Is it sinking in...

That we who viewed the US invasion of Iraq as something more than an O.J. Simpson hunt for something that could not be found have been right on every point? And the latest point scored by the dirty hippies?

Permanent US bases in Iraq.

Hold up the phone and give me a High-Five! We predicted that on March 24th, 2006.

TPM Muckraker has more, but here are the salient lines from the White House press release.

Iraq's leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America, and we seek an enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq. We are ready to build that relationship in a sustainable way that protects our mutual interests, promotes regional stability, and requires fewer Coalition forces. In response, this Declaration is the first step in a three-step process that will normalize U.S.-Iraqi relations in a way which is consistent with Iraq's sovereignty and will help Iraq regain its rightful status in the international community – something both we and the Iraqis seek. The second step is the renewal of the Multinational Force-Iraq's Chapter VII United Nations mandate for a final year, followed by the third step, the negotiation of the detailed arrangements that will codify our bilateral relationship after the Chapter VII mandate expires.

In short, what that means is that Bush is going to scramble to get a new agreement in place before the UN Chapter VII mandate expires in December 2008, thus hobbling his successor with a permanent arrangement to provide US troops through a Status of Forces agreement with Iraq.

I know that language doesn't come out and say, "permanent bases" but this next part makes it pretty clear.

To support the Iraqi government in training, equipping, and arming the Iraqi Security Forces so they can provide security and stability to all Iraqis; support the Iraqi government in contributing to the international fight against terrorism by confronting terrorists such as Al-Qaeda, its affiliates, other terrorist groups, as well as all other outlaw groups, such as criminal remnants of the former regime; and to provide security assurances to the Iraqi Government to deter any external aggression and to ensure the integrity of Iraq's territory.

For more wholesome goodness head on over to Balloon Juice where John Cole contemplates moving beau-zeau Captain Ed (captaincy acquired from Star Trek colouring book) from the READ list to the MOCK list.

Ed doesn't seem to get it. You don't spend $1 billion in one year buying tents and plywood for four bases.

Photo: Jacob Silberberg/AP - The swimming pool of the 14 square mile US air base at Balad, Iraq.

TASER™ madness

I guess we all have own private collections of TASER™ atrocity stories by now.

Fern at Birth Pangs has a list.
There's the bride who got it twice in the abdomen while running away from the police who'd just stun-gunned her policeman dad at her reception.
And the woman dropping her son off at school who refused to sign off on a traffic ticket.
And another woman who was breaking up a fight among neighbourhood kids.

The distinguishing characteristic about Fern's list is that all these victims were pregnant at the time - one of them eight months pregnant.
I wonder if you score extra points for that.

Go.

Angrily cross-posted at Creekside

Following in the footsteps of failure.

It's bad enough that we have Canadian Defence Minister Peter MacKay channeling disgraced former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld right down to using the same approach of intentionally insulting anyone who questions a dubious war. It's worse, however, that the Conservatives keep aping the words and policy ambitions of one of the worst US presidential administrations in history.

BCer in TO picked this one out the swill and it's not only disgusting, but even a banker disagrees with the premise put forward by Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. (Emphasis mine)

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty raised the prospect yesterday of cutting income taxes for high-paid workers to keep them in Canada.

The man who has often been described as the populist Finance Minister suggested that it would not be an easy thing for politicians to do. But he said banks and other companies are being lobbied by foreign governments to move chunks of their operations to jurisdictions with better income-tax rates.

"We need to do more on the personal income-tax side because we still have marginal rates that are disproportionately high when I look at our competition," Mr. Flaherty told reporters in Oshawa. "And one of the things that politically is more difficult to do but it still needs to be done and that is in the higher earning categories between $100,000 and $200,000 a year in income."

Well, isn't that special. His concern is a category that pays federal tax at a rate of either 26% or 29%.

"Our competition"? Who's that? Flaherty didn't bother to provide an example which suggests it is a statement he intentionally pulled right out of his ass.

The most obvious "competition" would be the United States. So, making that obvious assumption let's look at the US federal tax rates for that general income category.

Hmmm... the US has six tax brackets as opposed to Canada's four. For the category of someone earning $100,000 annually the federal tax rate is 28% - 2 percent higher than that same wage earner in Canada.

