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.”

(Click photo for story)
h/t Shaidle

Yes, Sean – I am glad I run linux;

Nearly half of the systems I�ve dealt with over the past month have been badly compromised by advanced trojans and rootkits that are virtually impossible to remove. These programs hook themselves deep into Windows XP and commandeer cricitical parts of the operating system so that they can escape detection and removal by trojan and rootkit repair utilities. While I can remove the malicious software in many cases, it would take me six or seven hours to do a good job and another two or three hours of monitoring the system to be absolutely sure the problem is fixed. On the other hand, it only takes me a few hours to backup user data, rebuild the OS, and then restore data back to the system. Since I charge by the hour, a rebuild is usually cheaper than a repair.
I know that some people are unhappy about having their systems rebuilt from scratch, but the bottom line is that it�s not only the most cost effective repair, but that �nuking the system from orbit� is the only way to 100% guarantee that the problem is fixed for good. It�s not just me saying it either, now Microsoft is admitting it too.

Joan Tintor on yesterday’s blond bombshell;

She had a good chance to win, Stronach claimed, but her reason for not running is the party�s leadership selection process, which she says renders her incapable of speaking her mind on party renewal. She maintains that she would have been �trapped� in a system in which the grassroots are �ahead� of the party.
This is risible nonsense. In the two months that have passed since Paul Martin announced he would not be leading the Liberals into another election, this is the first inkling we have ever heard from Belinda that she had a problem with the Liberal party�s leadership process.
[…]
As CBC reporter Julie Van Dusen noted on Newsworld today, Stronach applauded the Liberal leadership rules when they were released last month. As the National Post reported on March 20:

�I was particularly pleased to see the national party executive agree on rules that will ensure the leadership race is a more open, accessible and accountable process from start to finish, that will guarantee a level playing field for everyone who decides to run,� Ms. Stronach said in a statement.

Stronach’s talking points today, less than three weeks later, are a transparent rationalization for the fact that her weak support among traditional Liberals means she could only win the leadership if she were free to essentially take over the party with new members. Yet Scott Brison, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae do not seem deterred, though they are essentially starting from the same place.
In the Simpsons episode that features the musical version of �A Streetcar Named Desire,� the closing song includes the line �a stranger�s just a friend you haven�t met.� I guess to Stronach, a �grassroots Liberal� is just somebody whose membership she hasn�t bought yet.

Stephen Taylor weighs in as well.

Crappy vocals are no barrier to pretentiousness.

How foolish! Tom Cruise should know, given his years in Hollywood, that banning something just makes it that much more popular. And I’m proof.
I don’t think I’ve EVER made it through an entire episode of South Park until today. I particularly enjoyed Nicole’s cameo appearance.
h/t Daimnation
crossposted

The first time I did it in 2004, it was one of my better early posts. Last year, I was considering chewing off my paw before the night was over, so this year, I’m skipping the show and doing some artwork. with the Red Hot Chili Peppers turned to a decibel level that’s generating dirty looks from the dogs.
But Jim Treacher is on the case;

One of my favorite fun facts about Clooney is that he didn’t shave his head for that movie because he was scared it wouldn’t grow back. Unfortunately, there’s no category for Best Guy Who Doesn’t Understand Biology, so they had to give him Best Supporting Actor.

Mockery link roundup at Instapundit.
It sounds as though it was a Jon bomb. It seems that for all the left loves Stewart when he mocks Republican presidents, satire directed at the Hollywood left is just so unfunny.
The MSNBC item by Andy Dehnart that I’ve linked to, though, is pretty humorous by itself as Andy Dehnart explains;

Those who believe “The Daily Show” is actually “fake news” don’t understand either satire or the exceptionally smart, informative humor that the show invokes on a daily basis. Stewart and “The Daily Show’s” team emphasize and demonstrate the importance and gravity of the day’s news by making fun of it.

That’s what he’s doing? And all this time I thought he was just another member of the Democratic Party’s entertainment wing.

Sunday morning weird stuff.

(update – Reports that this is the Liberal Party of Canada leadership prototype candidate known only as “Other” have yet to be independently confirmed)

Michael Totten is blogging from Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan;

�Is it safe to walk around here?� I asked Araz.
�No,� he said. �I do not recommend it.�
Great, I thought. What the hell am I doing in this country?
�Why, exactly, isn�t it safe?� I said. I hoped he would say that I might get lost or be menaced by crazy drivers.
�I don�t personally know of any incidents that have happened,� he said. �But I never see foreigners like you walking around without a local person.�

It’s a great read. Be sure to bookmark, to catch future installments.

Two Americans with more guts than all of North American mainstream media combined;

“An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth!” Echoing protests around the world and wearing all kinds of costumes from the Middle East and the Muslim world, 4,000 Islamic demonstrators march through Paris denouncing the cartoons and the alleged (and convenient) lack of respect towards Islam.
When they arrive at La Nation, they are met with two figures wearing slightly different costumes and slightly different signs.

The rest at No Pasaran, including film footage.

I’m going to spare his identity, because he’s generally a pretty good guy – but one of our local radio hosts just compared the alleged involvement of the Gretzkys in the “Operation Slapshot” gambling scandal to Nelson and Winnie Mandela.
It’s so freaking bizarre, I still can’t stop laughing.
Only in Canada.

more here

A new term coined by MK Braaten.

