The campaign isn’t over for Michael Moore – for an Oscar nomination. This attempt at damage control is textbook Moore in its “subtlety”.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (Reuters) : “Fahrenheit 9/ 11” director Michael Moore on Monday rejected the idea that Hollywood had hurt John Kerry’s chances of winning the White House, insisting that he and other entertainers helped spare Democrats an even bigger defeat.
“For the last month, we’ve had to listen to a lot of conservative pundits talk about how Democrats need to run away from Hollywood,” Moore said. “It’s actually the opposite. Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.”
[…]
Citing California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former President Ronald Reagan, Moore said, “America loves Hollywood. America loves the people in the movies and on TV. And the thing that the Republicans have already figured out is that America likes to vote for Hollywood…
“And I think we need to turn to Hollywood, because who wouldn’t vote for Tom Hanks or Paul Newman or Robert Redford or Oprah?”

Now, c’mon everybody, stop laughing and think. Has anyone ever seen Karl Rove and Michael Moore in the same room together?

CTV news reports that Paralympian Chantal Petitclerc (wheelchair racing) has been named top Canadian track and field athlete by Athletics Canada.

O Canada rang out when she won a demonstration race during the summer Olympiad.
At the time, Petiticlerc was thrilled to be congratulated by none other than [top-ranked Canadian female hurdler] Felicien in an exchange that made her feel like an equal.

The thrill seems to have worn off in recent weeks since learning that she will share the award with her congratulator…

But now, she says it’s obvious wheelchair athletes aren’t held in the same regard as their able-bodied counterparts.
“It’s always a little shocking to see what Paralympic medals and world records are worth, to really see it,” Petitclerc told The Globe in an interview.
“After Athens, you feel you’ve come a certain way and had a certain achievement and your sport has grown and been recognized, that you’re finally there. And this is shocking.”

I don’t know about that. Petitclerc seems to have achieved one sought-after pinnacle in sports – ownership of a world class ego. That’s got to count for something.

Other Christmas gift ideas for the special people in your email bin can be found at the highly useful Who Would Buy That?

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

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.

At least one Liberal MP will find it difficult to hide her distaste for the recently re- elected U.S. president. Carolyn Parrish didn’t even try on Monday, playing along with CBC-TV’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes by stomping on a George Bush action figure.

Parrish has been outspoken in the past, calling Americans “bastards” and mocking Bush’s efforts to gather allies in the war on Iraq by calling countries that follow the U.S. a “coalition of idiots.”

“Come on guys, this is humour … I am not a monster lady. I’m not an angry wet hen. I am actually a pretty funny person and humour is one of those tonics in life.”

Carolyn has a point.

1 pm. update – Prime Minister Paul Martin has announced Parrish has been expelled from caucus.

Via The Command Post:

Top United Nations human rights official Louise Arbour has called for investigation of alleged abuses in Fallujah, Iraq, including disproportionate use of force and the targeting of civilians.
Those responsible for any violations – US and multinational forces, Iraqi government troops or insurgents – should be brought to justice, the former UN war crimes prosecutor said in a statement.

Well, what are you waiting for, Louise? Grab an M16 and you go, girl.

“There have been a number of reports during the current confrontation alleging violations of the rules of war designed to protect civilians and combatants,” the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights said.
[…]
All violations of international humanitarian and human rights law must be investigated, including “the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons and the use of human shields”, Ms Arbour said.

In related news:

Mutilated bodies dumped on Fallujah’s bombed out streets today painted a harrowing picture of eight months of rebel rule.
As US and Iraqi troops mopped up the last vestiges of resistance in the city after a week of bombardment and fighting, residents who stayed on through last week’s offensive were emerging and telling harrowing tales of the brutality they endured.
Flyposters still litter the walls bearing all manner of decrees from insurgent commanders, to be heeded on pain of death. Amid the rubble of the main shopping street, one decree bearing the insurgents’ insignia – two Kalashnikovs propped together – and dated November 1 gives vendors three days to remove nine market stalls from outside the city’s library or face execution.
The pretext given is that the rebels wanted to convert the building into a headquarters for the “Mujahidin Advisory Council” through which they ran the city.
Another poster in the ruins of the souk bears testament to the strict brand of Sunni Islam imposed by the council, fronted by hardline cleric Abdullah Junabi. The decree warns all women that they must cover up from head to toe outdoors, or face execution by the armed militants who controlled the streets.
Two female bodies found yesterday suggest such threats were far from idle. An Arab woman, in a violet nightdress, lay in a post-mortem embrace with a male corpse in the middle of the street. Both bodies had died from bullets to the�head.
Just six metres away on the same street lay the decomposing corpse of a blonde-haired white woman, too disfigured for swift identification but presumed to be the body of one of the many foreign hostages kidnapped by the rebels.
Such is the fear that the heavily armed militants held over Fallujah that many of the residents who emerged from the ruins welcomed the US marines, despite the massive destruction their firepower had inflicted on their city.
A man in his sixties, half-naked and his underwear stained with blood from shrapnel wounds from a US munition, cursed the insurgents as he greeted the advancing marines on Saturday night.
“I wish the Americans had come here the very first day and not waited eight months,” he said, trembling.