For someone earning $200,000 annually in the US the federal tax rate is 33% - 4 percent higher than the equivalent Canadian. Keep in mind that in all categories, Canadians receive universal health care from taxes. Americans must either negotiate it as an "employer-pay" benefit or pay for it out of their income.

So, which jurisdiction precisely is it that Flaherty considers "competition"? France? I think not. Germany? Hardly. Maybe, Britain? Well, no, since British income tax is higher at the wage level described by Flaherty but much lower at the low and middle income brackets. It would appear that Canadian federal tax rates at the wage levels described by Flaherty are already some of the lowest in the developed world.

That would mean Flaherty is tossing out a deliberate falsehood since he neither identified nor described the "competition". Not that I'm calling Flaherty a liar, although I'm fairly certain he would have serious difficulty defending himself against such a charge, but he is being highly deceptive.

It seems the US Republican advisors hired by the Harperites are feeding the Canadian Conservative Party the same line of crap they feed the Bush administration. And Flaherty is more than happy to regurgitate the Bush administration line that top-end tax cuts will fuel the economy and provide jobs. Given the state of the US economy, that doesn't seem to have worked quite the way Bush, Greenspan and Paulson had hoped.

Even a leading banker doesn't believe that cutting taxes for top wage earners is as important as cutting taxes at the lower end of the wage scale.

Don Drummond, chief economist of Toronto-Dominion Bank, joked that he "would never want to dissuade anyone from providing tax relief to bankers. That is a great idea that should be supported by all Canadians."

But, he said, "if it's marginal personal income tax rates one is concerned about, the gaze should fall at lower income levels. There we truly have impaired the incentives to work, save and invest, because once various benefits are clawed back, individuals and particularly families keep very little from that last dollar earned."

Chief economist of a Canadian chartered bank. Believes Flaherty has it wrong. Disagrees with major think tank.

William Robson, president of the C. D. Howe Institute, believes tax cuts at the top end of the income scale are a good thing. "We are a high-tax jurisdiction for the people in the $150,000 range," he said.

And the reason Drummond can make a statement which flies in the face of Flaherty's assessment and the repetitive whine of the C.D. Howe Institute is because both Flaherty and the C.D. Howe Institute are full of shit.

Shorter Peter MacKay: SHUT UP! Just SHUT UP!

So then, Petey MacKay, addressing a friendly audience, (well, perhaps), turns to page 38 of the Donald Rumsfeld playbook and pulls out the If you don't support the troops (which actually means support my questionable mission) you are aiding and abetting the enemy. Treason!

Waning support for the mission in Afghanistan is a weapon in the hands of the Taliban, said Defence Minister Peter MacKay during a stop in Edmonton yesterday.

"The Taliban are very intelligent - they read newspapers, they go on the Internet.

"When they see Canadian resolve weaken, that's when they up their effort," MacKay said.

That's right. You've heard this all before from the now disgraced Donald Rumsfeld. And then there was this.

The younger generation of Canadians aren't used to seeing flag-draped coffins, he said, and perhaps don't understand sacrifice the way older Canadians do.

Ohhh! I see! It's simply a matter of getting used to it.

Actually Petey, younger Canadians understand sacrifice just as well as older Canadians, and apparently, judging by the statistics, there are a lot of older ones who don't share your Bushian view of war.

So, what MacKay wants you to do is just... shut up! To MacKay, "support the troops" is "support the mission". Anything else is too difficult for him.

I was going to explain it, but this came from comments over at Buckdog and deals with it perfectly.

Having been one in the past, I do support the troops. I don't always support what the government wants them to do, however. A lot of people can't tell the difference between the two, and that's what McKay and Harper are counting on.

Exactly.

And if you want to compare supporting the troops, lets take a little walk back to a nasty rumour that's been floating around the military and naval bazaars in places like Victoria, Edmonton, Ottawa and Halifax, just to name a few.

The federal government is about to stop its practice of giving extra money to Canadian soldiers posted to some of the country's most expensive cities.

Since June 2000, almost half of Canada's soldiers have been receiving a bump in their monthly salary -- the posting's living differential -- for living and working in cities with a high cost of living.

