Premier! What a cool idea!

I've been tossing around some confusing thoughts about who it is I'm reminded of whenever I see BC premier, Christy Clark come out and speak publicly.

Then Rod Mickleburgh wrote this:

Increasingly, it appears that Ms. Clark simply liked the idea of being Premier, without much thought of what to do after that. Almost willfully uninterested in policy, she’s been lurching from slogan to slogan, while claiming to be responsible for virtually everything good that moves.

It’s not working.

Veteran political analyst Norman Ruff, who has seen premiers rise, and mostly fall, in British Columbia over the past 40 years, says Ms. Clark is the victim of her own shortcomings.

“There’s a gap between her smile and her actual performance,” says Mr. Ruff of the perennially-upbeat Premier.

Rather than establishing substantive programs of her own, Ms. Clark has spent most of her time reacting to events, and that’s not cutting it with British Columbians, according to Mr. Ruff, professor emeritus at the University of Victoria.

Then I ran across something at Balloon Juice. 

Yup. Pretty much the same thing.

And So It Begins . . . .

The organized lynching of truth-telling by way of FoxNoise, of course.

From The Guardian this morning:

A Fox News contributor and former state department adviser has accused WikiLeaks of conducting "political warfare against the US" and called for those behind the whistleblowing website to be declared "enemy combatants" so they can be subjected to "non-judicial actions".
_______________

Whiton ends with the following plea: "How much will our information-collection capabilities have to be diminished, and how many of our friends and collaborators around the world must die, (Ed: Never mind that there has been no evidence of that.) before President Obama and his friends on Capitol Hill start caring more about national security?"

Oh sure, call Julian Assange and his tribe of transparency troops "enemy combatants" so they can get the same kind of "deal" Omar Khadr got.

Compare the FoxNoise response with that of Britain's deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, who backs an investigation into the torture allegations.

An ocean away and worlds apart . . . .

There is a fine line...

Between earning your stripes and falling on your face so many times that your competence becomes a matter of question.

But not to a Conservative. Taking a page out of the Karl Rove playbook, Harper has elevated one of the frat boys based on his loyalty to Dear Leader.

Dimitri Soudas, 30, who has worked for Harper for eight years, replaces John Williamson as director of communications. Soudas, whose most recent position was associate director of communications, will be the prime minister's fifth communications director in five years.

And without even thinking hard, this is how good the guy is:

Last December, he accused Canadian environmentalist Steven Guilbeault of being behind a spoof designed to embarrass the Canadian government at the Copenhagen climate summit. It turned out the Yes Men were responsible for the series of fake news releases that claimed Canada had committed to drastic greenhouse gas emission cuts.

In July 2009, Soudas had to apologize for passing along incorrect information to Harper about comments made by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

Harper criticized Ignatieff for saying Canada could become irrelevant at major international summits. But Ignatieff never made the comments, which were made by former Canadian diplomat Gordon Smith.

Earlier this year, Soudas had to close his Facebook account after he accepted a wanted criminal as a friend on the popular social networking site. Infoman, a Radio-Canada news program in Quebec, had faked the friend request and warned Soudas could have been causing a security risk by including personal photos of his family on Facebook.

So the PMO now has an Alfa-Squirrel and a walking example of the Dilbert Principle.

The rest of you Harperites will just have to keep on sucking.

Added: Definitely worth reading. Impolitical and BigCityLib.

IP Nails It . . . .

Idealistic Pragmatist has the definitive post on the US dems, health care "reform" and the sorry condition of the Excited States here.

Go, read and hope the situation doesn't creep across the 49th . . . .

"Out of Context" My A_s . . . .

So, according to the AP, Janet Napolitano is claiming her words on Sunday's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" regarding the airport security screening system were "taken out of context." Huh.

Here's the Secretary of Homeland (In)Security on the "Today Show" this morning:



Well, Gang. Here's the transcript:

(Georgie was off this week, so there was actually a decent reporter handling the show - Jake Tapper.)

JANET NAPOLITANO, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Good morning.

