Okay, We're Back

This seems like as good a time as any revisit Mr. Bunk Strutts' comments from back about the last ice age. Sure, we both have better things to do, but ...

Well actually at this precise moment, I don't. And as I'm leaving town for a while, I figured I should get a post up. Plus I'd been looking into this for a while.

Because recently the Daily Mail made a total ₤µ©λup of an interview with a climate scientist from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, renown in song and story for the "Climategate" emails, which proved only that science isn't for sissies.

The Mail piece has been thoroughly dealt with, though in by no means as loud or obnoxious a fashion as it ought to have been, by better writers than my noble self.

But I wanted to return to Bunk's comment, because a challenge to one's ideas that one cannot immediately answer should be researched. I'm sorry it's taken so long. And it'll take longer.

Before proceeding, let me say that I want to try and keep this discussion as civil as possible. I don't intend to insult Mr. Strutts for holding a view he considers reasonable.

Our mutual acquiantance Raincoaster says that were we to meet, we'd probably argue late into the night over pitchers of beer. We might even agree on what brand of beer to order.

So let's get to part one.

Bunk visited my post about the tepid Copenhagen Conference on climate change and left a long comment.

It raised a number of points, some of which were correct in their facts but incorrect on the interpretation. And what is the internet after all but an extension of the great search for meaning, eh?

For clarity, I'm enclosing Bunk's statements in blockquotes and italic font.

I'm sure I won't change Bunk's mind on this. In order to do that he and I would first have to agree on a credible set of sources, and I doubt we can agree on that point.

But I feel that I should know why I believe what I believe, and at least have a nodding acquaintance with what the science says. Which is why this is such a long post.

Bunk opens up thusly:
The premise of manmade global warming (AGW) is a false alarmist myth designed to create public hysteria for the purposes of taxation, both locally and globally.

Then who's behind this myth? That taxation theory's certainly not supported in my country, where the science minister thinks belief in evolution is a religious position and the PM called AGW a "socialist plot."

On the other hand, a number of authorities one could hardly describe as left-wing loonies are taking the position that AGW is real.

But more importantly, the position has nothing to do with taxation. If alternatives to carbon taxation were found (such as Kyoto's carbon credit system) the position would not change: "It ain't happening, and wouldn't matter if it were."

For example, carbon pricing is a free-market solution that's rejected by the same people who claim the free market has all the answers.

The premise that a [1-to-2]*-degree Celsius increase in average global temperatures over a century is a catastrophic danger is false.

[*Edited from "1/2" to clarify what I think Bunk means. Any error is the fault of my interpretation.]

In fact the main thrust of anti-warming efforts is to hold warming down to something around two degrees in order to forestall worse warming and worse cocomittant effects. But don't take my word for it: Read the Times.

We're also not talking about a century. We're already past the first degree. The question is whether we can keep it to two, probably within the next fifty years.

The premise that a relatively small percentage of sentient animals (humans) can significantly affect long-term global temperature variations is absurd.
Did we cause acid rain? L.A.'s horrible smog? Fewer than 500 million humans created those effects. In the case of L.A. they're still trying to fix them. A cross-border agreement helped stop acid rain.

Why is it so inconceivable that we could effect change on a global level? After all, we really aren't a "relatively small percentage of sentient animals." There are eight billion-plus of us, all of us burning fuels at increasing rates to make our economies do what they do.

The premise that human-generated CO2 is the culprit ignores the fact that water vapor is the major uncontrollable greenhouse gas by a factor of tens of thousands.
Right, except possibly for the "uncontrollable bit." As CO2 warms the atmosphere, more water evaporates, and more water vapour increases the warming effect. So adding more CO2 increases the rate at which the world is warming. But we could slow the rate at which CO2 is being added to the atmosphere by reducing the other crap, along with the CO2, we put into it.

The fact [is] that global temperatures are always in flux due to thousands of variables, as they have been since the creation of this planet.
So natural factors like sunlight, cloud cover, and vegetable rot can apparently change the climate, but not gigatons of carbon emissions?