You can excuse the term "soldiers" since sailors and air force personnel are also involved. But, to make a point, that allowance isn't new. It's been around for decades in various forms, Post Differential Allowance being the last mutation. And now, there is more than a strong understanding among "the troops" that PDA or Accommodation Assistance Allowance or whatever you want to call it, is going to be ripped away by a Conservative government which out of the other side its mouth talks about supporting troops and their families.

Now that's support, isn't it? I wonder, MacKay, does the Taliban check out the effects of the Conservative government's morale busting efforts or do they just read me when I bitch that you haven't properly defined what victory is in Afghanistan?

You know what the "older" Canadians who used to wear the uniform (and thus, understand "sacrifice") are telling the "younger" Canadians who now wear the uniform (and therefore don't understand "sacrifice")?

Conservatives will always hack away at the pay and benefits of the armed forces. Diefenbaker did it, Mulroney did it and now you can count on Harper doing it. It's in their blood.*

So, let's see what colour MacKay wears on Fridays after he cuts the pay of some service personnel by up to $450 per month.

* From a conversation across a table full of beer near one of Canada's naval bases. The retired were speaking to the serving. The serving were not happy.

Canadian values in Afghanistan

I was just reading this story in the Washington Post about the conflict between the US military and intelligence communities about Afghanistan and Iraq when I was struck by something having to do with the Asia Foundation's poll of Afghans for 2007.

In the second to last paragraph on the first page of the story I read: "According to a survey released last month by the Asia Foundation, 79 percent of Afghans felt that the government does not care what they think, while 69 percent felt that it is not acceptable to publicly criticize the government."

That's just like Canada I thought to myself. Most of us think the Harperites don't care what we think and most Harperites feel that it's unacceptable to criticize the government.

So it's good news!!

We're exporting our values to Afghanistan after all!

Don't bother with the Washington Post story or the poll results themselves though. Both will just make you want to criticize the government.

Government secrecy story too secret to publish

There's a story headlined "Opposition MPs slam government secrecy over private contractors" posted at The Vancouver Sun. It's also posted at The Ottawa Citizen.

Its exactly the same story in both papers.

It's too secret to publish. Both webpages are completely blank. In both Firefox and IE.

Just something I noticed on the internets today.

Ring off main engines.

The last couple of days have involved repositioning, thus an absence from reading or contributing to blogs. Most news and information coming via satellite and after a struggle in determining to listen to NPR or the digitally remastered 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

NPR won out after remembering that the eight-year old son of an Imperial Oil accountant had so long ago determined that The Beatles songs were all about drugs. If Dear Leader says it's so, it must be so. Lucy, so adeptly painted in the sky with diamonds, by a very young Julian Lennon at Heath House School, couldn't possibly be Lucy O’Donnell. If Steve says "Lucy" equals lysergic, how could we argue?

Interestingly, NPR was running a series of programs which were de-constructing several events which have come to form the fabric of American mythology, not the least of which is Thanksgiving. It would seem that the lot of the Plymouth settlers was not just a little rough, but a great majority of the reality of their lives and behaviour has simply been written out of history.

Yes, I know. It's all rather meaningless at this point, but in doing my catch-up reading I made a stop at Jon Swift (the 3rd funniest blog in the known universe) and discovered that Jon has a new idea that makes more sense. So, while Canadians have long since stuffed the big roasting pan back into the closet and Americans are wondering which weight-loss supplement to buy after last Thursday, the idea of changing the name of the American holiday has more than a little merit. After all, the Puritans who founded the US holiday would go on to ban Christmas. Luckily for them, Bill O'Reilly wasn't around then.

So, while I catch up, take a look at Jon Swift's idea, keeping in mind that there is at least one place in the world where the concept of "giving thanks to the United States" is actually a public holiday.

And to give you respite from my rambling, I tempt you with music. Go carefully, however. Steve may be watching.



Back to regular posting later on.

Graphic: Julian Lennon.

Time to Fish or Cut Bait for the NDP

Pursuant to this earlier post.

I have a diminishing level of respect for NDP supporters.

Either you're willing to let Harper remain in office or you're not.

If you're not willing to let him stay in office then you need to do something other than split the anti-Harper vote.

Continuing to split the anti-Harper vote is a demonstration of little more than your willingness to let him remain as PM as far as I'm concerned.

