ex-Unity Minister Dion’s boss, would say: Wad’s 800,000 peoples murdered? so wad? …-
Le Hotel Rwanda
The UK Times describes the gloom at the French mission after its ambassador was expelled from Rwanda after the African country charged that France had masterminded the genocide. Here’s more background from the UK Times:
Rwanda has recalled its ambassador to France as the row between the two countries over culpability for the 1994 Rwandan genocide spiralled to a new low. The decision to bring Emmanuel Ndagijimana home from Paris was made after a French judge issued arrest warrants for nine high-ranking Rwandans accused of involvement in the assassination of then-President Juvenal Habyarimana – an occurrence which triggered the mass slaughter. …
Rwanda has accused Paris of making the allegations as a means of covering up its own role in training soldiers who carried out the genocide. Yesterday, 25,000 Rwandans protested in Kigali against France, accusing it of complicity in the slaughter – a charge Paris has always denied.
Commentary
Whichever of the two is guilty, it’s interesting to compare the International mode of justice to that which hanged Saddam Hussein. Milosevic died in captivity. In the case of Rwanda, no major statesmen, just a few flunkies, have been indicted for the genocide. It’s already on its way, after some theatrics, to the dustbin of history or perhaps more appropriately, to its graveyard. Yet there is some preference for running the world in this indefinite manner. Letting stuff just happen. Like Darfur. And deciding that stuff just happened, like Rwanda. It’s the perfect postmodern world. A world with many narratives all of which may be incompatible. But ces’t la vie. Or as Willie Nelson was once rumored to have pronounced it: sest lah vee.
Read more! posted by wretchard at Belmont Club….-
And more here:
Blood on their hands
REVIEWED BY RW JOHNSON
SILENT ACCOMPLICE: The Untold Story of France’s Role in the Rwandan Genocide
by Andrew Wallis
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23110-2442888,00.html
me no dhimmi – many thanks. I get it.
Yes, I fully agree; the Baker plan to ‘negotiate’, ie, talk with Syria and Iran is insane. Syria is run by Iran and Iran has very clear imperialist agendas over the whole ME. That includes their desire to ahhh…’stabilize’ Iraq by destroying its democracy and taking over the country.
Yes, it’s a lonely world in academia as far as politics is concerned. Most academics, especially in the social sciences and humanities are, in my view, brain dead elitists, living comfortably on a cloud, tenured, urban and removed from all results of their innane pontificating comments about the world. I deal mostly with people in the sciences where reality isn’t hidden by talk, talk, talk and indeed, if you mix X and Y, it can explode in your face.
ET: Yes, now I remember you pointed out that before: that you’re in the “hard subjects” not the “bird courses” [hoping I’m not carbon-dating myself].
I’m reading Daniel Pipes’ “Militant Islam Reaches America” and was startled to learn about the very high percentage of Islamists with backgrounds in science, engineering and medicine.
Misleading headline of the day–top of front page, Ottawa Citizen:
“Afghan mission ‘doomed to fail'”
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=87414256-04d1-442f-a43b-03855cfc8da2&k=75000
The phase in quotes appears nowhere in the Foreign Affairs article, “Saving Afghanistan”, on which the story is based.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070101faessay86105/barnett-r-rubin/saving-afghanistan.html
Indeed, a headline writer with a different agenda could have written this using a phrase that actually is in the article:
“Battle for Afghanistan ‘is still ours to lose'”.
And of course the positive bits are buried at the end of the Citizen’s story:
‘Mr. Rubin offers a few threads of hope. He says the formation of the Afghan National Army, now with 30,000 troops, “has been one of the relative success stories of the past five years.”
And he says despite the country’s increasing woes, “no one I spoke to (there in 2006) advocated giving up.’
The story does not quote this from the same paragraph in the Foreign Affairs piece:
“he [an elder] and his colleagues still called Karzai the country’s best leader in 30 years — a modest endorsement, given the competition, but significant nonetheless.”