…firms are starting to flee Ontario faster then suspected leadership candidates are fleeing the Liberal party. Why you may ask? Well, rising costs of business, increases in the value of the Canadian currency, and high corporate tax rates are to blame. Things aren�t looking good, and they�re not getting better anytime soon. Today Michelin tires was the latest victim of Jackonomics.

Which reminds me of something mentioned by a Canadian financial expert that caught my ear (a radio interview) earlier this year – economic growth and job creation in Ontario is no longer centered in Toronto and vicinity. The economy there has stalled. Other regions – the north, etc. are now that province’s engines of growth.

to tie those laces…
h/t

Paul Wells;

“Because the campaign offices of trailing candidates tend to be so empty in the week before an election that anyone can just stroll in and do some freelance smear work.
That’s plausible.”

So – as pointed out on John Gormley Live just now – not only did some unidentified homeless guy sneak into Axworthy’s campaign headquarters unnoticed to “freelance”, he sat there on hold for 12 minutes.
Yes. Plausible.
Hengen affadavit on caller’s identity. (pdf)
CBC video
(Wells claims he was speaking tongue in cheek, and that I missed it. This is plausible. I have been forced to live in a state of suspended disbelief ever since Lorne Calvert endorsed a Conservative government.)

update – the original link was to a legitimate site, but has now gone dead. I can’t find anything online indicating this is a hoax, but it has the distinct smell of one. There are a lot of net references to a petition for a “UNITED NATIONS DECADE OF CONTACT” Petition, but nothing much else.

For the first time in 27 years, the United Nations General Assembly will be debating the issue of establishing diplomatic relations with advanced Extraterrestrial Civilizations that may now be visiting Earth. On December 16, 2005, a Resolution to establish a United Nations Decade of Contact was formally transmitted to the incoming President of the General Assembly, H.E. Jan Eliasson of Sweden by the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS), a Non-Governmental Organization. Almost to the day twenty-seven years ago, on December 18, 1978, the United Nations General Assembly voted to approve decision 33/426, inviting U.N. Member States “to take appropriate steps to coordinate on a national level scientific research and investigation into extraterrestrial life, including unidentified flying objects, and to inform the Secretary-General of the observations, research and evaluation of such activities.”

This sounds like a job for a former Canadian defence minister!
h/t Heard Here

The political pollsters never call me. The marketing/research types, on the other hand, seek my views quite regularly. This is a roughly paraphrased and greatly abbreviated version of a phone survey I took a couple days ago;
After a brief introduction and explanation as to the type of questions to expect, she began;

Q: “Of the two following health problems, which would you say is more prevalent – heart disease or lung disease?”
Me: “What do you mean, which one? They usually go together.”
Q: “No they don’t.”
Me: “Yes they do – heart failure generally leads to lung problems and lung disease can cause the heart to fail.”
Q: “I’m not sure that’s…”
Me: “It’s why they call it cardiopulmonary.”
Q: “Oh.”
Me: “It’s a stupid question.”
Q: “I’m not sure what to tell you, other than you have to pick one.”
Me: “Oh, whatever – put down heart disease”.

Prematurely relieved, she went on to Question 2.

Q: “Which would you say is more common, cancer or blood disease?”
Me: “Well, there they go again! What do they mean by “blood disease”?
Q: “I don’t understand”.
Me: “Is leukemia a cancer or a blood disease?”
Q: “I see your point.”
Me: “Who designed these questions? They’re illogical.”
Q: “I don’t know”.

And so it went. It didn’t take long to figure out that “injury related health costs” were on the poll designer’s mind – a survey to test or design communications strategy for the Worker’s Comp or some other “tell us how to live our lives” program. (Perhaps the mandatory bike helmet or spikey-shoes for seniors lobby?) Near the end we got into the numbers.

Q: “What would you estimate to be the cost to the Saskatchewan heatlh system of preventable injury – $500,000; $1 million; $500 million; $1 billion; $1.5 billion?

It’s not so hard to spot when questions are designed (the only age-relative question being “whats the greatest killer of Saskatchewan residents under the age of 40?”) to push results towards a general conclusion – in this case it appeared the one they were aiming to prove, “Saskatchewan residents vastly underestimate the incidence and cost of injury to the health care system”.
So, I picked $1 billion. “Oh.” Her voice registered surprise. She went on with a few other questions, and closed with this;

Q: “On a scale of one to five, five being ‘very in favour’, how supportive would you be to programs designed to lower preventable injury?”
A: “Is there a zero?”

Expect to hear in the upcoming weeks, a news release from some government agency advising us that Saskatchewan residents “greatly underestimate” the costs to the health care system of work-related and preventable injury – justifying yet another regulation, program or communications strategy designed to perpetuate their own existence.

Medienkritik; “Another highlight of Germany’s #1 investigative journalism magazine: the current edition of left-wing, fiercly anti-American SPIEGEL presents an article on “THE EMPIRE OF SHADOW – The worldwide operations of the U.S. Secret Intelligence Service”, and the picture on the cover shows … members of the Canadian military!”

It’s actually a few of fine men of Canada’s Joint Task Force Two. Heh.

“I hate to see their display at Easter.”
The link at the bottom comes via Michelle Malkin, who also offers up an item titled “Notes On The (Tookie) Freak Show.
Ordinarily, I would consider mention of the California execution of a multiple murderer with worldwide childrens’ book sales nearing the 300 mark, made famous by his founding of the “Crips” (a short form of “cripples” to reflect their trademark practice of maiming or crippling their victims) a little out of place under a “Christmas themed” subject line.
Not this time.