There is no possible way to determine what the ideal global temperature should be, as that is merely a philosophical argument, i.e., do you favor plants or animals? Reptiles or mammals? Algae or bacteria?
My philosophical position is that judging by the lessons of history, we're better off trying to not screw things up any further.

We have some idea of the potential effects of a warmer climate, and aside from less snowblowing (which would be offset by an increase in lawn mowing), they don't sound good.

But most life on this ball of mud is interconnected anyway, and we mess with other species at our peril.

So the ideal global temperature, to me, would be something in the range of the past couple of thousand years, during which humankind has lived and thrived.

This concludes part one. It'll be at least a week before I can post a second part. Thanks for reading, if you got this far.

Constitutional Monarchy: The Stephen Harper Edition

I'm not even dully surprised at the grotesque wankery of Canada's Conservative Government.

We don't have "democracy" the way the rest of the world has it. Our head of state is the Queen of England, our Senate is appointed, not elected. At one time Mr. S. Harper made much of this, promising an elected one, which I personally don't want for reasons I've mentioned here before. He also has expressed a dislike for the monarchy.

A year ago, threatened by a move to establish a coalition government that would have represented the 60-odd-percent of Canadians who are currently shut out of Bushland North, Stephen Harper, demonstrating a quick-change in principles ummatched except in every other thing he's done, ran for the umbrella of the monarchy he previously deplored.

He asked the Governor-General to protect his failed government by shutting down, or "proroguing" Parliament for three months. And for no known reason she acceeded.

At the time, his excuse was that Parliament wasn't functioning. Which it wasn't, because he'd ordered his winged monkeys not to co-operate when working on Parliamentary committees.

This year, he ordered his people to do this again, especially in regard to the Afghan detainee investigation. He's in contempt of Parliament, and should be under indictment for such.

Now the news says that he's asking the GG to prorogue again.

The only thing worse, if she once again bends Canadian democracy over the table for him, will be the conservative wankersphere orgasming all over itself at Harper's "statesmanship."

Is it any wonder that half the electorate stayed home last election?

I hope the GG tells him to go ₤µ©λ himself with a rasp.

Pre-publication update: The CBC reports that the PMO is announcing proroguement has been achieved.

If there were a god I'd ask him/her/it to damn these lousy bastards to hell. As it is, I'm stopping just short of expressing a public wish for a competent assassin. Let me be clear: I don't actually want Harper assassinated. But I do think about wishing for it.

What democracy remained in this country just died.

This Is News? #94

Caribou Barbie has blackened her running mate's name.

Uh, didn't she do that pretty much as soon she joined the campaign? Not that he wasn't making a fine job of it on his own, but he needed someone to ensure that there was something in his platform for crazy, gun-loving, Bible-thumping, white people who weren't male, too.

Do You Think the National Post Could Use an Editor?

Canada's National Post, whose "Full Comment" section would make fine budgie-cage liner did it but exist in print, has been allowed by a bankruptcy court to shuffle under a different corporate umbrella and has thus survived the death of its parent.

Oddly, this has not improved the quality of its content, save that John Baglow has apparently decided he enjoys bear-baiting sufficiently to allow the NP to reuse his blog posts. I believe he feels this will promote discussion.

While I must admit the comments there are considably smarter than the NP average, I feel this is because the standard is improved by the presence of actual thinking commenters, not common elsewhere. Witness the savaging John Moore, the sole critical thinker writing in the NP until Baglow came along, receives on this post.

However, they've clearly cut back on actual editors and actual journalism. The wrong is tremendous and the irony could shoe a racetrack.

First, the Senate didn't "weaken" the bill. They affirmed the rights of individuals. I'm personally in favour of Bill C-6 because it'll trounce some of the woo-practitioners unless they can prove that their bark, roots, herbs, or magic can actually DO something. But I never wanted inspectors to be able to raid homes without a warrant.

Secondly, a paper that staunchly defends the Federal Government's right to evade torture accusations claims that reaffirming the need for a warrant "weakens" legislation. It is to laugh, hollowly.

Third: Here's the accompanying picture.



This, on the other hand, is Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, an Inuk and one of the few Conservative Ministers I've had any respect at all for.