Because there is not a single chance in hell of the NDP forming government. Not one. There might be a slender chance of electing enough members to have the leader of the NDP as leader of the official opposition and that would be some victory wouldn't it? Leading the official opposition to a Harper majority? What a dream come true. A pyrrhic victory for the history books. Your picture can be placed in the dictionary beside the term.

Sure the Liberals aren't perfect. So what? You think the NDP is? Still the Liberals are the only national party with enough existing support to have a realistic chance to defeat the Harperites.

To think the NDP has a realistic chance tells me you suffer from an ideological blindness tantamount to a fatal case of cranial-anal inversion. If you think you're going to more than double your percentage of the vote over the course of a single campaign you're truly delusional. No Harper voters will swing to you and many Liberal voters who voted for you last time will put their votes back behind Dion now that they've started to see Harper's true colours. Just as I am. Maybe you'll swing some soft Greens your way but even that is rather unlikely, not to mention insufficient to double your percentage.

It's time to fish or cut bait. Rhetoric and flighty principles don't catch any fish. Strategy does. After the Harperites have been consigned to the dust-bin the old arguments can be revived but right now there's a serious battle to be fought that has the future and reputation of Canada hanging in the balance.

You want Harper to remain prime minister or don't you? That's where it stands. It's a stark choice.

Yes or no.

Steve moves up to # 1 poodle

Guardian : "Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, made climate change his top priority on Sunday, seeking advice on ratifying the Kyoto pact and telling Indonesia he will go to December's UN climate summit in Bali.Rudd, 50, presented himself to voters as a new-generation leader by promising to pull troops out of Iraq and ratify the Kyoto Protocol capping greenhouse gas emissions, further isolating Washington on both issues."

Alriiiiight! Go for it, Steve!

Cross-posted at Creekside

Layton and NDP Dead Silent on Commonwealth Meeting

I've been perusing the papers this evening looking for Jack Layton's latest attack on Stephane Dion now that Dion has commented on Harper's obfuscation and watering down of the Commonwealth position on AGW.

Guess what?

Fabulous Jack hasn't had a thing to say about any of it! Not a lick of white bread moustache spit to be found anywhere in any of the papers.

Perhaps he's saving it up till Steve gets home.

Gonna need that spit once Steve gets home, huh Jack?

Never can tell when he'll need you to get a little slicker, can you?

Come February, when maybe we'll finally have a chance to get rid of Harper and send him back to the pit from which he emerged, Jack'll be back though.

Doing everything in his power to convince enough naive fools that his party stands a ghosts chance of forming government so that we'll have some more of Harper to look forward to. Maybe Jack and his gang of misfits will even be successful enough to suck enough votes away from the only real alternative to give ole Steverino the majority he so desperately wants.

And won't we all just owe Jack a debt of gratitude then?

Because Jack thinks like Steve thinks.

Steve wants everyone to sign on to the Commonwealth agreement, even countries that aren't part of the Commonwealth.

Jack wants the troops to come home immediately and if they all won't be ordered home immediately then it's OK with him if they all stay there as long as Steve wants.

Same style of thought.

No wonder they get along so well.

"Newly surfaced documents" in Basi-Virk

"Newly surfaced documents" is Vancouver Sun headline writer-speak for "documents the province and prosecution tried to avoid turning over to the defence".

Turns out people in the "inner circle of the premier's office" are linked to a slue of emails that the court ordered the prosecutor's office to turn over to the defence.

No wonder they didn't want to turn them over.

Add to this the prosecution request for an in-camera meeting with Judge Bennett that would exclude the defence and the plot is thickening toward glue.

Out with "custody death", in with "excited delirium"

CP : Most people hit with RCMP Tasers unarmed: reports:

"RCMP Cpl. Gregg Gillis is the force's expert on Taser training and excited delirium -- the mysterious condition of heart-pounding agitation used as a kind of catch-all label by those who can't otherwise explain why a growing number of people have died soon after being zapped.
Asked about the dozens of reports that suggest police used Tasers against unarmed suspects whose behaviour prompted only verbal interventions before they were stunned, Gillis stressed the need for context."

