[H]e said he believes he is just the latest of several “black luminaries” to be unjustly accused, citing former South African President Nelson Mandela and former heavyweight boxing champions Muhammad Ali and Jack Johnson as others.
[…]
Jackson also said he is in “intense pain” since falling in the shower earlier this month, although he said at another point that his health was perfect. He arrived late to court on March 10, wearing pajama bottoms, a T-shirt and walking stiffly, and his representatives said at the time he had been treated at a hospital for a serious back injury.
“I was coming out of the shower and I fell and all my body weight – I’m pretty fragile – all my body weight fell against my rib cage,” Jackson said. “And I bruised my lung very badly.”
He said the injury has caused him to cough up blood and was so painful that it brought him to tears in court one day when he was seen wiping his eyes with a tissue. He said he remains under a doctor’s care.
When Jesse Jackson noted how thin he is, the pop star replied that he has never been a big eater, something he said has always concerned his mother and others, including actress Elizabeth Taylor, a friend.
“Elizabeth Taylor used to feed me, to hand-feed me, at times,” he said.

Time to yank his feeding tube.

Via Kathy K;

Wyss�s boomerang litigation started in 2002, when he invited Carmelita McLaughlin to his office at 1600 Washington St. in Alton. Acting as her attorney when she bought a home in Alton and when she refinanced it, on both occasions she had chosen Centerre Title�a company that Wyss owned�to close her loans.

Next story: Nigerian taken in by scam artist

Last night’s on-air coverage of this story by CTV’s Middle East correspondant Janis Mackey Frayer was augmented with on-the-street interviews with Lebanese citizens who are clinging in dread to the skirts of the benevolent Syrians who may withdraw and leave them to the mercy of George Bush.
In the event that any doubts lingered about the depths to which Frayer will sink to weave a story to conform to her astonishingly transparent anti-Americanism, this money quote:

“While critics accuse the Baathists of terrible mistakes”

That’s right – “mistakes”.
In the parallel universe of rock hard stupid in which Janis Mackey Frayer has taken permanent residency, Baathist torture, murder, and mass executions are just good intentions gone terribly awry – like picking up a ceramic vase and having it slip from your wet fingers, or going a little too fast for road conditions.
Funny. That wasn’t the song CTV was singing when US immigration officials in New York deported Canadian Maher Arar to an uncertain fate and alleged torture in a Syrian prison. Or, wait. Now that I think back upon things, it was the same song -the US were the bad guys in that story, too.
To Frayar and her enabling editors, such crimes pale to mere misdemeanors when weighed against the sinister, hidden agenda of an American oil-hungry chimpanzee who has liberated 50 million souls from tyranny.

A manufactured contraversy is emerging over Monte Solberg’s satirical post directed at the “discovery” of new charter “rights” by “Paul Martin Luther King”. Not surprisingly, the rhetoric reads like parody – “Liberals aghast. Liberal MP Marlene Jennings said she was “left speechless after reading it.”
We should be so lucky.
Monte fires back;

there are those joyless people who spend their lives looking for reasons to be outraged. These are the people who are offended by everything. What an awful way to pass your days. I really do feel sorry for them.
Finally there are those who feign outrage. This is the camp that my friends Scott Reid and Marlene Jenning fall into. They are real pro’s at the outrage game. They actually get the joke but pretend that they don’t. They are outraged for the cameras and then they go back to their desk, eat a muffin and read the paper.

And, in what I only hope was the outcome of a planned strategy – every Liberal sympathetic journalist on the outrage beat is sending readers directly to his blog – where his response is there to read, without the media filters.
The gatekeepers have just stepped aside to let the hordes into the castle.
This is the power of the blogosphere, writ large.
Monte should be spending the next few days writing and linking like a maniac, to capitalize on the curiousity seeking traffic.
A flashback to remind us all of the double standard in the national media that makes it so important to remove them from the communication loop: Scott Brison, Liberal MP on June 28, 2004:

“There’s not a lot of room for Red Tories in a party with a lot of rednecks.”