Clearly, all brown people DO in fact look alike to them.

A Wee Prediction About Copenhagen

The world will agree to a "framework" at Copenhagen. Maybe even sign an actual deal.

It will not be binding, with real penalties for failure to reduce emissions

It won't adress consumer-level pollution

It will be based on cap-and-trade, but will be watered down, with incentive-destroying loopholes for many nations

Here's Canada's loophole: The Conservative unnatural governing party claims it wants to penalize "polluters." To that end they have advanced cap-and-trade, to be imposed on industry rather than their fickle taxpaying electorate.

There are two problems with that:
First, if those financial penalties are imposed on companies, the cost of goods and services will simply rise by that much, plus a bit extra to reflect the cost of administering the new penalties, if any (whether the Conservatives are willing to slap on penalties with teeth remains to be seen, and I wouldn't hold your breath). In other words, the cash still comes out of the consumer's pocket.

Secondly: As I mentioned below, we're not an industrial nation anymore. Companies in Canada account for about half the pollution we emit. The other half is mostly from our cars.

There's a simple, market-based solution for this. However, it's not a Conservative-friendly solution. It's taxes.

Yes, taxes. Those things Harper's now considering re-raising as we slither along the economic trench in the wake of his economic stewardship (which has heretofore been comparable to the stewardship of Joseph Hazelwood on the Exxon Valdez).

It's simple: You tax crap that pollutes, and use the revenue to reduce the price of things that don't. Tax gasoline, pass the savings on to hydro or wind power. Tax heating oil, reduce the taxes on home heating gas. Increase incentives to buy energy-efficient appliances, drive cleaner cars, and build green buildings, decrease the incentives to buy SUVs, hang onto antique toasters, and live in poorly-insulated boxes.

But our Conservative government can't go that route. Look at how they demonized Stephane Dion's "tax-on-everything."

There's another solution of course: Elect someone else. Which I'm afraid is what we have to do ... if we can find someone else to vote for. Because the Opposition Liberals aren't making any noise about it, and the Bloc Quebecois doesn't care.

Out of the Memory Hole

I just reread The Jungle Book. It's one of my favourites from Kipling, who is indisputably one of the finest tubercular authors to dribble ink on the page.

And I was wondering, particulary what became of the video I once saw in about 1978 of the story of Kotik the White Seal.

When out of the blue I hit YouTube looking for a video of the Beatles' Rocky Raccoon for reasons that would take too long to explain, and discovered the video below. I also discovered that it was by Chuck Jones, one of Mme's indubitable favourites. And so how could I not present it here?



You'll find the rest at YouTube, natch.

It has been my observation that people of my advanced years simply don't think in terms of YouTube. We say "I once saw ..." something. Whereas a younger person of my acquiantance often says "Hey, I saw this great thing last night ... Hang on while I look it up!"

Nonetheless, here's the Chuch Jones version of Kotick, the White Seal:



Other bits also on YT.
The narrations are awesome: Orson Welles for the former and Roddy McDowell for the latter.

Gift For That Hard-to-Buy-For Raincoaster On Your List

I personally won't be buying this. I mean, the Raincoaster I know isn't exactly hard to buy for. A bottle of gin, or cheap wine left over from last night's party with the ciggie butts seived out, or indeed the mouthwash you thought was such a bargain in the five-litre bottle, that's the sort of thing the type of Raincoaster we get around here usually appreciates.

But if you know a fussier one, you could get them their very own copy of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters it's from those respectable people who brought you the disturbing and apparently soon-to-be-miniseries Pride and Prejudice and Zombies :

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities.

"Biological monstrosities? Perhaps Raincoaster has even been written in?

As with all the best book marketing efforts these days, this one comes with a video:


I suspect that I will like the book better. I almost always do.

A Few Tweaks

I've been away a lot lately. Scrabbling for work, mostly.

Let's see, what's been happening. Well I've been spending a lot of time reading about the so-called "Climate-gate" scandal, and I've concluded that a handful of emails, even if they contained a plot that would make Dan Brown wet his shorts, don't in fact change thirty or fifty years of science, backed by the actual data.