Mark
Ottawa
I’d like some feedback about a piece I wrote comparing the defections of Stronach, Emerson, and Khan, on several different levels. Hopefully, it doesn’t make for too boring reading. 🙂
http://chansweb.homeftp.org:8081/index.php/2007/01/06/comparing-parliamentary-defections/
I appreciate any comments that can be had.
Globe and Mail Poll:
It’s been unseasonably warm in Canada this week. What do you think is going on?
Global waming (sic) caused by man 8015 votes (44%)
Global warming, natural causes 5426 votes (30%)
Nothing, it’s just nice weather 4575 votes (25%)
I think it should have said “unseasonably warm in eastern Canada” as I look out my window to a normal 2 feet of snow. It’s nice to see that the climate cultists are only fooling less then half of the people.
The logic of cross-pollination
Carol Goar — Collectively, Canada’s top politicians have most of the attributes voters look for in a leader. Individually, each is missing a few key skills.
Reason suggests that they should learn from one other. Pride and politics militate against it.
Even if they don’t take the logical path, it is worth exploring. It provides a useful reminder of the talent that exists in public life and the potential to put it to better use.
Stephen Harper is a shrewd, decisive and disciplined prime minister. What he lacks is the willingness to meet Canadians halfway, listen to their points of view and respect their intelligence.
[…]
Note: “I don’t know about that, Carol. He listens to me just fine. Sometimes I ‘wonder’ who’s in charge. ‘Me’ or ‘Him’.” …-
jack’s newswatch
Here is the link to: Angus Reid poll about Dion
Will Stéphane Dion be the Next Canadian Prime Minister?
YES
NO
So far no-69%. 31%-yes
http://rm.angusreidforum.com/?cid=48&rs=GgEnSD
Poll still up
privacy test…1,2…thank you.
Climate change killed golden civilisations
The Sunday Times ^ | 1/07/07 | Michael Sheridan
NEW research suggests that climate change led to the collapse of the most splendid imperial dynasty in China’s history and to the extinction of the Maya civilisation in Central America more than 1,000 years ago. There has never been a satisfactory explanation for the decline and fall of the Tang emperors, whose era is viewed as a highpoint of Chinese civilisation, while the disappearance of the Maya world perplexes scholars. Now a team of scientists has found evidence that a shift in monsoons led to drought and famine in the final century of Tang power. The weather pattern may also…-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763567/posts
So what is climate change?
It’s the weather, stupid.
Here is the forecast for Pickle Lake, Huron, Moose Creek, ….: more weather.
ET and MeNoDhimmi,
That was interesting.
=======
Bush wasted two hours talking to Maliki.
I watched Maliki*s raptured expression when he met with * Madmud Almondjeans* and the kissing of both cheeks.
There may be some deception in how Maliki relates to Muqtada al Sadr, [to fool Bush], but there will not be any real change in loyalty at all!
Grand Ayatollah Sistani could offer some stability in Iraq, but al Maliki never will. = TG.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_jamil_hussein_1
“…Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.
The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP’s initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in
Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein’s identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.
Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein’s existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record.
Hussein was not the original source of the disputed report of the attack; the account was first told on Al-Arabiya satellite television by a Sunni elder, Imad al-Hashimi, who retracted it after members of the Defense Ministry paid him a visit. Several neighborhood residents subsequently gave the AP independent accounts of the Shiite militia attack on a mosque in which six people were set on fire and killed…”
I hope all of the “Global Warmers” in Ontario and Quebec enjoy the snow that that will finally arrive on Sunday, followed by?
need to have the global warming poll in Vancouver or Denver to see how they feel.
Since Ontario has a larger population they should get to control the weather.
“Angus Reid poll; Should Canada be continuing to contribute troops to the Nato mission in Afghanistan?
66% Yes
34% No”
And yet – the headlines scream about the “diminishing support” for the mission.