This was not satire. This was not the fond self-deprecation so often used here in the west, when referring to our own.
This was Liberal MP Scott Brison, revealing the bigotry of the Liberal Party towards the very people who pay his expense account. A rhetorical club swung by a faux-elitist to drive home the point that, in Canada, there are some segments of society who are unworthy of a voice in the political process because they have committed the crime of being “unsophisticated”, hardworking, and rural.
And nobody raised an eyebrow.
More.

Has anyone seen any Canadian TV reports on this that mention that Sgrena works for El Manifesto, a communist paper? (I was otherwise occupied with my head in the toilet, after watching CBC report on the “sharp divisions” in the population in Lebanon, giving sympathetic coverage to chanting Hezbollah “activists”.)
The Moderate Voice pulls together developments, and OTB looks more closely at checkpoint protocols from a military perspective. Probably the most relevant new information to come out of this incident is that the Italians kept the ransom and rescue operation secret from the US – along with gross incompetence of US military personnel. Jay Tea;

An anti-American “journalist” for a Communist newspaper is allegedly “captured” by insurgents, then released. On her way out, our forces shoot 300 to 400 rounds at their car. And the result of all that firepower? One killed, three injured – none apparently very seriously. Then they treat them and send them home. Obviously all that money we’ve spent on training and equipment has gone to waste if our forces are performing that poorly.

To those Americans who mistakenly perceive our nuanced, sophisticated and uniquely Canadian world view as “anti-Americanism”, former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy (Liberal) would like to explain more thoroughly, in this open letter to the US Secretary of State, Dr.Condoleeza Rice.

Dear Condi,
I’m glad you’ve decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It’s a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.
I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile- defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.
But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can’t quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.
As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we’ve had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we’re going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.
Sure, that doesn’t match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a “liberation war” in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.
Just chalk that up to a different sense of priorities about what a national government’s role should be when there isn’t a prevailing mood of manifest destiny.
Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such as missile defence can be made openly.
You might also notice that it’s a system in which the governing party’s caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don’t want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada’s continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.
Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.
Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one-party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.
If you want to have us consider your proposals and positions, present them in a proper way, through serious discussion across the table in our cabinet room, as your previous president did when he visited Ottawa. And don’t embarrass our prime minister by lobbing a verbal missile at him while he sits on a public stage, with no chance to respond.
Now, I understand that there may have been some miscalculations in Washington based on faulty advice from your resident governor of the “northern territories,” Ambassador Cellucci. But you should know by now that he hasn’t really won the hearts and minds of most Canadians through his attempts to browbeat and command our allegiance to U.S. policies.
Sadly, Mr. Cellucci has been far too closeted with exclusive groups of ‘experts’ from Calgary think-tanks and neo- con lobbyists at cross-border conferences to remotely grasp a cross-section of Canadian attitudes (nor American ones, for that matter).
I invite you to expand the narrow perspective that seems to inform your opinions of Canada by ranging far wider in your reach of contacts and discussions. You would find that what is rising in Canada is not so much anti- Americanism, as claimed by your and our right-wing commentators, but fundamental disagreements with certain policies of your government. You would see that rather than just reacting to events by drawing on old conventional wisdoms, many Canadians are trying to think our way through to some ideas that can be helpful in building a more secure world.
These Canadians believe that security can be achieved through well-modulated efforts to protect the rights of people, not just nation-states.
To encourage and advance international co-operation on managing the risk of climate change, they believe that we need agreements like Kyoto.
To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court — which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.
And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed — beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.
On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ while you’re in Ottawa. It’s a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defence ever will.
This is not just some quirky notion concocted in our long winter nights, by the way. It seems to have appeal for many in your own country, if not the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal or Rush Limbaugh. As I discovered recently while giving a series of lectures in southern California, there is keen interest in how the U.S. can offer real leadership in managing global challenges of disease, natural calamities and conflict, other than by military means. There is also a very strong awareness on both sides of the border of how vital Canada is to the U.S. as a partner in North America. We supply copious amounts of oil and natural gas to your country, our respective trade is the world’s largest in volume, and we are increasingly bound together by common concerns over depletion of resources, especially very scarce fresh water.
Why not discuss these issues with Canadians who understand them, and seek out ways to better cooperate in areas where we agree — and agree to respect each other’s views when we disagree.
Above all, ignore the Cassandras who deride the state of our relations because of one missile-defence decision. Accept that, as a friend on your border, we will offer a different, independent point of view. And that there are times when truth must speak to power.
In friendship,
Lloyd Axworthy

