Weaselry

HELLACIOUS HELENA'S HUBBY has beat the rap! The egregious Rahim Jaffer is the mysterious beneficiary of a get-out-of-jail-free card issued by some weasel.

According to the G&M:

He was initially charged with driving while having more than 80 milligrams in one hundred millilitres of blood, speeding and possession of cocaine.

The former MP was sentenced to a $500 fine. He had already agreed to make a $500 charitable donation to the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

“I'm sorry. I know this was a serious matter,” Mr. Jaffer said afterward outside the court. “I know I should have been more careful and I took full responsibility for my careless driving.”

So, for one of the Harper elite, a coke possession charge, a +.08 impaired charge and a 43kph over-limit speeding offence all resolves to "careless driving"?

Time to show Stevie how much we care about "careless". Grrrrrrr.

Happy International Women's Day

Meet Dr Sima Samar, MD

-Chair of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission,

-UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Sudan, and

-founder of the Shuhada organization which runs hospitals, schools and health clinics for girls and women all over Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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After obtaining a degree in medicine in 1982 from Kabul University, Samar was forced to flee to the countryside with her young son after the arrest of her husband.

The Telegraph :

"She began attempting to treat patients against a background of extreme poverty, war, and harassment by the Taliban, who have virtually criminalised the delivery of reproductive health services to women and girls. In an article for the New England Journal of Medicine she describes having “to walk or travel on horseback or by donkey for three or four hours in each direction” to get to a patient, often finding that she had died before she got there.

In her long, but ultimately triumphant career, she has been forced to smuggle birth control supplies under her clothing; she has endured death threats and been jailed; her hospitals have been bombed and looted by Taliban, and her medical director jailed for a year without charges; she was appointed to the Karzai government’s legislature then forced to resign when she was made comments that were critical of sharia law in an interview with foreign [Canadian] journalist."

Despite attacks on her reputation from Afghan politicians - in December she was accused of using her Shuhada organization as a front for running brothels - Dr. Samar was widely expected in Afghanistan to win last year's Nobel Peace Prize, the one that ultimately went to some guy who was nominated 12 days into his new job. .

A woman, as noted in the Telegraph article above, with human rights "street creds", she was also on the board of directors of the beleaguered Rights & Democracy Canada from 2007 until her resignation in January 2010.

Today in the Ottawa Citizen she speaks out : Why I resigned from Rights & Democracy

on how "Canada's leading international human rights agency has been destroyed" by the new board members whose views have been so amply represented in the pages of the National Post recently while the staff at R&D have been muzzled. It's very interesting to finally read an insider's opposing account, and one that is not primarily informed by editorials at the rightwing Israeli NGO Monitor. Samar concludes :

"Sadly, this is not the glorious image of the tolerant and fair Canada that inspires us in Afghanistan. This is a denial of rights and democracy, and the destruction of a great Canadian institution."

A PSA for Wimm'sDay :

Antigone has launched a feminist social networking site : Antigone Connect

"As we approach Canada’s 150th Anniversary, we are all aware that there is a great deal more to be done in Canada to ensure women’s equality. More women in politics and managerial positions, accessible child care, changes to the Indian Act, equal pay, and equal pensions are just a few of the things that the Royal Commission on the Status of Women identified as necessary for equality nearly fifty years ago."

Go, Antigone! (h/t HollyStick)

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Edification

DRIBBLEGLASS IS CHEERFULLY irreverent. They have a fine selection of faux billboards for your amusement. Stevie probably wouldn't like it.

My Canada does not include war criminals

In light of this, I think that it is undeniable that there must be a fully public, non-partisan inquest, preferrably by a provincial coroner or similar authority that is more than arm's length away from the federal government. From the CBC:

Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert.

If the allegation is true, such actions would constitute a war crime, said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who has been digging deep into the issue and told CBC News he has seen uncensored versions of government documents released last year.