G&M : RCMP revised taser policy to allow multiple jolts

"Three months before Robert Dziekanski was tasered, the RCMP adopted a change in force protocol that allows officers to fire multiple shocks to control people under certain circumstances.
Until August, officers trained to use stun guns were cautioned to avoid using them more than once because of concerns about health effects. However, the force's belief that excited-delirium symptoms can escalate and cause death outweighed their worries about the impact of multiple shocks.

But the term “excited delirium” is not formally recognized by the World Health Organization nor the American Medical Association as an actual psychological or medical condition.
However, the condition is being used increasingly by coroners tasked with attributing causes of death among victims in police custody.

David Evans, Ontario's regional supervising coroner for investigations, described it as a “forensic term” not a medical one.
“I think previous to the description of excited delirium, [it] was sometimes called custody death,” he said.

Cpl. Gilles conceded that the policy on multiple taser shots “may be hazardous. We don't know.” "

You have to feel a bit sorry for Cpl. Gilles, resident RCMP expert on a "forensic term".

Cross-posted at Creekside

CBSA Report Press Conference Room Reservation Cancelled

Stockwell Day said earlier this week that the CBSA report on the killing of Robert Dziekanski would be released by weeks end.

Well the reservation for the room for the CBSA press conference has been cancelled.

Fancy that!

The CBSA report will now be filed in the same Conservative black hole that the Khan report ended up.

Sandra Buckler's ass.

Dirty Tricks in Australia

The Australian Liberal party led by John Howard has just been caught red-handed in a dirty trick campaign.

Whenever we next go to the polls, February or whenever, I fully expect the Harperites to try and pull something similar.

So just in case they're as dull, flat and unimaginative as they appear to be I'm going to keep a copy of the leaflet in question in anticipation of the Harperites copying it line for line.

So... the "Media Conservatives" don't like Ron Paul. That means he is deserving of a second look.

I don't really have an opinion of Ron Paul, Republican presidential hopeful, but when I see this coming out of the Doughy Pantload, Paul becomes worth a second look.

As the hopeless but energetic presidential campaign of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) builds momentum in name recognition, fundraising and cross-ideology appeal, media conservatives are beginning to attack Paul in earnest.

Media conservatives? Who are they?

When I see Goldberg using up his valuable column inches to focus on one person, I see fear. Jonah and his "media conservatives" are afraid of Ron Paul.

And they should be. Paul, apparently, understands who the "media conservatives" really are: Pant's pissing babies who hate people for not sharing in their fear. And it's not fear of "terrorist" attack. It's fear that they will be completely exposed and that their unearned privileged lives will be taken from them.

Continue please, Goldberg. You are so inept that you expose the flank of the "media conservatives". You make this easy.

And, because at least one reader would like to see something "softer" and less cutting, (That is not an insult to the the reader. It is respect for the sense of humour displayed.), I feel compelled to respond to Goldberg's column with something more graphic, but equally important and relevant.
Tip of the hat to Moderate Man for the Desiderius Erasmus reminder and Cheryl for the graphics.

Toy soldiers

Cat, one of our readers who often contributes news items, sent two articles to me last night. I was appalled at the contents because they involved wounded soldiers and marines being treated as though they has failed to complete a peacetime military engagement - the contract under which US armed service personnel serve.

Unfortunately, I couldn't jump on both articles and let loose with my rage at the treatment of individuals who had given everything in the service of their country only to find a level of abandonment in dealing with wounds that would have a profound effect on them for the rest of their lives.

Luckily, Red Tory provided an observation which is completely rational and very close to the mark. Further along, Canadian Cynic made another observation, assisted by the commenters of TPM, who ably point out the continuing pattern of maltreatment returning US veterans suffer at the hands of the Bush Administration.

What are they on about? Well, this and this, and I'll quote from the second one.

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

Horrifying, right?

Well not as much as if these people had actually been engaged under a wartime commitment.

Red Tory is very close to being correct. What actually happened is that a financial administrative order exists regarding the payment of enlistment bonuses which requires the inductee complete the defined period of service in order to qualify. Some weenie in Washington, probably with a few bars on its shoulders, decided that that the book over-rode reality and enforced the financial administration regulations to the letter. Hell, it happens.

Except that it shouldn't have.

The day after September 11th, 2001, George W Bush and his gang of sycophants could have exercised the Selective Service legislation and re-started a draft. Honestly, there would have been almost no complaint. That would also have required any domestic tax increases to be set aside until "hostilities" were completed.