For those who may not recognize the name, Lloyd Axworthy is the man credited with bringing about the sweeping economic, democratic and human rights reforms in Cuba in 1997.
hat tip – Greg
ouch.

…haunts the halls at the University of Colorado. Though, to be fair, I think even Archie Belaney would have been apalled by this latest installment of the Ward Churchill saga.

hat tip – Kathy Shaidle.

The Canadian Islamic Congress is now trying its hand at parody.

To date, the American-led invasion of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqis and thousands of Americans. Iraq has been transformed from country with 100% employment and a stable public service infrastructure, into an impoverished nation in disarray, with more than half of its adult workforce jobless. From being one of the leading Middle East states in administration, education and health care, Iraq has fallen to one of the world’s most disadvantaged societies.
The CIC is charging that America’s aggressive Middle East policies are designed primarily to shore up Israel’s military power and economic advantages in the region, while attempting to divert world attention from Israel’s territorial expansion into the West Bank through illegal Jews-only settlements.

CIC national president Dr. “Anyone over the age of 18 in Israel is a valid target*” Elmasry can be contacted at np@canadianislamiccongress.com.
Via Uncle Meat.

The latest in the continuing “If Gwynne Dyer Looks Into The Face Of Victor Davis Hanson He Will Burst Into Flame” series, this quote from his new book Future:Tense;

The United States needs to lose the war in Iraq as soon as possible. Even more urgently, the whole world needs the United States to lose the war in Iraq. What is at stake now is the way we run the world for the next generation or more, and really bad things will happen if we get it wrong.

Ah. Very thoughtful of him.
Amazon shows a November 2004 publication date. That’s the problem with books dedicated to current events – they have to be in to the publisher before anyone really knows the final chapters. In Dyers case, it hardly matters – he soldiers on, gifted with a knack for historical subjectivity and emboldened by a nearly perfect record of failed prognostications of military disaster.
Indeed, there is a case to be made for following Dyer’s analysis very carefully, and then, assuming the opposite will occur. He’s that good.
Speaking of Mr. Hanson, he does a tidy job wrapping up the “Dyer-isms” of the failed, frustrated left in this post of a few days ago. No one is spared.
(Via a reader, who pointed the way to the story and Damian’s take on it.)

Head Heeb has just the place for those looking for relief on school tax;

After Australia’s conservative government passed the Marriage Amendment Bill which prohibited Gay marriage, a group of Australian gays and lesbians set sail to the Coral Islands (on a ship called, inevitably, the Gayflower), planted the rainbow gay flag, and declared an independent state.

Let the puns begin!

Oh well. It is Groundhog Day. In the time honoured tradition of crawling out of a hole…..

The Canadian Islamic Congress is none too happy with this Report on Global Anti-Semitism released by the US State Department on Jan.5. Some exerpts from the news release;

1. The report is politically motivated, and lacks independently audited and verified statistics. The fact that this report has been issued by a government department and not an NGO; plus the fact that it addresses only one form of hatred against one specific minority (Jews); and that there were no other reports commissioned to address equally serious hate-issues against other worldwide minorities (e.g. Christians, Muslims, Blacks, First Nations, Aboriginals, women, the poor, the disabled, homosexuals, etc.), clearly shows that political motivation is a far higher priority for the U.S. State Department than human rights or social justice.