TAPPER: I want to get your reaction to a comment from the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who said in a statement: "I am troubled by several aspects of this case, including how the suspect escaped the attention of the State Department and law enforcers when his father apparently reported concerns about his son's extremist behavior to the U.S. embassy in Lagos, how the suspect managed to retain a U.S. visa after such complaints, and why he was not recognized as someone who reportedly was named in the terrorist database."

Madam Secretary, how do you answer Senator Lieberman's questions?

NAPOLITANO: Well, I think, first of all, we are investigating, as always, going backwards to see what happened and when, who knew what and when. But here -- I think it's important for the public to know, there are different types of databases.

And there were simply, throughout the law enforcement community, never information that would put this individual on a no-fly list or a selectee list. So that's number one.

Number two, I think the important thing to recognize here is that once this incident occurred, everything happened that should have. The passengers reacted correctly, the crew reacted correctly, within an hour to 90 minutes, all 128 flights in the air had been notified. And those flights already had taken mitigation measures on the off-chance that there was somebody else also flying with some sort of destructive intent.

So the system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days.

TAPPER: Well, let me ask you a question about intelligence-sharing. When the suspect's father went to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and said, I'm worried because my son is displaying extremist religious views, how was that information shared with other parts of the U.S. government, or did it just stay at that U.S. embassy?

NAPOLITANO: Well, again, we are going to go back and really do a minute-by-minute, day-by-day scrub of that sort of thing. But when he presented himself to fly, he was on a tide (ph) list. What a tide list simply says is, his name had come up somewhere somehow.

But the no-fly and selectee list require that there be specific, what we call, derogatory information. And that was not available throughout the law enforcement community. He went through screening in Amsterdam as he prepared to board a flight to the United States.

The authorities in Amsterdam are working with us to make sure that screening was properly done. We have no suggestion that it wasn't, but we're actually going through -- going backwards, tracing his route.

But I think important for the traveling public recognize that A, everybody reacted as they should. We trained for this. We planned for this. We exercised for this sort of event should it occur.

And B, we have instituted additional screening in what we call mitigation measures that will be continuing for a while. And so we ask people perhaps to show up a little bit earlier at the airport during this heavy holiday season, and to recognize we're going to be doing different things at different airports.

So don't think somebody at TSA is not on the job if they're not doing exactly at one airport what you saw at another. There will be different things done in different places.

TAPPER: But, Secretary Napolitano, you keep saying everybody acted the way they were supposed to. Clearly the passengers and the crew of that Northwest Airlines flight did.

But I think there are questions about whether everybody in the U.S. government did. And here's a question for you, how many of -- so many of us are subject to random security searches all the time, how come somebody who is not on a terrorist database isn't subject to more stringent security when they check in to a flight to the U.S.? Why does that automatically just happen?

NAPOLITANO: Well, if he had had specific information that would have put him on the selectee list or indeed on the no-fly list, he would not have actually gotten on a plane.

But those numbers pyramid down. And they need to, because again, there is lots of information that flies about this world on a lot of different people. And what we have to do in law enforcement is not only collect and share, but do it in the proper way.

Now once this incident occurred, everything went according to clockwork. Not only sharing throughout the air industry, but also sharing with state and local law enforcement, products were going out on Christmas Day, they went out yesterday, and also to the industry to make sure that the traveling public remains safe.

And I would leave you with that message, the traveling public is safe. We have instituted some additional screening and security measures in light of this incident. But again, everybody reacted as they should, the system -- once the incident occurred, the system worked.

As FoxNoise would say: "We report. You decide." Out of context or not?

(As a sidenote, does anyone else abhor the idea of joe LIE-berman having yet another excuse to have his Droopy Dawg mug in front of a camera? Gag, choke, gasping for fresh air . . . . )

Watch those "revisions," Janet. Might make it a bit difficult opening doors, using a tissue, applying makeup, etc.

Man, this "hope" and "change" stuff is workin' out just great, isn't it ? ? ? ?

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Gog and Magog. Good Grief, george . . . .