Sigh…
Here’s a shocker! Under that labour outfit in Great Britain ? The military is being decimated, denigrated and swept under the carpet as never before…see the whole story here—– http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=WFAXA4BHIMW4NQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/01/07/nmod07.xml
(excerpt)
Patrick Mercer, the Tory spokesman for homeland security who was an infantry commanding officer, said: “The Armed Forces are not a political organisation but they have simply had enough of being treated with contempt by this Government.”
Mr Fox said: “The reason that leaks are appearing is because of the build-up of frustration and anger in the Armed Forces about the way in which Labour are increasingly willing to commit our forces to combat without giving the support they require.
“These are men and women who are prepared to pay the ultimate price for this country’s security but who have been betrayed by a Government which is possibly the most self-serving and party political in our history.”
Is there anyone out there that can tell me how Canada has been embarassed internationally because of Kyoto. All the liberals and media keep using that stmt. Sheila Copps uses it today in the Sun. Have any of you been out of the country and had anyone come up to you and say anything re Kyoto. Sheila also states dion had an excellent record re Kyoto. That is a lie and we all know it, unless naming your dog Kyoto is the thing to do. I think, when we hear that phrase, embarassed internationally, we should demand examples of this. Considering the lineups at passport offices, of cdns, waiting for a passport to fly to the USA, not many cdns care, or are concerned they may be mocked for the governments stand on Kyoto. If our not following Kyoto was a big deal with other countries, they would be telling us that unless we change, they will not send teams to the olympics in BC.
I just about choked on my morning coffee while reading Copp’s this a.m.!Of more interest tho,was Weston’s column re:Adscam.The saga continues,and it will really be interesting what gets dug up now.
Over at Spin Central for the Libs,Jason wets his pants again..crying about “misinformation”about the Great Leader,Dion! Takes big pout, mainly about the blogosphere,and how they make fun of his “God-Like leader”Can we look forward to another petition? Can you imagine the head-explosion,if msm start in on Libs/Dion,and do some hardcore questioning,,rather than pandering?
Worse than Watergate — But Invisible in the Media By Alan Nathan FrontPageMagazine.com | January 5, 2007
President Clinton’s Former National Security Advisor was caught stealing and destroying classified documents from the National Archives (before the 9/11 Commission could read them), but his actions have garnered less media attention than a fly breaking wind.
Sandy Berger illegally removed four documents, hid them under a construction trailer for later retrieval, then cut three of the four with scissors upon returning to his office. He admitted to lying about it when first questioned by their officials, according to a December 20, 2006, report by Inspector General Paul Brachfeld.
We already knew that in September of 2005, Berger was sentenced to pay a $50,000 fine and complete 100 hours of community service for taking and destroying documents never meant to leave the Archives in October 2003. However, at the time of his plea bargain, much of this story was never reported, and most of us were unaware of just how premeditated had been his cloak and dagger exercises.
Well, now we know, but little of it is making the headlines or the airwaves. Why? Why is it that secret material failing to reach the 9/11 Commission never ignited explosions of press inquiry? …-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763739/posts
Hoax/Scam # 43 ;
The Environment Secretary(no-less) of the UK(no-less) has been quoted in the BBC(no-less)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6238227.stm
saying that organic food has not, nor has ever been, proven to be better than the other 96% of our food supply. Oh, and so we have been scamed for decades. Who is liable for this scam ?? Will they be prosecuted ?? When ?? Was the so-called Organic Food industry and the Media recently called on the issue ?? By Blogs ?? The enviro-nuts must have put up strong opposition to this admission of guilt but seemingly were ignored.