If the allegation that Afghan prisoners were purposely sent to be tortured turns out to be true, I  want people sent to jail. And by jail I don't mean country club Conrad Black minimum security jail, either. I want to see them walking the yard at Millhaven. And by people I mean every single person in the chain of command that approved or did not act to stop this - right up to the Cabinet level, including the Prime Minister. If it happened under the Liberals and Paul Martin knew about it, fine, jail his retired ass, too. This is not about politics or the party currently in power. This about Canada upholding basic human rights. We may have gotten a lot of things related to human rights wrong in the past - from residential schools to head taxes to incarcerating the Japanese during World War Two - whichever party is in power, but we have never tolerated outright evil like this. This must be investigated, fully and completely and in the full light of day, with nothing redacted or left unexamined to "protect operational security" or any other bullshit reason the people involved want to try to cite to save their asses. My Canada does not include torture.

Update: the Mound of Sound has more here, here and here

MoS gives Frank Iacobucci a map to the minefield

You have to read this.

The blazing fury of a reseated parliament...

Given the extended and expensive time given to stolen from taxpayers by the Harper Party to "recalibrate" themselves you might have expected every moment spent in Parliament to simply drip with drama. Private members' bills might have a tough time surviving given the need to reintroduce a huge amount of the Harper agenda killed by proroguing and running for the nearest safe corner.

Yet, at 1:35 PM this past Friday Harper Party member and MP for Stormont-Glengarry-Dundas, Guy Lauzon, introduced a motion regarding the Canadian Navy. A private member's bill.

Ships? Increased operations? Better rotation for overstretched crews?

You wish. (At least if you're in the Navy.)

Lauzon had something else on his mind. Uniforms; naval uniforms; naval officers' uniforms; specifically that little loop on the braid of our rank insignia we used to call, "Elliot's Eye".

I am very honoured to speak in the House today to my private member's motion, Motion No. 459, which would introduce the executive curl on the navy uniforms.

40 years after it was removed from the braid, the Conservative "recalibrated" government of Steve Harper, took valuable time in the House to have a motion passed which would have Elliot's Eye re-established on Canadian naval officers' uniforms.

Just don't be in the navy and ask the Conservatives for a new ship, even if they promised it in the past. And the featherweight waste of time didn't go unnoticed.

(Robert Oliphant, Don Valley West) I have some concerns, however. At some point, the hon. member might want to comment on why, with all the issues in Cornwall and the surrounding area, this one has grabbed his attention when that particular community is facing some very significant economic, tourism and other development issues that could the subject of a very serious members' business procedure. I say that because I am somewhat jealous of the hon. member actually getting precedence to be able to present a piece of business. It is rare, because members can often wait six, eight or ten years to have a bill or a motion come to full debate.

The issues in Cornwall and the surrounding area are significant. I am wondering why the member did not take on the issue of contraband cigarettes, perhaps, and the effect they are having on children and youth across the country and very directly in his community on relations with first nations communities. That is of concern to me. Also, I wonder whether or not he had thought about asking his government to appoint a mediator to work on the longstanding dispute between the Canada Border Services Agency and the Akwesasne Nation. Perhaps it is time that the member steps up to the plate to work for his constituents on that very important issue of the reputation of his community, which has been tarnished over these last several months.

The motion the member has presented is rather weak tea. It simply requests that the government consider reinstating a piece of embroidery on a uniform, which is not to denigrate whatsoever the support we give to our troops and our veterans, which is unanimous in this caucus. What we are pushing for, instead, is for the hon. member to address the other important economic social and cultural issues that he has responsibility to stand up and talk about in the House.

This bunch of hillbillies just keeps getting better, don't they? Words in a song; braid on a uniform. I can hardly wait for recipe swapping hour.

While we're pretending that the only thing important enough to address in Parliament is buttons and bows on the uniforms of our sailors, Lauzon might be taken to task for his failure to acknowledge the lower deck of the senior service.

It's all well and good to serve the Harper Party purposes by introducing ( and having carried) a motion which gives the Naval Officers' Association of Canada a reason for a wet dream, but what about the folks who do all the heavy lifting? If we're going to create a distinctive separation of our naval officers from their army and air force kinfolk then it is only courtesy that it should extend to the messdecks. In that regard, I expect to see another motion changing the rank badges of the real troops.

Petty Officer 1st Class (equivalent to senior Warrant Officer)
Petty Officer 2nd Class (equivalent to senior Sergeant)
Leading Hand (equivalent to Master Corporal/Corporal)

While we're at it, why don't we reintroduce good conduct badges? Nothing like confusing everybody and getting downright British about it. Let's face it the average Canadian doesn't know whether their punched, bored or blown out with a 4.7 inch high-elevation gun.