There's a lot more. But for some good reading on the subjects, I'd try Deltoid and DeSmogBlog. This is a debate where style has heretofore trumped science, and those two are trying hard to counter that.

What else ... Oh yes, I've been sort of outed. I left a rude comment over at Canadian Cynic and one of the subjects took the two minutes it took to Google me. He says my name is Ted, and I'm willing to take his word on that. But I knew, and was warned by no less an intertubes big gun than Raincoaster, that no-one's really anonymous on the 'net. So it isn't as though I hadn't expected this to happen at some point.

It'll be interesting to see whether the idea of having a name linked to this blog is likely to change the way I express myself. I hope not. Metro's the little bit of me that I keep locked away when someone's saying something that makes me want to grab their lapels, haul them up to my nose and scream "Are you ₤µ©λing NUTS!?"

Such as when a pleasant, white-haired old lady tells me that Barack Obama is the devil, and means it ... So instead I smile and nod, and when I get home I write it down and try to dissect it.

Anyway ... As you can see, I've updated the blogroll a bit to more accurately reflect where I've been spending my time. If the links look a little left-ish, well I'm hoping to find some reasonable writing from the other side of the spectrum. But it's often a matter of luck. For example, there's today's smart, sensible piece:

At Dr. Dawg's Blawg, I stumbled across a link to this. I linked to Little Green Footballs once, and only once, way back in the prehistory of the ol' Metroblog. I didn't hang about because teh crazy seemed infectious. I forget how I got there, but the Nazi site Stormfront was involved. And no I'm not linking there.

But now I find this post "Why I Parted Ways With the Right, and it so well traces my own retreat from Conservatism that I had to clip a few choice bits off and post them here:

...
4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)
...

There's more. I reccomend reading that piece.

Partly as a result of hanging around at places that define the extremes of the argument, I'd been very dispirited and bitter lately about the quality of ideas out there. So it's nice to see that sometimes reason does, in fact, prevail.

Meantime, I'm pleased to meet you.
Now you know my name.

Play me off, Mick and Keith!

Blowing It On Torture

My Conservative government. Is their fifteen minutes up yet?

Not, alas, judging by what passes for leadership among the Opposition parties these days. It's so pathetically bad that I'd vote for the Bloq Quebecois, if they ran a candidate in my riding.

The situation:
A senior diplomat causes an uproar by claiming that almost all detainees handed over by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan were, and continue to be, tortured.

The response as we might have wished it:

Harper could have had it made.

He could have said "Yes, word had reached us of people being tortured. That's why we stopped transferring prisoners to the Afghan prison system not once but at least twice."

He had plausible deniability in himself: "I never got the memos"--Which may even be true.

He could have blamed it on the "previous Liberal government"--An old fave (despite the fact that the "previous government" in this country is now his), and he might even have had a smidgen of justification.

The actual response:
The Conservative machine swings into full denial mode, lying about who knew what and when, producing the usual bullshit charges against the whistleblower, which fail to stick, and stonewalling any attempt at an inquiry before pretending it was their idea all along.

Harper claims the committee investigating Colvin's claims must allow his man Mulroney to testify. Headlines appear saying "Harper says witnesses must co-operate with investigation" or some such bullshit.

In fact, this isn't what Harper's saying. He's saying the committee has to accept Mulroney's testimony at face value without first getting a look at any of the documentary evidence.

Then he says the committee won't be allowed to see Colvin's correspondence (that is, they won't be allowed to read for themselves who was told what and when) because it's just now turned out to be classified.

Huh. Who'da thunk? I'm sure Harper's real busted up about it.

Way to clear the air on that one, Mr. Prime Minister.

Unfortunately it's unlikely that Michael Ignatieff will make much issue of this. He once wrote a thought piece that essentially asked what was wrong with torture. It was a rhetorical exercise, as far as I can tell.

But the Conservatives have already begun shrieking that the Liberal leader is on record as supporting the practice, as though that made their own underwear-staining enthusiasm for it any prettier.