The majority of cdns did not know that Gomery was not allowed to investigate anything that might lead to charges, so therefore bought the report that Martin and his gang were free and clear. Now, with a new mountie in charge, maybe the truth will finally come out and many may go to jail, or have their reputations ruined. Dion says it is in the past and will have no impact. Didn’t he also say Khan would remain a liberal. He is wrong re his dual citizenship and wrong about adscam. As for Harper embarrasing Canada on the world stage re Kyoto, Dion would be a disaster as a spokesman for Canada. Wasn’t it the British press that dubbed Martin the ditherer. Dions first priority should be to learn to speak english, so he could be understood by the majority of cdns. What were the libs thinking by electing him as leader. Oh, thats right, he named his dog Kyoto. What else did he do as environment minister other than collect a cabinet paycheque. As for the environment being the no. 1 issue, I really don’t think so. Will you vote for a party that promises to eliminate your job and standard of living.
Gore and the Red-Green Bull, Hybrid Bull.
Media/MSM barred by Bully Gore. …-
Gore bars press from talk
Former VP will meet with students but not media
By BEN SHOUSE
bshouse@argusleader.com
Reporters and TV news cameras will be banned from almost all of former Vice President Al Gore’s appearance Jan. 23 in Sioux Falls.
Gore is the Boe Forum speaker at Augustana College and plans a talk called “Thinking Green: Economic Strategy for the 21st Century.”
Kalee Kreider, a Gore staffer in Nashville, confirmed by e-mail that news media will be asked to leave his talk after the introduction and that Gore will not hold a press conference.
Gore has agreed to meet with college and high school students before the speech, said Arthur Huseboe, executive director of Augustana’s Center for Western Studies, which sponsors the forum.
Still, the rule does not quite jibe with the image of Gore the tireless crusader from the movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” spreading urgent warnings about global warming.
The only other Boe Forum speaker to decline a news conference was Queen Noor of Jordan, Huseboe said. Past speakers have included former President George H.W. Bush, former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and former British Prime Minister John Major.
Kreider said copyright issues necessitate closing Gore’s slide show to the press. She did not give a reason for declining to hold a news conference.
“Do I find it odd? I guess if I were a speaker, and I had to do this kind of stuff all of the time, I might have some odd requests, too,” Huseboe said. “I don’t even like to judge the requirements of people who come. They have requirements for their hotel room and all kinds of transportation.
“For example, he really would like to have a hybrid vehicle drive him from the airport,” he said. But the company Augustana uses for transportation does not have a large enough hybrid, so the plan is to pick Gore up in a sedan that burns 15-percent ethanol. …-
http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070107/NEWS01/701070303/1001/NEWS
Of the approx. three million Muslims attending the Hajj in SA what percentage were Sunni, Shia or other sects? The event apparently was without serious mishaps this year in that noone died in an stampede at the stoning ritual. Increased high-tech security measures by Saudis met with complete success over three million Muslims experienced “peace for a few brief days.” Not to go unnoticed. Hey, proving the “can do” it.
B. Hoax Aware: Add milk/cream marketing boards to your list, along with the Canadian(!)Wheat Board (CWB), Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), Egg Farmers of Ontario (EFO), etc., etc., etc., …
Cartels, boards, agencies, monopolies,oligopolies; Da Canadian values, loved, nurtured, kept-prostitutes of/by the left-liberals/socialists.
B. Hoax Aware: Remember the Germ Warfare Hoax, perpetrated by the left-communists during the Korean War? …-
Dairy farmers make suckers of consumers
The Gazette
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Canadians are drinking 18 per cent less milk than they did in 1980, consuming 30 per cent less butter and 24 per cent less ice cream. Cheese production is barely holding steady. The Canadian dairy herd has dwindled.
Sounds like a disastrous portrait of a collapsing industry, doesn’t it? In fact, these realities are all the result of careful manipulation of the dairy industry by federal and provincial governments and dairy producers themselves. This systematic conspiracy against consumers goes by the name of “orderly marketing,” and it has resulted in an average profit margin for dairy farms of 25 per cent of operating revenue, almost double the figure for all farms in Canada.
Now, at the beginning of a new year, both the federal and provincial governments dipped into consumers’ pockets yet again to fatten the profits of politically well-connected dairy farmers. Year after year this scandal goes on because consumers don’t know how to fight back.