Yes, for those who know, I've left out CPO 2nd Class and CPO 1st Class because honestly, every time I wiped my nose with my sleeve, those extra buttons always gave me a nose-bleed.

Same as it ever was . . .

J.B.S. HALDANE once observed, "My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose". It seems like it's always been that way, as a site called Black and WTF displays in wonderful images from yesteryear.

WWW: World-Wide Warfare

FOREIGN POLICY'S WEB SITE has a photo gallery of 33 current conflicts, called "Planet War", compiled by Kayvan Farzaneh, Andrew Swift and Peter Williams, and taken by some very brave photographers. Worthy of your attention.

From the bloody civil wars in Africa to the rag-tag insurgiences in Southeast Asia, 33 conflicts are raging around the world today, and it’s often innocent civilians who suffer the most.

The national anthem - Thou Dustiness command

Friday Update : After 68 days of careful deliberation and a mere 48 hours after its inclusion in the throne speech, "thou dustiness" gets binned, having successfully served its purpose of providing an amusing distraction from the other dust collecters in the throne speech.



According to this poll at CBC, most do not think two months off were required to consider recalibrating the gender neutrality of the national anthem :

O Canada
Our home and native land
True patriot love
Thou Dustiness command

"Thou Dustiness" is doubtless responsible for the idea of a National Monument to the Victims of Communism in the throne speech, in addition of course to the dust bunnies under your bed.

Neat Stuff

JAMES LILEKS' WEB SITE IS A DELIGHT. He's a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and his site's been around since 1996 or so. His site is a fine look at Americana of yesteryear. One section is called "COFFEE & CHROME restaurants from the days before the chains". Another section is "the american motel", with postcards from the 50's and 60's. And there's a section devoted to matchbook covers, the "Matchbook Museum". Plus other great stuff, presented for your amusement, as Parliament is about to get crunchy.

Piracy in the Gulf of Aden? Who knew?

If you're going to sail your yacht anywhere in the world it pays to:

a. Know your position at all times;
b. Make sure you know the conditions around you at all times;
c. Keep your maritime mobile radio system on;
d. Oh yes... and if you're planning on being anywhere around the Horn of Africa you might want to check in with the EU Maritime Liaison Office to find out more about pirates and the International Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC).

Apparently, not all yachtsmen have the brains to manage more than one thing at a time.

The commanding officer of the Netherlands frigate Hr Ms Tromp, on patrol off the Horn of Africa, reports this on his Twitter account from 26 Feb, 2010.

Encountered a small sailing yacht in the IRTC, when queried it stated “what do you mean piracy?” welcome to the real world.

Epic... whatever.

Marketing

THE NEW YORKER has a delightful piece by Andy Borowitz, "Not Your Father’s Taliban". It's a hoot.

Isn’t it time you took another look at . . . the Taliban™?

Not your father’s Taliban™. The New Taliban™. TalibanLite™.

We know what you’re thinking: “The Taliban™? Aren’t they the dudes who blow up shit and cut off body parts?”

LOL! You’re thinking of the Old Taliban™.

How do we know what you’re thinking?

Focus groups.

You’re, like, “Focus groups? Since when do the Taliban™ do focus groups?”

We’re, like, “Since Domino’s Pizza started doing them.”

You told Domino’s their crust tasted like cardboard and their sauce tasted like ketchup. Harsh, right? But your criticism only made their pizza much tastier. At the New Taliban™, we want to be the Domino’s of extremists.

So we held focus groups in caves across Afghanistan, only instead of talking about crust and sauce you talked about the things you didn’t like about us, like the way we explode things without warning and cut off ears, lips, and tongues. And you know what? It hurt to hear you say that stuff. But we’re big boys. We can take it. We sent your opinions down the hall to the guys in marketing, and this is what they came back with:

TalibanLite™: We’re Cutting Out the Cutting™.

Click on the link above to read the whole opus. Enjoy.

We don't do enough fashion news here at The Beav ...

Could I see that one with the prosthetic again?



