Reader Tips

Go over to Proud To Be Canadian and nominate your pick for Canada’s Most Annoying Liberal of 2004. (You’ll have to register, at which point you can vote for Most Annoying Nominating Process of 2004).
My choice is Tommy Douglas, for crawling back from the grave to remind us all that he is not dead enough – first, by being selected by viewers of the CBC as the “Greatest Canadian”, then (adding insult to insult) by getting a day named after him in Calvert’s Cuba.
Bush, democracy and the Middle East – the wind at their backs.
Lefty bloggers who saw a right wing conspiracy in the persons of two Iraq bloggers – the wind between their ears
More on Sharia Law. Why let a little thing like subjugation of women stand in the way of cultural equivalence?
Victor Davis Hanson delivers a reality bitchslap. (Tip for trivia buffs – it is a well known fact that if Gwynne Dyer ever looks into the face of Victor Davis Hanson, he will burst into flame.)

No Rest For The Idiot

Yesterday started out pretty well. I figured it had to be better than the day before, when I struggled with everything from freezing fingers to unexpected paint splashes down the front of a nearly finished paint surface. I had two goalie masks to paint, both needed for Christmas. The out of town mask had a gorilla /flames pattern on it, the other was to have a simple dragon.
Whenever possible I try to do two at the same time – it’s more efficient to have both up on the same bench where colours they have in common can be applied at the same time. Both masks came in pretty banged up, so the project had already been pushed back a day by repair work and priming.
By late afternoon Tuesday, I had finally completed the gorilla, it was in the booth for clearcoating , and the dragon was well on its way. I thought a short morning yesterday would be lots of time to complete that, and then I’d head out for some Christmas shopping, drop off a few gifts to good customers, track down a friend who was in town from the US and get ready for the trip to the farm for the holidays.
On arrival at the body shop yesterday morning, I checked out the newly cleared gorilla mask. As I turned it over, preparing to remove the masking paper and tape protecting the interior padding, I saw a word, written in pen.
“dragon”
This paragraph could describe my reaction, but it would be too profanity ridden for the traffic that frequents this site. One of the painters offered weak encouragement … “no rest for the wicked”, he offered.
“No rest for the idiot“, was my reply.
I spent the entire day repainting both masks. After three days emersed in scotchbrite pads, metalglaze, featheredgers, base coat and gun wash, my hands are so raw that typing is uncomfortable. And I have all the errands from yesterday that have yet to be accomplished, and a five hour drive to Arcola tonight.
Nice day for it, though. The radio just announced the windchill factor is around -39C.

Reader Tips

And a few quick links of my own. Being the leadup to Christmas, it seems like half the goal masks in western Canada have landed on my doorstep, and they all need to be ready to fit under the tree. So, it’s long days of inhaling solvents and frozen fingers in a very cool body shop for me. And not much energy left for blogging.
So, without further adieu;
Sing along with Paul Desmarais: “The Annan bone is connected to the Strong bone, the Strong bone is connected to the Desmerais bone.The Desmarais bone is connected to the Chretien bone, and the Martin bone, and the Volker bone and the…”
Brought to you by the chief architects of the Canadian Gun Registry; office renovations at the Useless Tit Wing of the Department of Perpetual Indecision at the low, low price of $400 a square foot.
That does it. I’m starting my own damned religion and invoking Kate-ia Law for the parking tickets God forbids me to pay.
Right after I find my long-lost Indian grandmother.

Prophesy Self-Fulfillment

Arthur Chrenkoff, in today’s Opinion Journal

The latest poll of 5,000 people in and around Baghdad suggests that an overwhelming majority are prepared to make a clean break with the past and pursue democracy–now. Some of the specific results:
What will you base your vote on?

Political agenda – 65%
Factional origin – 14%
Party Affiliation – 4%
National Background – 12%
Other reasons – 5%

Do you support dialog with the deposed Baathists?

Yes – 15%
No – 84%
Do not know – 1%

Do you support postponing the election?

Yes – 18%
No – 80%
Do not know – 2%

Do you think the elections will take place as scheduled?

Yes – 83%
No – 13%
Do not know – 4%

The long and detailed report is more than encouraging – it is a staggering indictment of a politically motivated mainstream media, intent on burying every sign of progress with “rising death tolls” (as if fatality statistics have the ability to drop) and “car bomb o’the day” coverage. There can be little remaining doubt that there is a determination to adhere to a “we told you so” agenda until the bitter end, even if it means taking an active hand in prophesy self-fulfillment.
I don’t know which makes me angrier, as a Canadian – the prospect of seeing the day in which a free and democratic Iraq looks to my country and asks “Where were you when we needed you most?”, or the sobering fact that there are substancial numbers of my fellow citizens who are not-so-secretly hoping they fail.