A former member of Canada’s Supreme Court, it’s a relief that Arbour has been removed from that position and into the UN, where her assinine statements lack any significant legal or moral authority.

BocaNews.com

Mental health officials in South Florida blasted Rush Limbaugh on Monday, saying the conservative talk show host’s offer of “free therapy” for traumatized John Kerry voters has made a mockery of a valid psychological problem.
“Rush Limbaugh has a way of back-handedly slamming people,” said Sheila Cooperman, a licensed clinician with the American Health Association (AHA) who listened Friday as Limbaugh offered to personally treat her patients. “He’s trying to ridicule the emotional state this presidential election produced in many of us here in Palm Beach County. Who is he to offer therapy?”

“us”?
Physician, heal thyself.

Cooperman, whose professional practice is based in Delray Beach, said the election-related symptoms she sees in the Kerry supporters more than quality PEST as “a legitimate syndrome or disorder within the trauma spectrum,” according to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
“Rush Limbaugh has no clinical qualifications to counsel anyone,” Cooperman said. “He’s not only minimizing PEST, but he’s bastardizing the entire psychological field and our clinical expertise.”

You don’t say.
(crossposted to Outside The Beltway where I’m doing a little guest blogging these days.)

Greg Staples thinks the British press is incredibly bold.

Q Mr. President, first. The Prime Minister is sometimes, perhaps unfairly, characterized in Britain as your “poodle.” I was wondering if that’s the way you may see your relationship? And perhaps, more seriously, do you feel for the –“.
Here is a questioner calling the Prime Minister of the UK a poodle to his face.

Indeed. I wonder where they get it? Bush’s answer;

“PRESIDENT BUSH: The Prime Minister made the decision he did because he wanted to do his duty to secure the people of Great Britain. That’s why he made the decision. Plenty capable of making his own mind. He’s a strong, capable man. I admire him a lot. You know why? When he tells you something, he means it. You spend much time with politics, you’ll know there’s some people around this part of the — this kind of line of work where they tell you something, they don’t mean it…”

A Bushian slip, that. Whoever could he be thinking of?
Times Online

JACQUES CHIRAC dealt a blow to Tony Blair’s attempt to heal the wounds between the US and Europe last night by saying that the Prime Minister had won nothing for supporting the war against Iraq.
[…]
M Chirac, speaking to British journalists, including The Times, soon after General Powell’s announcement, revealed that he had urged Mr Blair to demand the relaunch of the Middle East peace process in return for backing the war.
“Well, Britain gave its support but I did not see anything in return. I’m not sure it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favours systematically.”
[…]
M Chirac, whose visit to Britain concludes the Entente Cordiale anniversary celebrations, said: “I am not sure, with America as it is these days, that it would be easy for someone, even the British, to be an honest broker.”

Go, Norm Coleman, go. Time to return the favour.

The entertainment industry has never been more… entertaining!.
Waiting for word of sightings of Baldwin, Penn and Sheen…..

related.

It seems like a distant memory now – Howard Dean’s headline grabbing ascent to Democratic frontrunner – the internet fund-raising rock star of the Grassroots. If only they had known that the chorus of voices that bustled on the Dean blog forum were in fact, the only ones who would actually show up to vote for him in the primaries. But the Blog For America soldiers on. Today, this astute observation in a message signed by the good doctor himself.

“And a record number of us voted to change course – more Americans voted against George Bush than any sitting president in history.”

There’s the spirit, Howie.

Via Drudge: this MTV interview;

Yago: Last time we talked, in March, you said that it’s important to listen to hip-hop because it gives you a sense of what’s going on in the street. Have you heard the new Eminem song that’s been out?
Kerry: You know, I heard Eminem on “Saturday Night Live” last night. I heard the song that he did. I don’t know if that’s part of his new [album] or not. I liked it. But that’s the only thing that I’ve heard in the last weeks. I’m on the trail. I’m campaigning every day.

