This just in:
Canadian Bar Association affirms lawyer’s right to screw client.

Searing memory, updated;

“Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968, eating kutia, varenyky and pampushky on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared–seared–in me. And this pysanky my Baba sent me.”

Memri follows up on the case of Ranya Al-Baz, a Saudi TV host.

On April 4, 2004, Yunis left her in a hospital in a state of unconsciousness. The story received extensive media coverage in the Arab world, and the abusive husband was arrested. He was first accused of attempting to kill his wife, but the charges were subsequently reduced to the use of severe violence. Yunis was sentenced to six months imprisonment and 300 lashes.
However, Ranya decided to pardon her husband – a measure allowed by Saudi law. Yunis was spared the lashes and was released in early July after three months imprisonment.

The domestic abuse experts weigh in;

Sheik Abd Al-Hamid Al- Muhajir who asked rhetorically: “[In the case of] a wife who endangers her husband and her own life, what’s better, that she gets slapped or that she ruins her family, herself, and society?”
Egyptian Sheik Muhammad Al-Massir of Al-Azhar University also explained the circumstances in which a husband is allowed to beat his wife. If a woman is disobedient, he explained on the Saudi-based channel Iqra TV, ” a woman for whom marital life is important suffers when she is left alone in the bed. If we get to a point where abandonment [in bed] does not pain her and words do not deter her, we may have come to the stage of beatings.”

More here, including insight into the subject from Muslim clerics in North America.

Via The Monger.

Based on an old classic;
“Take your 65,000 jobs and shove it…”

Gwynne Dyer explains the root causes of poverty and female illiteracy in the Arab world;

“… President George W. Bush … West … Western nations … the West … France … U.S. troops … Britain … the CIA … It was Britain that carved … joint Anglo-U.S. project. The British Foreign Office … conspired with France and Israel … West … Washington … U.S. foreign aid … Britain …the West’s purposes. The United States and France … The West … the West … the West…”

(I told you so.)
There’s no mention of literacy rates in Israel.
Odd, that.
hat tip- Pol:Spy

Evidence that extended use of marijuana can turn you into a whiney tit.
Well, nobody should be surprised. The whole “I want my medical marijuana legalized” campaign has been one long activist whine-fest, long on outrageous claims and short on fact. Hoping they’d metamorphize into grateful recipients by giving them what they want is expecting too much.
No, I have no special sympathy for their suffering. There are too many other suffering people out there who will never recieve bona fide drugs and new treatment protocols because they must first pass rigid safety and effectiveness standards. They will wait, in sickness and pain, and many will not live long enough to recieve them.
Marijuana got a free pass. If you’re using it for medicinal purposes, and think it helps, great. I’m happy for you. But you didn’t want to wait for marijuana to jump through the testing and development hoops that all other drugs must clear, so stop complaining about the quality.

Why would he do this? Is Michael Moore’s compulsion to lie a pathological defect, or is he so used to getting away with it, that he’s getting sloppier than usual?

Rapid City Journal – When asked about Moore’s account of a hug after the premiere and the criticism Daschle has received for it, the South Dakota Democrat said he and Moore did not embrace. Daschle said his schedule forced him to arrive late and leave early.
“I know we senators all tend to look alike. But I arrived late, and I had to leave early for Senate votes. I didn’t meet Mr. Moore,” Daschle said.
In a lengthy Time magazine piece about the movie and its political effects, Richard Corliss reported Moore’s criticism of Daschle’s leadership and the filmmaker’s account of a hug with Daschle.
“At the Washington premiere, Moore sat a few rows behind Daschle. Afterward, says Moore, ‘He gave me a hug and said he felt bad and that we were all gonna fight from now on. I thanked him for being a good sport,'” Corliss wrote.

I suppose it could be Daschle who’s pulling away from the truth. Somehow, I doubt it.