But rather than declare war on a country and then mobilize the entire union against a common enemy, Bush and crowd chose to pursue an unchanged domestic agenda and use, what they viewed as extraordinarily advanced technology and a relatively small armed forces and use that as the means to wage war. Further, there was uncertainty as to whether an opportunity would arise to attack Iraq. Having a drafted army would create problems. The people in that army and those who provided their sons and daughters would demand a full accounting as to why their offspring were off to fight a war that currently had no casus belli. Better to attack with the technologically advance armed forces that were held as peacetime retainers under peacetime regulations.

That decision reflects back on the problems that occured and which now are becoming the common thread for returning service personnel with serious and life-long wounds.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld had no idea as to the purpose of the US armed forces nor their sustainability over the long term. They viewed the engagements they planned on getting into as short operations - something which the volunteer armed forces could deal with without having to implement a national system of conscription.

They avoided the World War Two scenario of having troops engaged "for the duration", otherwise known as "Hostilities Only" forces.

What then was not done was the implementation of regulations which would have provided a system of secure benefits to those who had suffered debilitating wartime wounds, The US armed forces were, and still are, administered as a peacetime force with manning ceilings and financial restrictions.

The regulations under which most members of the US armed forces are administered are designed for peacetime and the contractual obligations, on both sides, view completion of contracts as a peacetime condition.

Bush and crowd had no idea what they were getting into, nor did they understand the peacetime impediments placed on the armed forces. To them, lacking even the basic understanding of the purpose of a peacetime force, a retained armed forces was able to fight whatever war the administration wanted to fight. The Bush administration failed to understand the difference between a peacetime armed forces retained as a contingency force and the need, if the administration intended to fight a full-blown war, to expand those forces for protracted military action.

Bushco thought they could walk away with Iraq in a few days without changing the conditions of service for their volunteer armed forces, beyond providing the various combat theatre allowances troops earn for being deployed.

To Bush, Cheney and Rumsfled these were little more than toy soldiers. They would go in, fight and occupy, quickly and easily. No messy draftees, no expensive "hostilities only" troops. And because they were little more than lead figures in a sandbox, there was no consideration given to the lifelong wounds of tens of thousands of wounded troops. They simply weren't supposed to happen so the regulations affecting their engagements were not changed from the peacetime application of the rules.

To Bush, Cheney and the chickenhawks who are running the show, this is nothing more than a game of Risk® engaged from their secure and comfortable desks with the occasional quick visit to a safe area for a photo op with a rubber turkey. The troops are board pieces, nameless, faceless and with no more meaning than a plastic game symbol. Something to be wasted if you loose and something to count up if you win.

So, yes, those who say this was an administrative cock-up are quite correct. But it's because the Bush administration has failed to grasp the gravity of what they have done. Had they done it properly from the start many things would have been different but certainly they would not have had a peacetime armed forces fighting a war with peacetime administrative and financial regulations which fail to meet the realistic needs of that part of the US population which has taken on the burden of the administration's poor decision making.

And Now the Late News

I would write about the Harperites deciding to reverse the long standing Canadian practice of including opposition critics when Canada attends international conferences but what would be the point. But its not like its a surprise. Especially when the conference is about global warming and the attending government minister is John Baird. This dimwitted asshole is a deer in the headlights of destiny. If he is gay its probably a good thing because in a couple of decades any children he might have will be perfectly justified in killing him in his sleep. But it is a little surprising that as of 9:50 pm PST only The Star has the story. We'll see in the morning whether the G&M or CTV or The Post deign to consider this as newsworthy. Perhaps they won't. Which would confirm me in another of my pet beliefs.

In other late news, or at least late night by Toronto standards which counts for more as we all know, Beijing, by way of Hong Kong, has decided that they don't want the US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk docking there after all just now. So 8,000 US sailors don't get to go ashore and their family members who travelled from the states to spend Thanksgiving with them get to leave in tears. Good I say. Maybe if US citizens start to have to pay the Bush price in their private lives something will change. How many other countries in the Chinese orbit might be encouraged to deny ports or deny visitations? As many as there are would work for me. The US is a pariah and its probably only to the good if it's citizens abroad start to feel that reality.