Harper should be in the dock for contempt of Parliament. But then again, he should have been there at least a year ago.

It's a Great, Great Day

I don't do Twitter. Seriously, d'you think I ever had anything to say in 140 characters or fewer?

However, I might just join now. Gene Ray, self-billed as "Wisest Human" and originator of TIMECUBE is on Twitter. So I noticed on Pharyngula.

To frame this properly, one needs to consider that Ray's been around pretty much as long as the internet has had the capacity for pixellated graphics and eye-searing, effect-smeared fonts, and has developed a following of people bemused and amazed by the foaming bat$#17 lunacy he spews.

In some of the places I hang out on the 'net, teh crazy is measured on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 Timecubes.

A selection of his tweets:

To worship a religious/academic defied Queer(God) as your progenitor, equates to spitting puke in your Mom and Dad's face - a beastly act.

Actually, infants and children do this all the time, dude.

You would be wiser if unschooled then be taught ONEness stupidity to worship Evil of ONEism, contradicted by Opposite Creation.

To quote Opus from the Bloom County strips: "And would I have monkeys pick my nose for me?"

THIS APPEARS TO CONTAIN ORANGE SHERBET WHICH IS NOT PART OF THE TIME CUBE

Sure, 'cos the TIME CUBE is all about Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey.

But unfortunately it's not all fun and games. Here's why I'm not linking to him:

Academic retards teaches worship of queer jew god, equates to adults eating their children.

SUN power will not allow any Black Skin power to rule over its Light Domain.

Queers killed my lil Brother. A Queer God induces AIDS.

WARNING TO EDUCATED STUPID, Black Skin equates imprisonment, white race had nothing to do making negros black.

It's a good lesson in why we can't afford to laugh at teh crazy, but also can't afford not to. And yes, perhaps it's mean to laugh at someone so clearly exhibiting the symptoms of mental illness.

My consolation is that a) he probably won't notice and b) he probably won't care if he does. I'm utterly certain he's used to it by now.

Justice Delayed is Justice ₤µ©λed Over

Or maybe we should just call it "Ashcrofted."

A US court has struck down the lawsuit Arar vs. Ashcroft.

Arar, if we recall from the high and far-off times of about 2001, is the Canadian citizen detained without excuse in JFK International Airport and then flown with the outright connivance of the then-Liberal Canadian government and the active assistance of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (a Service which historically provides neither security nor intelligence) to Syria, where he was tortured.

When it turned out Arar was not in fact an Al-Qaeda operative, the Canadian government initially stonewalled before finally issuing a begrudging apology. Naturally, Arar sued and received a hefty sum of money as compensation for having his rights as a citizen denied.

However, Stephen Harper Conservative Government of Canada™ has demonstrated a total inability to learn from the experience.

The US government quite simply told Arar to ₤µ©λ off. Among the other shining features of this unpolishable turd of a Republican-positive decision was this little beauty, as described in Glenn Greenwald's piece:

Arar did not, for instance, have the names of the individuals who detained and abused him at JFK, which the majority said he must have. As Judge Sack in dissent said of that requirement: it "means government miscreants may avoid [] liability altogether through the simple expedient of wearing hoods while inflicting injury."

Ladies and gentlemen, your antiterrorist forces, 2010 model:



One of the most disappointing things about Barack Obama's presidency so far is the outright refusal to repeal the Bush acts that made the president and his minions untouchable in cases like domestic espionage and outsourced torture. You would think he might have a little sympathy.

This is News?

The Aspers have apparently decided that their flagship, the National Post may be folded under an umbrella or something. It's all a bit complex to me, but has to do with the Global bankruptcy or something.


Mr. Asper heads out to pasture

Couldn't happen to a nicer paper. Really. Even if they never did get the spelling of "Nazional" quite right. The problem was that, although they tried to claim an audience, Canadians actually have a limited tolerance for right-wing, blindly-pro-Israel garbage on the editorial pages (The odd thing is that Izzy Asper, who eventually sent the paper to hell, was at one time president of a Liberal Party arm).

It cannot be co-incidence that this announcement comes immediately after this guy was killed the other night. Their sole remaining reader? We just editorialize, you decide.