According to this month's edition of the Council for Secular Humanism's "Free Inquiry", g.w.bush felt "that Iraq must be














invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse."

This is not a joke - no doubt to Bill Maher's chagrin - and James A. Haught details the story in his article "A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush."

Check out the whole article, but here are some of the highlights:

A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush

James A. Haught

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

_______________

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

_______________

Oddly, mainstream media are ignoring this alarming revelation that Bush may have been half-cracked when he started his Iraq war. My own paper, The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, is the only U.S. newspaper to report it so far. Canada’s Toronto Star recounted the story, calling it a “stranger-than-fiction disclosure … which suggests that apocalyptic fervor may have held sway within the walls of the White House.” Fortunately, online commentary sites are spreading the news, filling the press void.

The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush’s renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was “on a mission from God” to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim “absurd.”

_______________

It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.

Truth really is stranger than fiction at times . . . .

H/T Joylene

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Maher Rules . . . .

(Playing off Edstock's post below:)

Bill Maher has a New Rule posted at The Huffington Post today.


Go.

Read.

Chuckle.

Snicker.

Guffaw.




Shake your head in astonishment.

A sampling:

A few weeks ago I was asked by Wolf Blitzer if I thought Sarah Palin could get elected president, and I said I hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past this stupid country. It was amazing - in the minute or so between my calling America stupid and the end of the Cialis commercial, CNN was flooded with furious emails and the twits hit the fan. And you could tell that these people were really mad because they wrote entirely in CAPITAL LETTERS!!!

_______________

At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.

_______________

Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.

I repeat:

Go.

Enjoy . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Harper government defence procurement planning...

Spin the wheel! Where it stops, nobody knows!

The latest example of that was provided yesterday during an "industry day" for potential bidders on replacement search and rescue fixed-wing aircraft, a day described by many in the aerospace industry as a disaster. (Emphasis mine)

A $3-billion project to buy new search-and-rescue aircraft opened Tuesday in Ottawa amid complaints from aerospace-industry officials that government representatives can't even say how many planes will be purchased or when.

The industry day, signifying the start of the much-delayed program, left aerospace representatives puzzled and at times frustrated.

Government representatives who called the meeting couldn't answer questions on how many planes would be bought, when they would be purchased, whether they would be equipped with sensors or how they would be maintained.

Several participants described the event, put on by the Defence Department, Public Works and Industry Canada, as a disaster.

Even the presentation, which was limited to 90 minutes, failed.

The audio-visual presentation that was to outline details of the program did not work and the microphones for the main speakers and audience members failed.

That, however embarrassing it might have been, isn't that uncommon. However, given that this is Harper's world-stage® government at play, you'd think they could have sorted out a power-point presentation and audio systems before they actually got started.

The real kicker, however, is this one.

At the last minute, the Harper government shut down an invitation for the media to listen to the presentations, leading to a bizarre situation where government employees refused to even confirm they were government employees.

And just in case you think someone in a uniform made that decision without authority, let's look a little closer.

The Defence Department had approved the Citizen's request to be allowed to listen to the search-and-rescue presentation by Brig.-Gen. Greg Matte, but at the last minute that invitation was cancelled on orders from "higher up" in the Harper government, according to various officials.

A supervisor at the Government Teleconferencing Service, which was involved in broadcasting the meeting, said the order to ban the media "just came down" Tuesday morning. "We're doing what we're told," said the supervisor who declined to provide his name. "They've said to disclose nothing further."

He also declined to provide his name, confirm whether he was a public servant or discuss who "they" were.

Ah, more jiggery-pokery from the upper suite. Mackay and the spin merchants in the Langevin Block.

Secrecy around equipment programs and how the Defence Department spends tax dollars has grown significantly under the Conservatives.

In May, Defence Minister Peter MacKay pleaded with industry representatives to get the word out that military purchases were good for the Canadian economy. But industry officials note that it is often MacKay's office and other government representatives, such as the Privy Council Office, preventing firms from discussing projects.