As usual, consumers don’t know how to fight back. One group that does, a little, is the Canadian Restaurant and Food Service Association, which operates an informative website called dairyplanet.ca, which claims that Canadian dairy prices are the world’s highest. …-
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=ee6c13f7-4d94-4a12-a04d-fe42d8232e81
The subsequent zoom in oil prices in 1999 afforded Iran fiscal breathing room but does not solve Iran’s structural economic problems. Iran’s current president Ahmadinejad has promised sweeping economic reform, including widespread social services and an elimination of Iran’s stock market.
economyofiran.quickseek.com/
Closing down the Iranian stock market?
Talk about a blind hatred of Western ideas.
=TG
Anyone catch Harper on QP, and the little dig he put out. “I don’t think cdns will accept they may have to heat their homes 1/3 less, to meet targets.” I hope that is the first in many stmts about what Kyoto will mean to the average cdn. They have to know it is not just about punishing Alberta, altho both craig and giggles kept hitting on Alberta this morning, trying to make us out as the only enemies.
New York Times Admits to a Blatant Lie
Concerned Women for America
A major journalistic scandal was finally acknowledged during the long news hole leading up to the New Year’s celebrations when the headlines were consumed by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s execution and the funeral of former U.S. President Gerald Ford. It was revealed last week that in April 2006 The New York Times Magazine published a long cover story that hinged on a blatant lie.
The facts of the case came to light in November through the efforts of a pro-life Web site, LifeSiteNews.com. At first, The Times editors stonewalled over the facts, then they covered up the reporter’s biased sources and denied unethical journalistic practices. Finally, the newspaper’s ombudsman, Byron Calame, wrote a column on December 31, 2006 detailing the newspaper’s malpractice in the April 9 story. Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the newspaper’s editors saw no reason to “doubt the accuracy” of the story, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So, no retraction, no recriminations and no firings. …-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763813/posts
CP, the Canadian Values Press, outlines their crystal ball, for all youse dummies.
It’s down to a handful of voters: 4 voters, not counting Tom Thumb. CP says these voters are “engaged”! To be married? Liberals are pushing to make polygamy legal in Canada?
It’s down to a trio of “issues”: Is Dion a Kyoto-socialist? Yes. Is Dion a citizen of a foreign country, France? Yes. Was/is Dion a Librano$ of the Ad$cam gang? Yes. …-
Handful of voters, trio of issues, key to Tory and Liberal fates
By BRUCE ANDERSON
OTTAWA (CP) – A fairly small group of women, urban and Quebec voters could make the difference in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s bid to win the next election.
…
And so, female, urban/suburban and Quebec voters will probably turn out to be the “swing voters” who hold the key to whether the Liberals or Conservatives form the next government. They’re engaged, want to be impressed, and their votes are up for grabs.
Like other voters, they enjoy lower taxes, but not if that means dismantling key programs: current advantage to the Conservatives.
More than other voters they value environmental action: current advantage to the Liberals.
And more than other voters, they are unsure about the best course of action in Afghanistan: on this issue, no party has a clear advantage at the moment, as news reports from Washington and Kandahar cause swings in public mood.
At the end of the day, the details of these issues may matter less than how they reflect the underlying values of the parties, leaders and voters. These swing voters want peace, but not at any price, want lower taxes, but not at any cost, and want more effort on the environment, with no qualification or prevarication.
Greg Weston, in his article today on the RCMP’s renewed interest in AdScam, writes, “Whether Dion’s image as Mr. Clean can erase his party’s tarnish remains to be seen, but it won’t be easy.”
He’s right. It won’t be easy.
Stephane Dion is the image of Mr. Clean? Says who?
Maybe Jean Chretien, possibly Paul Martin, certainly David Herle and Scott Reid, every one of them in the throes of wishful thinking.