Partial lyrics to Mosh;

…
Rebel with a rebel yell, raise hell we gonna let em know
Stomp, push, shove, mush, Fuck Bush, until they bring our troops home (c’mon)
[Chorus]
Imagine it pouring, it’s raining down on us
Mosh pits outside the oval office
Someone’s tryina tell us something,
Maybe this is god just sayin’ we’re responsible
For this monster, this coward,
That we have empowered
This is Bin Laden, look at his head noddin’
How could we allow something like this without pumping our fists
Now this is our final hour
Let me be the voice in your strength and your choice
Let me simplify the rhyme just to amplify the noise
Try to amplify the times it, and multiply by six…
Teen million people, Are equal at this high pitch
Maybe we can reach alqueda through my speech
Let the president answer a higher anarchy
Strap him with an Ak-47, let him go, fight his own war
Let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil
No more psychological warfare, to trick us to thinking that we ain’t loyal
If we don’t serve our own country, we’re patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes its all lies
The stars and stripes, they’ve been swiped, washed out and wiped
And replaced with his own face, Mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you know why,
Cause I told you to fight.
[Chorus]
And as we proceed,
To Mosh through this desert storm,
In these closing statements, if they should argue
Let us beg to differ
As we set aside our differences
And assemble our own army
To disarm this Weapon of Mass Destruction
That we call our President, for the present
And Mosh for the future of our next generation
To speak and be heard
Mr. President, Mr. Senator
Do you guy’s hear us…hear us…[laughing] (Hailie)

Senator Kerry, did you hear him …. hear him?
I have my doubts.
Added to Wizbang linkfest

A good deal has been made of the exchange between Jon Stewart vs Tucker Carlson on CNN’s Crossfire.

STEWART: It’s not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.

[In our next segment, Genius Jon accuses Food Channel of recipe mongering.]

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you’re accusing us of partisan hackery?
STEWART: Absolutely.
CARLSON: You’ve got to be kidding me. He comes on and you…
(CROSSTALK)
STEWART: You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: What is wrong with you?
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Well, I’m just saying, there’s no reason for you — when you have this marvelous opportunity not to be the guy’s butt boy, to go ahead and be his butt boy. Come on. It’s embarrassing.
STEWART: I was absolutely his butt boy. I was so far — you would not believe what he ate two weeks ago.
(LAUGHTER) (CROSSTALK)
STEWART: You know, the interesting thing I have is, you have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.
CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think.
STEWART: You need to go to one. The thing that I want to say is, when you have people on for just knee-jerk, reactionary talk…
CARLSON: Wait. I thought you were going to be funny. Come on. Be funny.
STEWART: No. No. I’m not going to be your monkey.
(LAUGHTER)
BEGALA: Go ahead. Go ahead.
STEWART: I watch your show every day. And it kills me.
CARLSON: I can tell you love it.
STEWART: It’s so — oh, it’s so painful to watch.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: You know, because we need what you do. This is such a great opportunity you have here to actually get politicians off of their marketing and strategy.
CARLSON: Is this really Jon Stewart? What is this, anyway?
STEWART: Yes, it’s someone who watches your show and cannot take it anymore.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: I just can’t.

I can’t take Jon Stewart anymore, either. Why? Not because he’s a partisan hack, which he is – but because in the friendly studio in which he practices his hackery, he’s forgotten something fundamental about his trade – to be genuine, satire requires unwavering honesty.
Jon Stewart’s “satire” fails that test. His pieces are too often based on falsehood or half truth. He relies on discredited memes and convenient headlines. He uses Iraqi casualties to make “funny” with a partisan audience – not in so many words, but if you watch the segment called “Messopotamia”, that’s what it is. Anyone with more than a passing acquaintance with current events cannot find much to laugh at watching the Daily Show. You know too much. His shallow cheap shots are offensive – because they insult the intelligence.
Jon Stewart may offer up the defense that he does comedy, in order to deflect criticism of the insincerity of his satire, but for someone who has built a show based on “fake news”, he really ought to follow the news a little more closely, if only to retain his professional integrity.
The Wall Street Journal’s James Bowman doesn’t buy it either.

Mr. Stewart used his appearance on “Crossfire” to make a serious point, yet when it was taken up seriously he tried to retreat into his characteristic pose as a harmless comedian. “You are on CNN,” he said to Mr. Carlson when accused of sucking up to Mr. Kerry; “the show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.”
So then we shouldn’t pay any attention to him when he tries to be serious? I don’t think he quite meant to say that, and yet he is saying it, in effect, all the time. Under the cover of humor, his show routinely makes vicious points about, say, the Iraq war. Are we meant to think of the puppets when we hear such “Daily Show” bits or when Mr. Stewart endorses Mr. Kerry for president?