In this case however, the Harper crowd may really be trying to hide more than their own gross incompetence. Defence and aerospace industry insiders are suspicious that the SAR aircraft "competition" simply isn't and that the process has been rigged. That makes even more sense when you consider the ass-backwards methodology that has been used to proceed with this equipment purchase.

MacKay announced in December 2008 that he would be going to cabinet asking for up to $3 billion for SAR aircraft replacement and that he had the proposal in front of him. Given that this procurement is now five years behind schedule (all deliverables were to have been in the hands of the Canadian Forces by 2009) this has become a pure off-the-shelf purchase. No new airplane will emerge from this. That would suggest that whatever specifications were issued to and approved by MacKay (and cabinet), they already exist in at least one specific aircraft at an estimated cost of which the Harper government is fully aware.

In short, yesterday's half-assed dog and pony show was a smoke screen for one of two things:

Either the Harper government has no actual idea of what they want from industry in terms of a fixed-wing SAR aircraft, or;

The Harper government has already made their choice and this Request For Proposals or "competition" is simply a theatrical performance to mollify the well-founded suspicions of the Canadian aerospace industry.

On thing is clear however: The Harper Conservatives, usually dancing around the podium whenever they announce a big-buck purchase, are trying to hide something, as evidenced when they shut the media out of yesterday's "briefing".

Incompetence or duplicity. Spin the wheel. Those are the choices.

More at Accidental Deliberations.

The Musical Ride to Shame

BOY, STEVIE SURE IS SILENT ABOUT THIS. The RCMP is a disaster that gets worse as time passes. The problems are everywhere in the force. We have pension fund problems, training problems, management competence problems at every level.

The Mayerthorpe Massacre shows how bad the training and management problems are at the local level, with poorly-trained officers led by people with abysmal judgement.

Then a year later, in Saskatchewan, two horsemen got killed in a gunfight while pursuing the bad guys — can't our guys shoot any more? What are the firearm competence standards? What is the training budget? Jeez, I'm a city-dweller, and my best on groundhogs is 280 yards with a .22 Hornet. Seems like these guys couldn't hit a barn door.

Then there's the RCMP's less than stellar track record in security and relations with CSIS (which deserves to be turned inside-out and examined itself). Maher Arar could probably help with some recommendations.

Then there's the Taser Tempest — and nobody's responsible.

What a can of worms, and nothing but shirking by politicians everywhere. NOBODY'S RESPONSIBLE, including Stevie. Grrrrrrrrr.

Flaherty's lips are moving...

... Again.

The only problem with this report:

The federal government isn't reviewing the assets this year of the department that oversees the CBC, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Tuesday, amid media reports that an auction of the the public broadcaster and other Crown corporations is in the offing.

... is that it's Flaherty saying it.

This from a finance minister who has been wrong about everything, couldn't forecast today's lunch money and, quite frankly, lies.

Proof? Write Income Trust on the board 50 times.

Taibbi = 1. Friedman = 0 . . . .

Matt Taibbi on AlterNet today gives the definitive "burn" to Thomas Friedman.

Friedman Digs in Bethesda, MD

Go.

Read.

You too can fully understand the relationship between the size of Valerie Bertinelli's Ass and Happiness . . . .

H/T Lloyd

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Year End Cleanup . . . .

Some end of the year cleanup is in order, and how fitting it is to feature the bush administration.

From Bob Herbert of the New York Times we get:

Add Up the Damage
By BOB HERBERT - December 30, 2008

Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?

You don’t hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.

We’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.

But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

_______________


The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort.

He told ABC’s Charlie Gibson: “I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.”

The president chuckled, thinking — as he did when he made his jokes about the missing weapons of mass destruction — that there was something funny going on.

Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel prize in economics, also of the New York Times now weighs in:

Looking for a word
December 31, 2008

Unusually, I’m having a vocabulary problem. There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.

What brings this to mind is this from Alberto Gonzales:

"I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

This reminded me of Laura Bush’s remark on carnage in Iraq:

"And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this."

Remember this. And remember, too, that for long years these people were considered heroic patriots, defenders of the nation.

And now it is time for them to go away . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

"Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to War We Go!" . . . .

