Anti-Anti-Establishment

While Ol’ Doc Joyner waxes nostalgic with a Slate article about (Is there a “gag” tag?) Fleetwood Mac, I was taken back to the early days of my own music tastes … ( “Sub-ma-rine mission for you, boyz”) … ironically – the 70’s rock star dead pool overview? Pre- punk Alice Cooper is still around to piss on John Denver’s grave, the body count for the Sex Pistols is one to the Gibb brother’s two, and punk is undergoing its latest incarnation – Fright Wing Republicans.

NYT – With names like GOPunk, Anti-Anti- Flag and Punkvoter Lies, the sites are a curious blend of Karl Rove and Johnny Rotten, preaching personal responsibility and reflexive patriotism with the in-your- face zeal of a mosh pit. When he’s not banging his head to the Misfits, the Vandals or the Bouncing Souls, for example, Mr. Rizzuto spends his time writing essays denouncing Michael Moore and “left-wing propaganda,” and urging other conservative punks to join his cause.

We were conservatives way back then, too, kiddies.

Iraq The Model

Paul Wolfowitz has an op-ed in the that quotes another Iraqi blogger.

AFTER the horrific March 2 bombing that killed 170 at Shi’a shrines in Baghdad and Karbala, one Iraqi had an answer for those in the West who wonder if such tactics can work. His words speak to the horror of the events in Spain last week and in Baghdad on Wednesday.
His name is Ali and his Web log said this about the terrorists and their allies: “They are spitting in the face of the wind.”

Ali, the Iraqi blogger, put such attacks into a larger perspective: “Some people still wonder what would be the relation between the liberation of Iraq and [the] war on terrorism. I think that the fact that nearly all the terrorists are gathered on our land to fight so fiercely should be more than enough explanation.” He added: “We are . . . showing [other Arabs] what they can achieve once they are free . . . I see these evil powers show their true and ugly face and play their last card – surer than ever that we are winning.”

You can read Ali’s blog here.

Continue reading

Bringing Democracy To The UN

In Geneva, The U.N.’s Successor May Be Testing Its Wings

Imagine a better Washington. Imagine a conservative Republican administration working hand in glove with liberal congressional Democrats on a foreign-policy initiative designed to strengthen the United Nations while simultaneously increasing America’s clout there. Imagine both parties and both branches bringing this initiative to fruition smoothly and unfussily, during an election year. Say, this year. Say, right now.

I know I live under a rock, but I’m surprised this hasn’t recieved a little more attention.

In 1945, when the U.N. was born, most of the world was non-democratic, and so a “league of democracies” would have been a rump group. Today, however, more than 60 percent of the world’s countries are electoral democracies. Today it is absurd for Burma to vote as the moral and legal equivalent of Belgium; more absurd for Cuba and Zimbabwe to be members in good standing of the U.N. Human Rights Commission; and more absurd still for Libya to chair that commission, as it did last year.
To add injury to insult, democracies at the U.N. are disproportionately weak. The U.N. is dominated by a cluster of regional and ideological caucuses. African countries, for example, are pressured to vote together, with undemocratic governments often calling the shots and democracies going along to get along. Tyrants thus routinely exempt themselves from human-rights resolutions, while log-rolling ensures that condemnations of Israel sail through.
In 1996, a private group called the United Nations Association of the United States of America floated the idea of a caucus solely for democracies. With 120 or so nations (out of 191 U.N. members), such a caucus could serve as a powerful counterweight to the traditional caucuses.

The concept is being floated at a meeting of the UN Commission For Human Rights that began Monday in Geneva.
hat tip – Jack’s Newswatch

Mark Steyn Reviews His Iraq Predictions

On April 12th 2003, after the fall of Baghdad, I wrote a column in The Daily Telegraph discussing the latest predictions of doom and making my own observations on how things would look a year ahead. Well, that time is almost up, so here’s how it stands. I wasn’t 100% right, but the naysayers were close to 100% wrong. The original column and predictions appear in black. The updated assessment of the situation is in red:

Read it here – IRAQ: ONE YEAR ON. None of Steyn’s observations will come as any surprise. But it’s fun watching him rub it in.
What is perplexing is the behavior of those who were wrong a year ago, who continue to predict doomsday and failure, unwilling or unable to learn from experience. It’s almost perverse. If you want a good idea of what is likely to happen in the coming months, listen carefully to these people, and then presume the opposite. Not a bad system, actually.