Stephane Dion is totally tainted and tarnished by the AdScam scandal. Dion was a Quebec minister throughout the Adscam years AND the minister responsible for the Quebec unity file, which means he either should have known what was going on–in which case, he’s culpable–or he was “amiss,” as Weston puts it. Stupid and negligent are more apt.
Dion is quoted as saying, “The ones who abused the program have to face the justice saystem. But we should not have guilt by association. To tarnish reputations with that would be completely unfair.”
What universe is Stephane Dion living in–or on what planet? Of course there’s “guilt by association,” which is completely fair: His Party perpetrated a fraud involving million$ of Canadian taxpayers’ dollar$, and he thinks that as a Cabinet Minister of said Party he gets off Scott-free?
His reputation is wrapped up in the LPC and their affairs. Canadians will not give him a pass on this.
An open question for the Canadian political media
A question for the Canadian political media: Who gave you the impression that Harper and/or the PMO consulted with Dion regarding the motion to recognize Quebec as a nation?
That impression had to have come originally from either the Harper or Dion camps. Well, it had to have come from somewhere, and those two options seem pretty much obvious.
Harper has flat-out said that Dion was not a part of their consultations. Dion has said that since he talked to someone from the PMO, he talked to the PMO. Dion’s characterization is the more suspicious of the two.
You can talk to a former aide of yours that is now with the PMO without being engaged in a formal discussion. If this was a personal consultation, why did Dion allow another version to hold sway for all this time? Why didn’t he ever set the record straight? Was it because he wanted to enhance his federalist image on the eve of the leadership vote? Was it because he seems to have developed a habit of banking on perceived personal reputation rather than the actual record?
That’s why I’d like to know, and I think Canadians would like to know, why the media reported an apparently false story about Dion’s involvement with the PMO for weeks on end. And why was this misperception left dangling until Harper apparently corrected it this week?
If we want as much truth in politics as possible, and if we want our politicians to be sincere about what they do and who they are, then I think we’re owed some answers to some of these questions. Aren’t we?
http://secondthots.blogspot.com/
The left in Canada is the same as in the USA, Britain, and the entire Anglo-Saxon world.
In Canada, this is personified in the blogger whose handle is “my blagh”: “defined by a single thing: anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism.” In addition, Blagh hates his country, Canada. Blagh, like American leftists, would deny it. …-
The European and American Left since 1945. (academic leftist)
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=264 Andrei S. Markovits
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall the European-along with the much weaker American-left has been in a crisis that has challenged its very identity. In fact, this profound crisis predated the events of 1989; it was in full swing by the time the Wall tumbled in good part because of the ineptitude and moral bankruptcy of at least part of this left. Still, with the events of 1989 and 1990, a period that began in the late 1860s and early 1870s and entered its political salience in the 1880s came to a close. A political manifestation and social formation that defined the very idea of progressivism in the advanced industrial societies for exactly one century collapsed. Some would say that the radicalism of this period, its revolutionary potential to transform capitalism, ended with the tragedy of 1914. After all, it was then that the left realized that its internationalism and perceived universal class solidarity had lost its primacy to the much more powerful sentiment of particularistic nationalism. The left’s innocence was most certainly lost by the early fall of 1914. Others would date the crisis from the end of World War I, the events of 1918, which already pointed toward the coming of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and National Socialism in Germany. …-
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1763866/posts
Comment:
To: ventanax5
This guy’s bottom line is interesting, btw — he charts the post-WWII Left through its various stages and adaptations to changing circumstances over the decades (read, the collapse of its ideas), and what he arrives at is a modern Left that’s ultimately, or most clearly, defined by a single thing: anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. And you know what? I get the feeling that most leftists would probably be hard pressed to disagree with that. The only ones who would deny it, and passionately so, would be American leftists. Poor American leftists. Talk about being in an awkward spot: the movement they’re aligned with has come to mean only one thing consistently: the hatred of the country they’re citizens of. The American leftist is in a unique predicament compared to his French or Italian or Swedish counterpart, who at least are able to direct their existential angst outward. …-