Per Reuters today:

Up to 30,000 new U.S. troops in Afghanistan by summer
Sat Dec 20, 2008 - By Golnar Motevalli

KABUL (Reuters) - The United States is aiming to send 20,000 to 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan by the beginning of next summer, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Saturday.

Washington is already sending some 3,000 extra troops in January and another 2,800 by spring, but officials previously have said the number would be made up to 20,000 in the next 12 to 18 months, once approved by the U.S. administration.

"Some 20 to 30,000 is the window of overall increase from where we are right now. I don't have an exact number," Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters in Kabul.

_______________


U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged a renewed focus on Afghanistan, where U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks.

The United States now has some 31,000 troops in Afghanistan.

______________


Mullen said beefing up U.S. forces in Afghanistan was linked to winding down in Iraq.

"Available forces are directly tied to forces in Iraq. As we look to the possibility of reducing forces in Iraq over the course of the next year, the availability of forces to come here in Afghanistan will increase," Mullen said.

INDIA-PAKISTAN

Mullen said the attacks by Islamist militants in Mumbai last month showed the need to reduce Indian tensions with Pakistan and that would help bring stability to Afghanistan.

"That's another big piece of the strategy, what I would call regional focus to include Pakistan, Afghanistan and India ... leadership in all three of those countries to figure out a way to decrease tensions, not increase tensions," Mullen said.

Well, yes, that's perfectly clear.

We'll just pump MORE troops into a volatile area. THAT should "decrease tensions", huh?

Is there an end to this lunacy in sight ? ? ? ?

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

"Goodbye George" from McClatchy . . . .

McClatchy's Washington Bureau bids an early farewell to george bush today.

Commentary: Bush makes a farewell tour. Good riddance

Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

December 18, 2008

We've been treated to a real spectacle this week as President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney limped into the home stretch of their Magical History Tour, employing distortions, half-truths and untruths in a final, desperate attempt to pervert or somehow prevent history from judging them accurately.

_______________

The great gray eminence himself, Dick Cheney, of no known address, went on national television pleading guilty to committing a war crime. Yes, Cheney said, he participated in the White House discussions on the use of torture in the interrogations of suspected terrorists. Yes, he said proudly, he approved the use of such outlawed practices as water-boarding, the simulated drowning of bound and helpless prisoners to make them talk. So what?

Photo credit: Kevin Seirs of the Charlotte Observer

_______________

Over in the White House, the president was busy signing a flood of executive orders opening the gates to oil drilling on massive chunks of previously protected public lands in the West; protecting big corporations from lawsuits in state courts when their products harm or kill innocent Americans, and generally giving his fat cat friends one last shot at looting a national Treasury of any remaining table scraps.

The president and his spinmeisters keep talking about how, with the passage of time, historians will come to judge his presidency a huge success, much as history has come to judge the administration of Harry S. Truman.

Balderdash. Or as I much prefer to say in situations like this: Bullshit!

_______________


Bush told his War College audience that of all the things he loved about the job, he was proudest of all of his role as their commander-in-chief.

Why then did he and his minions oppose virtually every attempt to reinforce their numbers and shorten the time they spent in Hell? Why did they oppose virtually every attempt to increase their pay and their benefits, and those of millions of American veterans of these and other wars?

How could so proud a commander sit idly by while soldiers and Marines were sent off to war without the armored vehicles and body armor they so desperately needed in this new kind of war?

How could his administration pinch pennies when it came to funding and manning the military hospitals that treat the thousands of wounded troops flowing home from his wars?

How can this man talk about making the world a safer and freer place by his actions when so much innocent blood has been shed by civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan? When millions have been turned into homeless refugees inside and outside Iraq? When America is left with far fewer friends and allies among the nations of the world?

The only good news left to us this gloomy, cold December is that we only have to put up with this wretched spectacle for another 30 days or so.

George W. Bush should make a hurry-up call to his architect and see if it's not too late to substitute firing slits for the ground floor windows in his new Presidential Library in Dallas.

Good-bye George, and good riddance.