Jaegar administers a smackdown to Gwynn Dyer.
For my American friends unfamiliar with Gwynn Dyer – imagine you were able to cross Michael Moore with Robert Fisk. (It is strongly recommended that your imagination first provide an airlock, protective suit and robot arms.)
When the resulting organism emerges from the ooze, lobotomize it, and give it a Canadian passport. With that, the creature will become completely self-sustaining as it moves into its natural niche as a military analyst for the CBC.
Don’t believe me?

Liberal MP Dan McTeague’s $224 pizza…..
You know, I have done a fair bit of travelling in my time, and while my destinations don’t generally include stops for lunch in high rent exotic locales, and I don’t expect my elected representatives to pack a George Foreman[tm] grill so they can cook out of their hotel room … I have managed to eat in lower Manhattan, and well, for around $25 bucks.
So, how is it that our politicians manage to rack up meal bills as bloated as this, meal after meal, meeting after meeting? And why do they insist on feeding everyone they talk to?
Doesn’t anyone work in the middle of the friggin’ day like the rest of us?
hat tip – Bourque
Update – McTeague isn’t happy about the attention….

Inspired by a private email from someone who should have known better, exhorting her “undisclosed recipient” list to go see F9/11, another fact-checking deconstruction of Moore’s lies and innuendo.
More detailed than most.
Fahrenheit 9/11: The temperature at which Michael Moore’s pants burn
Go read it, so that the next time someone starts wasting your time arguing Moore-inspired mythology, you have a few blunt facts in your back pocket.

Dear Mr. Nader,
I would like to thank you for your input on the Canadian federal election. Considering that you managed to receive 2882955 votes from a population of a third of a billion, while a bunch of God-fearing, capital-loving, deregulating conservatives in the Canadian Alliance managed to garner 3277037 votes from a population approximately a tenth of your country’s, I can only imagine how valuable your comments are to us.
Sincerely,
Kelvin Chan

Mark Ames has a challenge for Ann Coulter.

“So here is my public challenge to Ann Coulter: I propose that you and I spend a night together in a four-star hotel. We will wine together, we will dine together, we will harden each other’s nipples with erotic pillow talk about Sen. Joe McCarthy, and yes, Ann, we will fuck. Ann, here’s the dare: I am betting that no matter how much you try, no matter what prostate-massaging tricks a John Birch Prom Queen like you possesses, you, Ann Coulter, cannot make me come.”

Ahem.
Mr. Ames – a real man would challenge the woman not to come.

Former NDP member of parliament Svend Robinson has finally been charged with theft of a diamond ring to impress his boyfriend with. That was two months ago.

NDP leader Jack Layton was sympathetic at the time.

“Now Svend’s inner strength must be applied to a very personal inner challenge,” Layton said. “I have every confidence that my friend Svend will overcome.”

It took a special prosecutor to figure out that grabbing 50K of someone else’s stuff and leaving the premises is like, illegal. Robinson’s snap impulse had been preceeded by casing the joint a shopping trip to the store two days earlier.
NDP Lorne Nystrom, who incidentally, also had a personal shoplifting crisis a few years ago;

“It is a personal tragedy,” … “All of us, under certain circumstances, crack and do something that’s really strange and weird.”

Strange how that happens. They always “crack” in the presence of something expensive. You don’t hear of people succumbing to stress and say…. making off with the neighbor’s garbage.
Equally forgiving, was Prime Minister Paul Martin, ” who called Robinson a dedicated parliamentarian who’s clearly under a lot of stress.”
Well, you can’t say he’s inconsistent on the issue of being holding thieves accountable. Though, at least Svend gave back the ring.

I cannot look at this man without visualizing the tail of a white mouse dangling from the corner of his lips. I know this is cruel, because now, the same thing is going to happen when you look at him.

Someone else has managed to turn the normal into the diseased to carve out yet another psychology employment niche.

CTV; Child psychologist Steven Feldgaier is using a program called “Friends” — a child program started in Australian schools — to teach kids how to walk through their problems, tackle life’s stresses in small steps — and relax.
For example, “you can go to a quiet room and relax where no one can bug you,” he told one class.
The Friends program is slowly making its way through schools in Winnipeg, as well as a school in Vancouver.
In today’s hectic, fast-paced world, more and more people are feeling overwhelmed. But experts say stress is no longer just an adult problem, but one affecting children as well.
Children as young as five years old are falling victim to stress.