Translation: “Propoganda from the filthy Zionist Neocon Cabal in the Bush Administration”.

2. The report addresses only anti-Jewish hatred, completely ignoring the equally important issue of Islamophobia (hatred towards Muslims).

A little problem with word definitions, here. “Phobia” means fear of, not “hatred”.

Muslims around the world — especially in areas where they are in the minority — have been, and still are, victims of discrimination, harassment, physical and mental abuse…

They won’t get an argument from me on that.

Deepika Thathaal (search), or Deeyah, was born in Norway of mixed Asian roots. Her father got her into music and has supported her throughout her career. All was going well until she dared to show a little skin – and that’s when the threats started. “I would get very abusive phone calls,” she said. “I would get abused as I walked down the street. I would have people spit at me.”
At a concert in Norway, she was attacked on stage by angry Muslim men who thought she was degrading their culture. But Thathaal doesn’t flaunt her heritage. She’s just a European woman pursuing a pop music career – who also happens to be Muslim.

Canadian Islamic Congress media release contact:
Dr. Mohamed Elmasry
(519) 746-4107 (O)
(519) 577-2267 (Cell)
e-mail: np@canadianislamiccongress.com

COREN: So what are you saying?
ELMASRY: I’m saying that it has to be totally innocent, OK? Totally innocent are the children, obviously, OK? But they are not innocent if the army [inaudible] in civilian clothes, OK?
COREN: What about women?
ELMASRY: The same, if they are women in the army…
COREN: Anyone over the age of 18 in Israel is a valid target.
ELMASRY: Anybody above 18 is a part of the Israeli army…
COREN: So everyone in Israel and anyone and everyone in Israel, irrespective of gender, over the age of 18 is a valid target?
ELMASRY: Yes, I would say.
[…]
COREN: I’ve got to tell you I think you’ve just dug a very large hole for yourself there. I am not unsympathetic, and I do believe that Israelis use way too much force and I believe that Palestinians are blanketed with the term “terrorist,” which is very unfair, but what you’ve said there, I believe, is very dangerous talk. There’s a massive difference.
IRFAN SYED (LAWYER): I wouldn’t be so definitive as saying that everybody over 18 is a legitimate target. I mean obviously that goes too far. I mean even according to our faith belief, you have to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. That includes women, children, the elderly and all that.
ELMASRY: Everybody above 18 is a combatant.

Flashback Sept.8, 2004 – small dead animals prognostication:

Michael, Michael…. The Oscars are in February, darling – well past your “best by” date, if you know what we mean. And then, there’s that problem of you being an absolute pig. (Get a trainer, would you?) But be sure to say hello to those quaint little documentary people for us though.

Oscar Nominations: Moore shut out.

Helen Smith-McIntyre, chair of the Saskatoon Police Service Committee on Diversity, has called for the scrapping of a police aptitude test that discriminates against visible minorities, who have higher than usual failure rates. Smith-McIntyre took the test and “passed” – if one discounts that she didn’t complete it within the allowed time.
The half-hour test measures grammar, spelling and reading comprehension.

Garth Pritchard is in Sri Lanka, with the DART team. He writes in the Toronto Sun;

IT WAS a circus when Prime Minister Paul Martin visited the disaster area of Kalumai in Sri Lanka this week for a photo opportunity. His people from Ottawa, including the RCMP, were pushing people out of the way, grabbing at cameras, and trampling over graves on the beach in order to photograph the PM.
An RCMP guy tried to interfere with my camera, but one of our soldiers intervened.
A couple of women from the PM’s office were running around yelling at people.
It got out of hand. It was crazy.
The whole visit was a photo opportunity — with cameras set up for the PM in designated spots: Martin on the beach looking out to sea, Martin amid the wreckage, Martin with a homeless kid, Martin taking a token drink of water produced by the DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) water purifier.
He met with the Canadian commander, Lt. Col. Mike Voith, and a small medical team but didn’t visit the camp of the 200 Canadian military people here for tsunami victims.
Martin’s handlers wanted no one but their people taking photos. The padre was even shoved out of the way.