Among it's dafter content, the paper published screeds defending Mark Steyn. They also publish the ramblings of a number of what are known as Blogging Tories. Such as one Mr. "Raphael Alexander" a.k.a. Adrian McNair. I honestly haven't the familiarity with Mr. Alexander that others have cultivated, but I know what I like, and most of his writing is garbage by that fickle and arbitrary standard. Although I place a caveat by his coverage of Vancouver's Great Boondoggle.

The paper's recent hagiographic coverage of the Stephen Harper New Conservative Government of Canada (for which it functions much the way that FOX Noise did for the Bush White House--as a PR organ) is unlikely to be missed. At least by a majority of Canadians.

Okay, so I'm not entirely unmoved. Whatever its manifest and grotesque failures of conscience and decency in its editorial pages, the Post was known at one time for good journalism. But the rot set in when the Aspers forbade the publication of editorials criticizing Israel. And what may die in the coming days is a shell of addled opinion and relentless conservative cheerleading that not only doesn't represent Candians, but in recent years seems to have broken with reality.

Though the paper claimed to be a free speech champion, it ended up proving that censorship for the wrong reasons rots political discourse. God rest whatever's left of its soul.

I will, however miss John Moore, the Post's token lib'rul.

Matt Taibbi: Now Known as "Dances With Nuts"

From an article entitled "Jesus Made Me Puke":

By the end of the weekend I realized how quaint was the mere suggestion that Christians of this type should learn to "be rational" or "set aside your religion" about such things as the Iraq War or other policy matters. Once you've made a journey like this — once you've gone this far — you are beyond suggestible. It's not merely the informational indoctrination, the constant belittling of homosexuals and atheists and Muslims and pacifists, etc., that's the issue. It's that once you've gotten to this place, you've left behind the mental process that a person would need to form an independent opinion about such things. You make this journey precisely to experience the ecstasy of beating to the same big gristly heart with a roomful of like-minded folks. Once you reach that place with them, you're thinking with muscles, not neurons.

Noble Words ≠ Nobel Deeds

Four brief words on the Obama Nobel:

What were they thinking?

More words on the topic:
I like Obama. If nothing else, the determination of the wingnuts to see Satan, Hitler, Stalin, and possibly COBRA Commander in his shadow makes for grimly amusing TV. I mean, where were they when their boy George was actually busy tearing up the country's vaunted Constitution? Mostly cheerleading.

But the sight of wingnut heads exploding like so many dandelion clocks at the news is accompanied by annoyance and disbelief. No-one seems to know why he received this award. He's still bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan, hasn't shut down his country's torture prisons, is still claiming that FISA is legal ...

One might be forced to accept the winger talking point that he received it for giving speeches.

Hell, he's up against the possibility of civil war in his own damn country if he doesn't figure out a way to disarm the disproportionately stupid citizens. Several people have called for armed insurrection, a poll was circulated on Facebook: "Should Obama be Killed," and redneck morons, almost inevitably white, male, and Christian, threaten to do to Obama precisely what Al-Qaeda would like to do. All without either a) being taken behind the woodshed for a little lecture on civil discourse and factuality or b) being taken to Gitmo for a little lecture on civil discourse, civil rights, and the nature of terrorism.

Okay, so he's not George the Lesser. But there are people far more deserving of a Nobel even for that.

If Obama has any brains he'll outright refuse the award saying: "Why not wait until I earn it?" He'll also put out some other candidates who may actually have done work that might lead incrementally to peace. How about recognition for the translators in Iraq or Afhanistan, perhaps? Those people literally put their lives at risk every single day.

And then the wingnut wurlitzer could no longer go on and on about how it's some sort of Nobel Affirmative Action.

And maybe a few of the people parading around at those teabagger parties will STFU and actually do something useful or helpful. Too much to hope for, I guess.

Another Threat to Marriage

Doubtless the right wingers will want to campaign against this one as well.

Pathetic.

Harper Blue-Sweaters Arts Gala: Big Whoop

I won't repost the video. Harper plays and sings "With a Little Help From My Friends." A song written by people he would naturally consider a bunch of socialist hippie drug users.