I have an idea – let’s make this program self-supporting, through the taxation of children’s allowances. Then, Steven Feldgaier can explain to them how it’s all for their own good. Let him convince them to go to a quiet room to think about it.
I’d buy a ticket to that.

Predictably, Ebert and Roper gave “two thumbs up” on Michael Moore’s Farenheit 911.
[Is it just me, or is there something very creepy lately about Roger Ebert’s face? There’s a Men In Black thing happening under there….]
Well, Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 has a different opinion.

“Michael Moore is a screwed asshole, that is what I think about that case.”

Asked about the Palme d’Or;

So what? I have won prizes in different places and they are mostly meaningless. The people there hate us, which is why they gave him the d’Or. It’s a meaningless prize.

hat tip – Flea

Roger Simon has a particularly good time with everyone’s favorite schlockumentarist.

Ray Bradbury’s original Fahrenheit 451, as we all know, was about book-burning. Maybe Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 is actually about pants-burning, as in “Liar, Liar, pants on fire!”

As is widely known, but virtually unreported, the Moore accusation that Bush family ties were to blame for the permission given for a planeful of Saudis to leave the US right after the attacks in September of 2001, has been rebutted by none other than former terrorism “czar” Richard Clarke.
Yes, the same Clarke that testified before the 911 commission, where he blamed the FBI. Clarke gave the approval for the flight’s departure and has confirmed that he was the highest ranking official involved.
Don’t expect this fact to have much effect on the drooling hordes who will form lines to suck up Moore’s mental pablum.

Via James Joyner;

Elizabeth Eve never thought of herself as an exhibitionist. But these days, the 33-year-old history professor with the gold nose ring can barely contain the urge to lift her skirt and flash her skivvies.

Elizabeth never thought of herself as an exhibitionist, because she isn’t one. “Exhibitionist” would be dignified in comparison. Exhibitionists have the good sense to run away before they’re caught.
No, Elizabeth is no exhibitionist – she’s a walking twat joke.

“There is something so liberating and exciting about it, you’ve got to try it out,” she said recently as she fidgeted, fully clothed, on the couch in her friend Tasha’s Manhattan apartment. “I was teaching a class on imperialism, ” she continued, “and I was delivering all this material that was kind of new and upsetting, and everyone was getting all worked up and upset, and I was getting all worked up and upset, and all of a sudden, all I wanted to do was flash my underwear! It was crazy,” she said with a throaty giggle.

There’s a better solution. It’s called Monistat.

That’s because she wasn’t wearing just any panties. Elizabeth is part of Axis of Eve, a fledgling group of rabble-rousing feminists and anti-war activists who have taken to flashing their undies as a form of political dissent. The Eves, as they call themselves, are on a mission to sex up protest. They take to the streets wearing “protest panties” which come emblazoned with anti-Dubya double-entendres like “Expose Bush,” “Lick Bush,” “Give Bush the Finger” and “Drill Bush Not Oil.” When the Eves flash them at rallies, the effect is somewhere between a 1970s’ love-in and George Bush’s worst, frat- addled nightmare of a panty raid gone awry.

No, it’s somewhere between complete idiocy and total embarrassment.
If this is considered newsworthy political speech, carried out in the name of my gender, please, make it stop. Revisit this women’s suffrage thing. It’s not working. I know that some perfectly reasonable, sensible women will be hurt, but there’s a greater good to consider – I’ll gladly sacrifice my vote to save others.

It creeps me out to see little kids on toilets in diaper ads. You know that out there, somewhere, some degenerate is taping it for his later enjoyment.
One of the commentors has a pithy observation;

If Abercrombie and Finch, Howard Stern and Ossie Osborne are the touchstones of this generation’s morality, why should this latest example of “declining decencies” come as a surprise?

Much as Jeff Jarvis would beg to differ.
hat tip; Zygote Design