“Five-year-old girls worried about weight, obesity conference told”;

Girls as young as five are sensitive about their bodies in a “weight-hostile” environment that equates popularity and attractiveness with thinness, an international conference of experts has heard.

From what I’m seeing as they waddle along with their mommies, I can only suggest that they ought to be. Now, how does one get a corresponding level of concern to register with the parents shoveling the Tostitos and soft drinks into their shopping carts?

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung..
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.
It’s easy..
There’s nothing you can make that can’t be made..
No one you can save that can’t be saved..
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time.
It’s easy..
All you need is love, all you need is love,.
All you need is love, love, love is all you need..
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love..
All you need is love, all you need is love,.
All you need is love, love, love is all you need..
There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
It’s easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
All you need is love (all together now)
All you need is love (everybody)
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

Michael Totten is back in the Middle East and reporting from the front lines of the Lebanon/Israeli war.

This is starting to feel like a TV game show;

“Lights! Camera! Ululate!”.

More on the main page.

h/t Maz2 in the comments.
Update – Video of Charles Johnson on CNN.
.

*

Via email from reader Bruce;

This afternoon radio out here (Vancouver) announced that the Harper
governemnt has suspended the “trips to Ottawa” orientation program pending a review. I have not been able to locate a press release, but it was apparently on the news wire.

As I was saying – SDA gets results!

This is ridiculous.

Every new federal civil servant from coast to coast is being sent to Ottawa on a two-day, all-expenses paid trip to give them a “big picture” understanding of how government works.
The trip is mandatory for all new employees as well as anyone contracted to the federal government for more than six months — everyone from mailroom clerks and agricultural ministry workers to new Mounties.
The first trips are scheduled to start in three weeks, organized under a government branch called the Canada School of Public Service.

What isn’t mentioned in the article is that the ridiculousness is just “business as usual” for the civil service. Bureaucracies across all levels of government seem addicted to the practice of transporting government employees long distances at taxpayer expense to gather together before centralized sheets of paper.
update – In the comments, Bruce clarifies;

This lunacy was brought in by the Martin government, finalized by Treasury Board prior to November 28, 2005. Follow the link.

update 2 – Looks like there’s a pretty good chance the program will be axed under the Conservatives. Liberal MP Hedy Fry seems unhappy about that. A very good observation by NDP MP Peter Julian;

Julian said government would be better off spending money to send senior decision makers in the civil service out to the regions to see how their policies affect the public, “rather than have new members of the public service going to Ottawa where they are essentially inculcated into the kind of atmosphere we have in Ottawa,”

Well said.

To a more deserving group of people.

“THE VIEW helped make Star a Star…” – Barbara Walters

And all this time I thought she was already famous for proving that Really Stupid People[tm] can pass the New York Bar.

“It is accepted that works may not be displayed in the way that the artist might have intended.”

“How much are we paying these clowns?” (PDF)

It’s not enough, I tell you!

From a National Post article (on the long list of Liberal leadership candidates busy borrowing cash).

NEW LIBERAL CRITIC: Belinda Stronach
TORY TARGET: No minister with same role
MINISTRY: Competitiveness and the New Economy

h/t to commentor “dude”, who observes that “here’s some humour to found in the Minister of Complex Files taking up the role of critic to… nobody.”
Yes, there is.

Why Barbaro? Why not this stupid nag?

Hey, Joey. Do you like movies about gladiators?
Hey, Joey. Have you ever seen a grown man naked?
Hey, Joey. Have you ever seen the inside of a Turkish prison?

Michael Totten concludes his series.

One of the newly constructed homes in Dohok, Iraq
Part 5

It�s hard to write about Dohok because the place is so normal. Getting there is an adventure, but there is little adventure to be found after arrival. The most remarkable thing about the city is how unremarkable it is.
The first time I went there on a day trip from Erbil it seemed like such an innocent place. After seeing the rough hell of Turkish Kurdistan, though, and realizing that the Kurds in Iraq had it even worse under Saddam, it did not seem so innocent to me anymore. Iraqi Kurds struck me as deeply, profoundly, mature. It took so much work, blood, and sacrifice to build what they have. And they built it from nothing.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and now, Part Four;

Someone is picking us up,” Sean said, even though we didn’t know if that really was true. It could have been true.
Not a single person spoke any English. But they seemed intrigued and excited when they found out we were Americans.
One man led us over to a Peshmerga soldier standing guard next to a gate.
“Hello?” the Peshmerga said. “You speak English?”
“Yes,” I said. “Hello.”
“Where are you from?” he said a bit coldly.
“We’re Americans,” I said.
His eyes turned to saucers. “Americans! Welcome!” he said. “How can I help you?”

Enjoy!

Third installment;

Sean and I dragged our sorry, exhausted, and malnourished selves to the car at 6:30 in the morning just a few hours northwest of the Turkish-Iraqi border. For the first time we had a look at our surroundings in daylight.
Turkish Kurdistan is a disaster. It is not where you want to spend your next holiday.
One village after another has been blown completely to rubble.

Part One
Part Two

Back to Iraq – Part One;

Sean and I tried to go to sleep early so we could wake up and go at first light. I stared at the ceiling and remembered my flight over Eastern Turkey. We are so screwed, I thought. There’s no way we can drive across that landscape to Iraq and back in three days from where we are now. And I was right. and Part Two

Fighting For Taxpayers;

Watch while London politicians twist themselves into pretzels trying to justify a taxpayer-funded trip to see Rudy Guiliani.
First, they need to spend $10,000 to help defray the cost of the London conference.
[…]
Oh yeah…and what will people think if city councillors don’t go? How will they be seen? And, what if there is a future pandemic? Think about it!

If you’re a taxpayer in the London, ON area, you’ll have to move fast – the vote is today. Info here;
UPDATE from David Maclean: “Well, there is some good news. Due to “public pressure” council decided not to accept the tickets for fear of it being perceived as graft. They are, however, still contributing 10,000 for the conference. Well done, folks.”