The underlying theme to Stewart’s comedy isn’t the bashing of conservativism and the current Republican administration – it’s deeper. In his presentation of “facts” , Stewart treats his decidely left-leaning audience like uniformed morons – and, judging by the applause he generates, they generally are. And that is where the real satire of the Daily Show resides. Not with the quality of the news, but in the quality of the audience.
I just wish it were funnier.

… and he types with one finger.

Marijuana activist Marc Emery was released from jail today. He was a guest on John Gormley Live, where he compared the “persecution” of his “culture” by “Europeans” to the civil rights movement, slavery and the Holocaust.

“We’ve arrested more people for marijuana since 1960 than Stalin sent to the gulags.”

That ladies and gentlemen, is your brain on drugs. (Emery is also of the opinion that the climate in Saskatchewan was too harsh for white men and that Europeans should have left it to the Indians and sought more “civilized” places to live. Like Vancouver’s Hastings Street, I presume.)
By and large, I’m ambivalent towards the decriminalization of marijuana, but I have enough past experience with the effects to know that I don’t want pot smokers behind the wheel, taking care of children, or responsible for heavy machinery – and until there is a roadside test for pot intoxication, arresting people for possession is just fine with me.
What I’m not ambivalent towards are those who choose civil disobedience to make a political point, who then mewl like babies when they suffer the anticipated legal consequences. In the case of the self-described “Prince of Pot”, he really needs to be treated to the reality of the Soviet gulag to get a better understanding of how obscene his pathetic, self-pitying comparisons were.
My advice to the advocates of decrimilization is to dump this loser, and fast. At best, his logic is convoluted – at worst, one suspects he’s suffered brain damage. It may be a simple chicken-egg question – perhaps his stupidity predated his marijuana use. It’s conceivable that Mr.Emery was destined to be as dense as a soggy post from the day he first drew breath – but whatever the case may be, inhalation of marijuana has not enhanced his mental capacities.

So, what’s new?
The insufferable Mr. Kinsella pulled the same stunt when he was a “guest” on a talk radio show in Saskatchewan last year after the retirement of Jean Chretien. A caller raised the fact that Chretien’s daughter was married to the son of Paul Desmarais (of Bombardier and Power Corporation fame), and was promptly interrupted by Mr.Kinsella who threatened to sue both the station and the caller.
Once a Librano always a Librano.
Oct.19 update and more links here.

Paul, at Wizbang, catches an“expert” creating “proof” that the discredited TANG memos could have been produced on a typewriter, and has advice for him.

Here is a hint for the good Professor– If you are going to forge documents DON’T LEAVE THE EVIDENCE on your webserver.
And if you don’t think that TH nailed him, feel free to download the PHOTOSHOP DOCUMENT he was working on when he created the forgery.
Not only did he forge the document but he let the work in progress in an open web folder.
And Professor, if you are reading this- and I know someone will mail it to you, I have downloaded your entire website as evidence and I saved screen caps of it, so don’t bother delete it. I also had an interesting phone call with the head of your department. You might give him a call.

The entire post is hilarious as the updates continue… the good professor trying to play catchup, editing his pages, adding disclaimers, while the blogosphere crushes him like a skunk on the dotted line….
update – Wizbang does a little digging and finds a familiar name attached to the photoshopping professor – CBS producer Mary Mapes

You know, with this many recent appearances by der Fuehrer, I’m surprised that little black mustaches aren’t making a fashion comeback. Today, rock producer and accused murderer Phil Spector finds himself in the clutches of the Third Reich.

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, Spector criticized the prosecutor’s decision to seek a grand jury indictment, saying: “The actions of the Hitler-like district attorney and his storm trooper henchmen are reprehensible, unconscionable and despicable.”

For those keeping score: President George W. Bush is Hitler, Attorney General John Ashcroft is Hitler, and now Hitler has even trickled down to little ol’ Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley.
At this rate, the late, great Adolph is on the brink of being rehabilitated into Defender Of Justice and Fighter Of Crime.

NELSON, British Columbia — Plans for a bronze monument and festival to honor U.S. draft dodgers in 2006 in this picturesque lakeside town have generated a wave of anger in the United States, local officials say.
[…]
In announcing Our Way Home, a celebration set for July 8-9, 2006, director Isaac Romano said the purpose was to honor “the courageous legacy of Vietnam War resisters and the Canadians who helped them resettle in this country during that tumultuous era.”

This calls for a photoshop contest – put your creative juices to work, and help the good people of Nelson in their quest to make absolute asses of themselves.