I dunno. That extra hand is a bit creepy. Maybe this is why we don't do fashion news here at The Beav...

eFail

Definitions of proper political-correctitude:

She is not 'EASY' - She is
'HORIZONTALLY ACCESSIBLE'

She is not a 'DUMB BLONDE' - She is a
'LIGHT-HAIRED DETOUR OFF THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY'

She has not 'BEEN AROUND' - She is a
'PREVIOUSLY-ENJOYED COMPANION'

She is not a 'TWO-BIT HOOKER' - She is a
'LOW COST SERVICE PROVIDER'

He does not have a 'BEER GUT' - He has developed a
'LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY'

He is not a 'BAD DANCER' - He is
'OVERLY CAUCASIAN'

He does not 'GET LOST ALL THE TIME' - He
'INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS'

He is not 'BALDING' - He is in
'FOLLICLE REGRESSION'

He does not act like a 'TOTAL ASS' - He develops a case of
'RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION'

Securing OZ

THE LONDON REVIEW BLOG has an article by Ross McKibbin, "Coercive Solutions", that discusses a White Paper created by the OZ government: The Counter-Terrorism White Paper, Securing Australia – Protecting our Community.

The Australian (Labor) government has just published a white paper (‘Securing Australia – Protecting Our Community’) which assures its readers that the terrorist threat to Australia is stronger than ever. External threats remain, of course, but are now made much worse by the dangers of homegrown terrorism, a result of the spread of jihadist propaganda among Australia’s Muslim population. The government is proposing to increase significantly the powers of the federal police – including the right to search the property of suspected ‘terrorists’ without a warrant – and to introduce further (and severe) visa tests on people coming to Australia from 10 unnamed countries.

What lies behind all this? It can’t be that the threat of terrorism has ‘increased’. That there is a threat from terrorism is undeniable, but there is also little evidence to suggest that the threat is worse now than before, or that the very wide powers the police and the intelligence services already have are not sufficient to contain it. There are several other possible explanations. One is electoral.

Everything suggests that Rudd ignores, either from conviction or opportunism, what should be the first rule of a social democratic government: treat anything coming from the intelligence services or the police with deep suspicion.

Mr. McKibbin writes for us all, when he states:

As always in English-speaking countries, the ‘solution’ to terrorism is coercive: yet more police powers; yet more restrictions on travel; yet more deportations. Coercion is presumably not always futile, and within a certain sphere legitimate. We must assume that sometimes it works. As a ‘solution’, however, it must be secondary. The fundamental problem, which Australia, like Britain and the United States, refuses to recognise, is political. It lies in Western policy towards the Middle East, and Israel and Palestine in particular, since the Second World War. Until that is admitted, coercive solutions, though not completely useless, will never be real solutions. Unfortunately there is no evidence that anyone is going to admit it. Certainly not Rudd.

Check out the details in the OZ White Paper. Tie me kangaroo down, sport . . . 

Aircraft maintenance

UPS has a fleet of aircraft, and they require maintenance. Here's an oldie but goodie:

UPS Air Cargo TROUBLE SHEET

UPS requires a college degree to fly a plane, but only a high school diploma to fix one. After every flight, UPS pilots fill out a form called a 'gripe sheet', which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by UPS' pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.

By the way, UPS is the only major airline that has never, ever had an accident.

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.

P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!)
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

And the best one for last...........

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.

"No Fly List" her.

That's the solution to the right-wing concealer of a druggie. Tell her to take a fucking walk.... because she's a goddamned security risk to everyone else on a plane.

Remember, these pukes are telling you the reason for the pat-downs, the swabs of your laptop, the unreasonable search of documents and the burn through your clothing right down to your skin is to protect the travelling public.

Helena Guergis is unstable and dangerous. Eminent domain applies here. Why should we take the risk?

Apology not accepted. Not from the "Law and Order" mob. Do as I say; not as I do is an American philosophy promoted by the sociopaths employed by Rupert Murdoch - it doesn't wash in this country.

Wish Helena a really happy birthday and tell her to use up her Aeroplan points at Home Hardware.... because she ain't getting on an airplane... anywhere.

Told ya so...

If anyone is surprised over this, you haven't been paying attention.

If you thought the ridiculous security imposed for the Olympics was only for... protection of athletes and dignitaries, think again.

And get out your wallet.