Well done, Mr. Galloway.

Well done . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Better get the Barf Bag . . . .

No wonder McSame's trying to postpone the debates:




At least she can't be accused of being "elitist," anyway.

Good grief, even Katie Couric looks skeptical, for crying out loud.

Tundra Trash a "heartbeat away from the Presidency"?

Please don't let the USian public be that "stoopid" . . . .


(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

The Truth Shall Set You Free . . . .

Looks like there's a bit of financial friction between Germany and the US.

Just in from Reuters:

Era of U.S. financial dominance at an end: Germany
Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:16pm EDT
By Noah Barkin and Kerstin Gehmlich

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany blamed the United States on Thursday for spawning the global financial crisis with a blind drive for higher profits and said it must now accept more market regulation and a loss of its financial superpower status.

In some of the harshest criticism of the United States since the crisis threw Wall Street banks into financial disarray this month, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said the turmoil would leave "deep marks" on both sides of the Atlantic, but called it primarily an American problem.

"The world will never be as it was before the crisis," Steinbrueck told the Bundestag lower house of parliament. "The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar," he said.

_______________


Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, a partnership of her conservatives and Steinbrueck's Social Democrats (SPD), pushed the G8 to agree measures to boost financial market transparency during Germany's presidency of the club last year.

But their drive collapsed amid opposition from Washington and London. Merkel's party and the SPD are keen to claim credit for Germany's G8 push ahead of a federal election next year.

U.S. ON DEFENSIVE

German criticisms of Washington were echoed by leaders of governments from around the world meeting this week at the United Nations in New York. Many criticized the financial record of President George W. Bush's administration and warned that U.S. financial mistakes now threatened the global economy.

The crisis has put the Bush White House, which has long advocated a hands-off approach to markets, on the defensive and forced it to rethink its financial policy.

At the same time it has emboldened voices in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, who are uncomfortable with American-style capitalism and who want tighter regulation of markets.

It appears the groping/massage georgie gave Angela didn't work out quite as he had planned . . . .







(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Illustrations of a Political Disaster . . . .

The whole Palin media circus in the US has totally disgusted me to the point that I would rather not talk about it, nor post about it.

Today, however, a good friend and former journalist (as opposed to what passes for same these days) sent me a couple of illustrations of the person I like to refer to as "Tundra Trash."

She wanted me to spread them around, so here 'ya go:

Sarah Palin, Librarian

And my personal favourite:

Sarah Palin Bags the Big One

Thanks to Steve in comments for the artist: Zina Saunders . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Money for Nuthin' . . . .

Per Reuters today:

Clear Channel in $400 million deal with Limbaugh

Thu Jul 3, 2008
(Reporting by Pratish Narayanan in Bangalore; Editing by Erica Billingham)

(Reuters) - Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh signed an eight-year contract extension worth as much as $400 million with Clear Channel Communications Inc, The New York Times said on its website on Wednesday citing an interview with Limbaugh.

Clear Channel said on Wednesday that Limbaugh renewed his contract with units Premiere Radio Networks and Clear Channel Radio, but did not disclose financial details.

Limbaugh's paycheck of $50 million a year represents a raise of about $14.4 million a year over his current contract, which was paying him $285 million over eight years and was set to expire in 2009, the newspaper's website said.

Separately, Clear Channel's Premiere is in advanced talks with another conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity to try to sign him for an eight-year contract worth about $200 million, The Wall Street Journal said, citing a person familiar with the situation.

Clear Channel was not immediately available to comment. Limbaugh and Hannity could not be immediately reached for comment.

I guess you can put a price on Stupid after all . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Good Grief . . . .

Per Reuters this morning:

Bush contemplates writing his memoir
Sun Jun 15, 2008


LONDON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, scrutinized in books by former colleagues including a blistering critique by his ex-spokesman, is considering writing a memoir of his own.

Bush has been silent on former spokesman Scott McClellan's book, which said the White House shaded the truth and conducted a propaganda campaign to make its case to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Asked if he planned to pen his own book after leaving office in January, Bush said it was a possibility.