And one more. The chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, some innefectual blowhard named Paul Kennedy, says "I have seen clearly cases that have come to my attention where I thought it was being used earlier than it ought to have." Isn't that just as special as all get out. This guy is completely toothless, for all intents and purposes a waste of a second rate office suite, and he's the one gets booted out the door to trot out a line that by now about two thirds of the connected world knows is little more than asscovering.

And I just can't let this pass. "Saudi Arabia and Libya, both considered allies by the United States in its fight against terrorism, were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to serve as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks, according to senior American military officials." Who'd a thunk it?!!?

Atta Boy George.

Good night and good luck.

Good Riddance to Them All . . . .

This commentary from Joseph L. Galloway of McClatchy Newspapers is an excellent review and condemnation of bushco's last seven years:



Commentary: Good riddance to them all
Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

November 21, 2007

There was little for the unindicted co-conspirators of the Bush administration to give thanks for this week as the clock winds down on the 14 months they have left in power.

With former White House press secretary Scott McClellan spilling the beans on who told him to lie to the American people and cover up the White House's responsibility for the criminal act of revealing the identity of a covert CIA officer, it clearly was time for some folks to begin drafting their requests for presidential pardons.

_______________


What we've witnessed and endured during seven long years of the Bush presidency is the inevitable consequence of bringing vicious and unprincipled but successful political campaigners — attack dogs — into top White House jobs.

_______________


We are a better people and this is a better country than that, and this is why, when it's weighed and judged, the Bush presidency will be found to have perverted not only our system but also the very principles on which our nation was founded.

We don’t rush into a war that has cost so many lives and so much national treasure, and has so damaged our standing in the world, based on a tissue of lies. But under the leadership of George W. Bush, that's what we did in Iraq.

We don’t stand idly by, backs turned and eyes closed, while in wartime our friends and political contributors loot the national treasury of billions of taxpayer dollars. But the Bush administration and a Republican-controlled Congress did just that.

We don’t send our soldiers and Marines into combat without enough of everything they need to fight, survive and win. But that's what this administration and its political operatives in charge of the Pentagon did.

We don’t turn the office of the attorney general and key parts of the Justice Department into a branch of a partisan political campaign — gutting offices charged with protecting the civil rights of minorities and directing the prosecution of those of a different political party — but this administration did.

We don’t declare war and then expect that the entire sacrifice will be borne by the half a percent of our population who wear uniforms. We don’t fight a long and costly war by cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans and borrowing trillions of dollars to finance it from foreign competitors such as China. But this administration did.

We don’t prosecute a war to spread democracy by curtailing democracy and suspending the Bill of Rights at home. We cannot promote our principles abroad by denying the same principles — the right to a lawyer, the right to a fair trial, the right to be secure in our homes — to ourselves. But this administration did.

We don’t beat or torture confessions out of prisoners in violation of our laws and the laws of the civilized world. We don’t lock people up and hold them incommunicado for years without charges or trials. But this administration did and does.

We don’t applaud and cheer an administration and a Congress that make the rich vastly richer, the middle class less secure and the poor even poorer. But this administration has done just that, in violation of our principles and the principles of love, peace and charity that are engrained in the Christianity that these rogues and charlatans embrace so publicly but violate every day.

It will be a good day when they are gone, and good riddance to them all.

Well said, Mr. Galloway.

"Good riddance," and don't let the door hit you in the ass . . . .

(Cross posted from Moving to Vancouver)

The Brian Mulroney Defence.

If you haven't read CathiefromCanada's summary of Mulroney's building defence, you should do it now.

A question about electro-shock devices

This is a serious question. Or perhaps a serious set of questions. I'm wondering if someone out there in Blogtopia (a term coined by Skippy) can provide some insight.

Do the staff, or some staff, at psychiatric care facilities have access to disabling devices such as stun-guns, shock wands and stun pencils?

If so, assuming there would be a clear protocol determining the use of such devices, where is the threshold for employment of electrocharged physical disabling devices?

If not, given the touted harmlessness of these devices, is there a reason it is not deployed in facilities where occasional, even rare, events require staff to restrain a patient?

So, if anyone knows the answers, please leave them in "comments". I'm simply curious.

And, I'm not trying to make any point - yet.