Accidently, On Purpose

This must read from Wretchard.

Even with today’s proliferation of compact photographic equipment, a legitimate photojournalist rarely gets the opportunity to capture an execution. Apart from the beheadings which are purposely recorded on video by the jihadis and from gun camera film, most footage of people actually being shot are taken by photographers in company with combatants who are ready to film an ambush. Those individuals are combat cameramen for their armies or embedded reporters. The most famous analogue to the Associated Press sequence of photographs is probably the Eddie Adams photo of the execution of Vietcong Captain Bay Lop by South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Adams owed that opportunity to General Loan himself, who brought Adams along to cover what he believed to be a justifiable summary execution. Adams depressed the shutter at exactly the moment Loan fired and photo analysis actually shows the impact of the bullet on Bay Lop’s skull.
It may have been pure luck, but it was surely the longest of odds that would have brought an Associated Press cameraman to the site of a surprise attack on two Iraqi electoral workers. As it was, the AP photograph was unable to capture the actual execution, only the moments shortly before and after the Iraqis were killed. Although the Eddie Adams photograph was widely used to illustrate the ‘brutality’ of the Saigon government, the photos taken by the Associated Press
are unlikely to reflect badly on the electoral worker’s killers. Press reports highlight the confidence and boldness of the insurgents. “Both of the victims shown in the sequence wore traditional Arab headscarfs. In contrast, the attackers were bareheaded and apparently unafraid to show their faces”, suggesting that ‘collaborators’ must conceal their faces while the Ba’athists stride with impunity through the light of day. It was fortunate for the AP that their photographer was accidentally there.

A similar thing happened during the murder and desecration of the 4 contract workers in Fallujah. Though it was an Arab news outlet, the cameras were there and rolling. The “ambush” was carefully set up for media consumption.
They learned from the best. I don’t know what was more outrageous – the admission by Eason Jordan that CNN had been functioning as the Western propoganda wing of Saddam Hussein’s information ministry – or the mild mumble of disapproval that the rest of the MSM reacted with.
How long are we going to tolerate media outlets who accept invitations from terorist regimes and organizations, in order to capture a few drops of bloody propoganda on film? At what point do their actions cross the line from observer to participant? I can honestly say that I’d sleep better tonight knowing the AP photographer who panted along behind these thugs like an adrenaline-intoxicated puppy was behind bars under terrorist conspiracy or accessory to murder charges.
It’s bad enough that news consumers have to do their own fact checking, and bring in their own document experts to verify the information being presented as “truth”. Now we have to worry that the RPG triggerman who has selected our restaurant, our bus, our airplane for random anhilation has a goddamn AP cameraman in tow.

Global Warming Watch: Well Past Tea Time

The Diplomad notes with great alarm that the above Guardian article ran on December 3, 2003, based on information that was already about 24 hours old, so do the math! We’ve used up Ms. Wallstorm’s 12 months and are now eating into her 18 months upper limit! We’re all going to die! We won’t be able to elect a Republican in 2008! We’ll all be dead — and dead voters vote Democrat — and we’re all going to starve to death, or, well, maybe not, no, it appears we’ll have a good lunch while we wait for the world to end..

Sure, if you like to dine out in courtrooms.

Time To Start A Cull

The Australian:

A SERBIAN tie-maker is planning to launch a new range of penis cravats for the man who has everything.
Designer Neven Vrgoc said: “The ties are of a special shape and do not go around the neck of the man, but around his member.
“I hope male customers will buy them to create a good impression on a first date, or women might present them to men when they have been totally satisfied.”

It’s official: The world has too many reporters.

Saddam’s New Legal Benefactor

Charles Johnson connects the dots and finds they lead from Saddam Hussein to who else?

LONDON (AFP) – Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is preparing a legal challenge in the United States to his trial for war crimes, a newspaper reports, citing leaked papers prepared by his defense team.
Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights lawyer, has prepared a 50-page brief which contains advice to take the case to US courts to ensure he receives a fair trial, the Sunday Times reported after saying it had seen the document.
The action is to ensure that Saddam receives the basic legal rights given to those tried in the United States, such as full access to his defense team and an independent judge and jury, the newspaper said.
It said the leaked brief is entitled “The Iraqi Special Tribunal as Victors’ Justice – the Inherent Illegality and Bias of the Whole Process.”