Kentucky Creationists

VANITY FAIR has a delightful article by A.A. Gill, "Roll Over, Charles Darwin!", which is his account of a visit to the Creation Museum, which he says, has been battling science and reason since 2007.

Just off a motorway, in a barren and uninspiring piece of scrub, the museum is impressively incongruous, a righteously modernist building resting in landscaped gardens filled with dinosaur topiaries. It cost $27 million and was completed in 2007. It answers the famous question about what God could have done if he had had money. This is it. Oddly, it is a conspicuously and emphatically secular construction. There is no religious symbolism. No crosses. No stained glass. No spiral campanile. It has borrowed the empirical vernacular of the enemy to wrap the literal interpretation of Genesis in the façade of a liberal art gallery or library. It is the Lamb dressed in wolf’s clothing.

The next things I noticed were the very illiberally accoutred security guards. They are absurdly over-armed, overdressed, and overweight. Perhaps the museum is concerned that armed radical atheists, maddened by the voices of reason in their confused heads, will storm in waving the periodic table, screaming, “I think, therefore I am!”

The Creation Museum isn’t really a museum at all. It’s an argument. It’s not even an argument. It’s the ammunition for an argument. It is the Word made into bullets. An armory of righteous revisionism. This whole building is devoted to the literal veracity of the first 11 chapters of Genesis: God created the world in six days, and the whole thing is no more than 6,000 years old. Everything came at once, so Tyrannosaurus rex and Noah shared a cabin. That’s an awful lot of explaining to do. This place doesn’t just take on evolution—it squares off with geology, anthropology, paleontology, history, chemistry, astronomy, zoology, biology, and good taste. It directly and boldly contradicts most -onomies and all -ologies, including most theology.

We start with the creation of the world, and of light. And there you are, immediately—Houston, we have a problem: you get light three days before you get the sun. But that’s fine—we’ve got an answer: the sun is, in fact, what God made to keep the light in. It was an afterthought, a receptacle born out of necessity.

Serendipitously, MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE, which is a fine site that is part of the Economist web enterprise, also has an article by Natasha Lennard about the institution, "Of Myths and Museums"

Inside the building’s 40-foot-high glass walls visitors are treated to a whistle-stop tour of Biblical history, arranged in a way that would not seem out of place in Disneyland. A darkened tunnel leads to a vast and verdant Garden of Eden, filled with exotic plastic flowers, peaceful creatures and pools of gentle water. A comely Adam discovers a comely Eve, whose modesty is preserved by her long, dark, synthetic mane. The garden also includes a wealth of prehistoric animals, such as a Tyrannosaurus rex, which we are told was tame and herbivorous before Adam and Eve snacked on that dastardly apple.

Dinosaurs had to have coexisted with humans, we learn, because there were no carnivores before man’s fall, and fossils show that some dinosaurs preyed on others. Therefore, the Creation Museum concludes, dinosaurs must have existed after the fall. But aren’t dinosaur-related fossils millions of years old? AiG and the museum have a handy explanation: such fossils only seem old because “organic materials are relentlessly attacked by bacteria,” so they decompose quickly. “Without the millions–of–years bias,” explains Andrew A. Snelling, the director of research at AiG in a paper published in Creation magazine, “these fossils would readily be recognized as victims of a comparatively recent event, for example, the global devastation of Noah’s Flood only about 4,500 years ago.”

If you can believe in a veggie T-Rex, you can swallow just about anything.

Maxime Bernier for PM? You betcha!

C'mon, he's decorative, he's dumb, and besides, since he came out today as a climate change 'skeptic', the Blogging Tories have been falling all over themselves to get their teabagging credentials in order :

"Maxime really is great!!! Keep up the good work Maxime. One day you will be HM PM.

"You had me at Bonjour"

"Finally a Canadian Conservative Speaks Truth"

"Enter Maxime Bernier with a daring volley launched in the heart of climate lunacy."

"Maxime Bernier for Prime Minister! Finally, someone on the government side with the cajones to speak out."

Finally - I think they meant to say - a Sarah Palin with cajones.

Max speaks :

"What is certain is that it would be irresponsible to spend billions of dollars and to impose unnecessarily stringent regulations to solve a problem whose gravity we still are not certain about."

Gravity? Gravity is also a hoax! The earth sucks! Max for PM! You betcha! Also! Too!