90 minutes later, he was gone.

I can’t be the only person who thinks that this precocious little darling should be punted back to his room to learn a few manners.

Kennedy also mangled the name of the Democrats’ new star, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, calling him “Osama bin – Osama – Obama.”

small dead animals language advisory:
To any and all who may have been offended by the appearance of the “f” word in a recent post, may we direct you to sod off somewhere else to a more cerebral and dignified choice of entertainment.
For instance, there’s always opera on the BBC.
Thankyou. Back to regular programming.

Tom “Life Is A Highway” Cochrane, at a press conference yesterday to announce two Canadian fundraising concerts for tsunami relief;

“It’s a natural disaster, but if one person dies because of disease or because of malnutrition because of this, then [the] shame [is] on us.”

Tom, go fuck yourself.
If one person “dies because of disease or malnutrition”, Mr. Cochrane, it’s because they were unfortunate enough to be living in countries ruled by corrupt dictatorships, burdened with socialism, civil war and/or religious anachronism that have so crippled their economies that they remain too poor to have resources at the ready to respond to disaster.
And you – you sanctimonious twit – have no business parcelling out “shame” vouchers. Indeed, if I were you, I’d be turning a few shades of red – capitalizing on the losses of those less fortunate to reap a little energy boost for your own flagging career. Going to prance around on a stage for us, screaming “ring those phones”, are we? Be sure to shower us with praise, tell us how very remarkable we Canadians are. We can already picture Margaret Atwood looking on from the sidelines, swooning in self-congratulation.
Oh, and the charities you’ve chosen! Ms. Atwood’s political hand has been at work here, surely – Oxfam, Care Canada, Doctors Without Borders (who already announced they’ve got enough) and War Child. War Child? – why yes! The kindergarten version of Amnesty International. (How did those little Dutch and German children manage without psychiatric centers, music and dance therapy, as they recovered in the wake of WWII…? )
I have a different deal for you Tom. Instead of another self-serving charity concert, with sky-high production costs and celebrities flying in on private jets, how about something truly groundbreaking – just cut a goddamn check. Pass the hat around. Celine? She’s got to be good for 5 or 10 million. Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan – two more ladies who could save everyone a lot of trouble and just pick up a pen. David Foster is out there somewhere. (I know it’s harder to capture their interest without a tv camera pointed their way, but still…) Print up one of those nifty 6 foot long “checks” for the cameras, if you wish. Have your news conference and tell everyone the total you’ve raised directly from the Canadian music industry and then just … go … away.
Save the jet fuel, the stadium bookings, the long vans carrying CBC equipment and personnel to record and broadcast the events. Save the speeches, and the heart-rending personal stories, and the mismatched duets. Just save it.
We’ll contribute by going out and picking up a CD or two, OK?
Win, win – and nobody has to endure the day-long spectacle of 25 millionaire musicians on stage doing the group hug singalong.

Intrepid citizen journalist “Huck” is hot on the trail of members of F.A.G.*, otherwise known as the Waterkeeper Alliance*.

This is the weekend where Calgarians get to listen to such notable ecological researchers as actor Alec Baldwin and, um, socialite Marla Maples tell us how our river is dying and that our lifestyle is killing it. This, apparently, is a good thing because residents living in the Bow valley are complete idiots and wouldn’t know how to properly maintain our environmental standards unless Hollywood (and Martha’s Vineyard) educates us on our behalf.
[…]
I’ll be sure to keep you all up to date on the progress these wonderful philathropists will have accomplished this weekend, from the all-important snowshoe races to the Kenny Loggins concert.

Yes, do.