The reaction from Tory supporters translates into "Isn't he the cutest thing?"

People dwelling in the real world interpret it thus: In an effort to make himself look like a better facsimile of a human, Harper somehow persuaded his wife Laureen to let him onto the stage with Yo-Yo Ma (whom the Largely Irrelevant Post writer John Ivison describes as "an up-and-coming cellist." Thankfully the Post may soon be closing, allowing Ivison to catch up on developments in classical music since the Renaissance).

Okay, fine. Whatever, Steve.

Mrs. Harper skipped the gala last year after her husband, placeholder Steve, claimed that

"I think when ordinary working people . . . see a gala of a bunch of people at a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough . . . I'm not sure that's something that resonates..."

Of course, it's different when Conservatives don their tuxes for a night out.

He sure plays purty. He's a much better pianist than a PM. Maybe a career change is in order? I'm more than happy to help him on his way to his first album.

Let's Hear It #346

For headline honesty.

By the Way ...

Have I mentioned I won a thread?

If I win enough threads I could knit a a sock.

Canadian Cynic may be a little rough around the edges (I imagine the CC crew sitting around saying "What's it to ya, douchebag?") but they seem to have a good grip on news stories that dip below the radar but are still important politically.

They also expose, day after day, the incredible gap, nay, chasm, between Canada's conservatives and reality. It gets a little monotonous sometimes, to be honest. But if the Blogging Tories and the National Post continue to churn out the industrial-grade stupid, well someone's gotta call them on their rampant intellectual dishonesty (when it rises to the level of "intellectual").

Quote of the Day #349

And it's from "E!" network, fer FSM's sake--The gut-spilling, wrenching void of celebrity goss and toss.

"The truth, no matter how uncomfortable, is never too much information."

It's the last sentence of a surprisingly deep blog post that must have been handed out to E!'s headline writers without notification that this was a genuine piece of thoughtful opinion.

The headline is "Mackenzie Phillips Is Not Oversharing!" The headline is a damn-near-slight to a woman who seems to be determined to unburden herself publicly of some of the most asocial revelations anyone could put themselves through. Money quote:

We don't want to hear it. Any of it.

And that might be the ickiest thing of all.

My feeling when a semi-celeb comes out with revelations like this is that you do need to look for the motive. But while Phillips has been doing the talk-show circuit, she could have done that by simply asserting that Papa John had beaten her, or something less ... icky.

An Israeli Perspective on the Goldstone Report

And not the one you've been hearing about.For those of you tuning in late, the Goldstone Report, realeased today, offers stern criticisms of Israel's actions in the late wars:

" Although the U.N. investigation found that Palestinian militants also committed war crimes, the overwhelming majority of the criticism in a summary of the 574-page report targets Israel.

Israel "committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," the report says."

~CNN

I happen to rather like the Jerusalem Post. They'll happily print genuine debate on real issues in their pages. Amongst the pro- and con- Goldstone opinions we have Larry Derfner calling the report "A wake-up call from Judge Goldstone". One of the most interesting points of his analysis of the report--which was criticized by Israel's deputy foreign minister as "a dangerous attempt to harm the principle of self-defense by democratic states [which] provides legitimacy to terrorism"--is this one:

And we don't see that we did anything wrong. Somebody's got to tell us. Lots of people have tried, including Amnesty International, the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and, last but definitely not least, dozens of our own soldiers.

We've tried to smear them all, to silence them, to drown out the message that keeps repeating itself from one source to another. Now we have the message, the same message again, from one of the world's most respected, accomplished men of justice. South Africa's Judge Richard Goldstone has a record that no one in this country would dare try to tarnish. What's more, he's not only a Jew (and a former president of World ORT), he's also a friend of Israel. He was on the board of directors at the Hebrew University, got an honorary doctorate there, he's visited this country any number of times, his daughter's lived here for awhile.

So there we have it. From an authoritative and sympathetic voice, a stern warning to Israel that it has to stop acting like the people it purports to be defending itself against.