"I'm going to think about that, yes -- writing a book," Bush said in an interview with Britain's Observer newspaper published on Sunday.

Can't you just hear the jokes spinning around in people's minds already?

The late night comedians are going to have a field day with this one . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

The Conservative sea of confusion

Further to Dana's post there is a whole lot more going on and the Harperites aren't just showing simple incompetence.

The word that General Dynamics was pulling out of the bidding for the Frigate Life Extension project actually hit the streets more than a week ago. David Puliese's article highlights something significant.

Numerous defence industry officials, who asked not to be named, say the problem with the military procurement system is that the Defence Department and Public Works expect top-of-the-line equipment for relatively modest budgets.

In some cases, the government expects custom changes to existing equipment that are unreasonable because Canada is buying such a small amount of gear, according to industry officials. In other cases, procurement budgets are unrealistic. For instance, in the case of the supply ships, industry officials say the military did not take into consideration that the price of steel has risen 40 per cent in the last several years.

"Industry officials" aren't telling the whole story. In fact they're nicely deflecting the truth.

The Harper promise to streamline and accelerate the procurement process for military and naval capital equipment under the "Canada First" vision has fallen flat on its ass before it even got stood up. The primary reason? Not enough money.

Industry officials can say all they like about the military not taking into consideration the price of ship-grade steel. The truth is, industry is consulted on such items and issues before the tendering process begins. The navy's project managers knew that the price tag on the projected Combat Support Ships had a "best before date". In fact, after the Harper-initiated review of defence projects delayed everything on the procurement list by a year the navy went back to the government and told the politicians they would probably need more money.

The answer from government? No.

The result is that most bidders view contracts like the Combat Support Ships as a financial risk. For the navy it means settling for less. That will translate into either two - not three - ships or ships which lack the capability the government promised. Expect that the Combat Support Ships will have an extensive list of items bearing the historically famous Canadian naval description of Fitted For But Not With.

Word around the naval bazaars is that the Conservatives talk a good story but beyond that they are clueless. To quote one individual, "They have no real plan beyond an artists conception..."

The Frigate Life Extension (FELEX) program is another problem. The delay in getting the project moving has seen costs go up and a scramble to get upgrades to combat systems which don't return an obsolete fighting ship to the fleet. With only one bidder on the project it means the entire thing can be held to ransom. If the Conservatives were actually serious they would have made sure there was enough money to attract bidders in the first place.

But if anything tells a story it is Harper strutting about telling everyone that he's going to build six "Slush-Breakers" and a northern naval base. That was the navy's least desirable option for Arctic patrol and sovereignty. In various corners most of the gold braid just chuckles at the idea and wish the Harperites would address the projects that are on the board right now instead of floating pipe-dreams to the media.

None of this even begins to address what will be a significantly reduced naval capability for several years. As the frigates go to their 18-month refits the navy will be hard-pressed to meet commitments. Mind you, had the Conservatives ever produced the promised comprehensive defence policy statement last year the navy might have known whether they were actually going to see a continuing ship replacement program. Right now, there isn't one and there is no policy guidance. Instead the Conservatives use the hillbilly method of giving a speech and calling that policy.

The navy's chronic personnel shortage has also not been addressed. If the FELEX program lays up a significant portion of the fleet it has the effect of giving those in the service a bit of a break from a crushing operating tempo. Large numbers of naval personnel have done multiple extended deployments and some have done them on back-to-back rotations as they end up posted from one ship to another.

Non-commissioned ranks continue to leave the service and there is a hemorrhage of junior officers resulting in an even worse situation for those who stay.

In short, the Harperites and their perpetual election campaign make a lot of noise and that's about the extent of it. Their macho military facade may make a good surface impression, but they've realized that they're not getting anywhere near the political bang their party needs from the defence-spending buck.

In fact, the Harperites aren't much different than the Mulroneyites were. And Mulroney was a disaster.

Oh, and while we're perusing the various promises of the Harper military camp, page 45 of the CPoC election campaign platform.

Restore the regular army presence to British Columbia.

How's that working out?