George Soros.
Via Powerline

Time Announces “Blog Of The Year”

From Time (on newstands tomorrow);

The story of how three amateur journalists working in a homegrown online medium challenged a network news legend and won has many, many game-changing angles to it. One of the strangest and most radical is that the key information in “The 61st Minute” came from Power Line’s readers, not its ostensible writers. The Power Liners are quick, even eager, to point this out. “What this story shows more than anything is the power of the medium,” Hinderaker says. “The world is full of smart people who have information about every imaginable topic, and until the Internet came along, there wasn’t any practical way to put it together.”
Now there is.

Congratulations to Powerline!

Homo Respect-us

Over the past year or so, debate has waxed and waned about issues of political interference in the field of human genetics – stem cell research, bans on cloning. I covered it in March with these thoughts prompted by criticism of Bush appointments to the President’s Council on Bioethics.
A William Saletin column from Friday, in Slate, provides sobering evidence that there may be a very real need for checks and balances, if this commentary is representative of some of the mindsets in the research community.

Eric Juengst, a jovial bioethicist with a puffy white beard, takes the stage after lunch. He looks like Santa Claus and sounds like an elf. But the gift he brings isn’t for children. It’s a caustic wit aimed at anti-biotech hysteria. Juengst says human nature has been changing all along and will keep changing. He calls up a picture of an imaginary creature, half human and half cheetah. “Cheetah Man,” he jokes�or as the creature’s track-meet competitors might call him, “Cheater Man.” Next comes a drawing of a half-ape humanoid designed to fight wars, followed by a Weekly Standard article warning that the cloning of pigs to grow organs for humans will lead to “pig-men.” Juengst reads from the article in the hammed-up voice of a guy narrating a horror-movie trailer. The whole audience laughs.
Well, almost the whole audience. After Juengst finishes, Richard Hayes, the director of the Center for Genetics and Society, rebukes his “mocking, sarcastic” dismissal of people’s fears. Juengst replies that the pig-man article is funny. Hayes says it isn’t. The next questioner, biotech enthusiast Lee Silver of Princeton University, agrees with Juengst that humanity is always evolving. He asks whether popular belief in the sanctity of our species is religious and irrational. He cites the argument of his Princeton colleague, Peter Singer, that humans aren’t much more valuable than chimps.

Read it all.

Sell Out Indian

Raskolnikov, from Times of Winnipeg:

I have met many indian artists. Although most are not as radical as Eh, many, if not all, of them, seem very limited in outlook. They can paint one hell of an eagle and their headresses bow before no one; when I ask them, however, as artists, how they feel towards, say, Leonardo and his use of sfumato, a key technique that I often see in indian painting and it’s use of bold color and transitional shadowing/lighting, I often get no reply, or a simple grunt of dissmissal. The vibe I get is that these artists either have no idea who Leonardo, Raphael, Giotto et all are, or else they do know and don’t care, these foreign artists and the connotation of being representatives of oppressive colonial countries rendering them irrelevant. (Not that Italy handed over many pox-infected blankets, but maybe I’m just splitting hairs)

Good stuff.

Embrace Hollywood

“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.” – Michael Moore*

September 23rd, 2004 – My Journal
I am a full-blown Democrat. I always have been. I did visit President George Bush Sr. and his wife when they were in the White House. However I feel their son is in there without truly having won the election. I think he is a C minus President. Don’t you have to have straight A’s to be valedictorian of a college class? How is it possible that we, the great country of America, have become so deaf, dumb and blind to the obvious? I am voting for John Kerry because I think he is his own man. He is extremely intelligent and has a heart of gold. I have met his wife and she is extremely bright and charismatic. I believe he should be our next President. And if Bush is actually voted in this time, I hope we hold him accountable for 911 and for this disastrous war in Iraq. I am pissed!!
Please vote for John Kerry.
Lots of Love
Melanie [Griffith]
PS- Also if you want to know about what really happened on 9/11 please read
The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 by David Ray Griffin
This book will blow your mind!

From Afghanistan

A friend who is serving in the Canadian Armed Forces is currently in Afghanistan and sends this photo of Camp Julien.

Lots of stories to tell. I have used two disposable camera. I did not want to bring my digital camera here, since I had heard so many stories. Next time. I am going to download a disk of pictures the guys took here. The sights are unbelievable. How the people live. We are situated between the King’s and Queen’s palaces. “

julian.jpg

update – This panoramic view was sent by another reader. Very cool. (And very wide)

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