EU Response To Terror: Cut Their Allowance?

Europe is not at war against terrorists, the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has said, warning against a hysterical reaction to the threat of attacks in the wake of the Madrid bombings.

You don’t say….

“We have to energetically oppose terrorism, but we mustn’t change the way we live,” Solana has told the German weekly Bild am Sonntag in an interview to appear on Sunday, adding “Europe is not at war.”

Of course they’re not. He considers this whole unfortunate Madrid business an accident. Someone grabbed the wrong map, that’s all.
No, really.
The EU has been funding terrorism. Why would terrorists bite the hands that feed them? Ilka Schroeder – 25-year-old member of the European Parliament and former member of the German Green Party;

“The Europeans,” Ilka Schroeder said at Ben-Gurion University, “supported the Palestinian Authority with the aim of becoming its main sponsor, and through this, challenge the U.S. and present themselves as the future global power. Therefore, the Al-Aksa Intifada should be understood as a proxy war between Europe and the United States.”
In an earlier address in New York, she said it is “an open secret within the European Parliament that EU aid to the Palestinian Authority has not been spent correctly. The European Parliament does not intend to verify whether European taxpayers’ money could have been used to finance anti-Semitic murderous attacks.”

P. David Hornik makes these points in the Jan 12, 2004 article;

As for her notion of the Al-Aksa Intifada as a proxy war between Europe and the United States, it’s both compelling and questionable- more compelling in regard to countries like France and Germany, less so in regard to countries like Britain and Spain. It’s easy to adduce other reasons for the EU’s overall willingness to fund anti-Israeli terror, from traditional anti-Semitism (which Schroeder acknowledges as a factor), to the desire to deflect terror from Europe itself and keep it safely to the south, to the desire to appease local European Muslim voting blocs, to the desire to stay in the good graces of oil-rich Arab regimes. What’s clear is that, one way or another, Europe is addicted to Jew-killing; if today, amid its high-flown human rights rhetoric, it no longer engages in it directly, it’s able to do so by proxy, and it’s not about to stop.

No surprise that the EU response to the Spain bombing would be a beaurocratic one. Spain’s “learned her lesson”. No need to worry, now that that’s taken care of.

The measures include appointing a new “coordinator” to oversee the fields involved in the anti- terrorism fight — including police and judicial work, intelligence-sharing and cracking down on extremists’ financing.

Meaning, Solana plans to cut some allowances until these people remember who they’re being paid to bomb.

El Bush

I listened to George Bush’s speech today.
So did Alaa

I have just listened to President Bush’s speech on CNN. I just couldn’t leave the keyboard without saying something. Because the warmth of the Presidents’ words of friendship and commitment to our people really did make my eyes moisten. Not even the openly hostile report by the CNN reporter could spoil the feeling.
God will be on the side of good men, and it is clear for this middle-aged man who the good men are.
Hail dear El Bush. Thanks to you and all the Coalition men and women. Long may live our alliance and friendship. Victory by the Grace and Help of Allah is assured.

Mad Cow. Still Killing Us.

Thought mad cow was yesterday’s news?


Yesterday, Hunking tried to buy a frame for the $1.57 cheque
he received from the Ontario Stockyards for the two cows that weighed about 400 kilograms each when they were sold Feb. 20 at auction for an average price of about 10 cents per kilogram.

Levinoff Meat Products Ltd. of Montreal paid $83.05 for Hunking’s two cows, but by the time the $45 trucking cost, $29 commission fee, $2.20 insurance, $5.18 GST and other incidentals were deducted, Hunking’s net from the sale was $1.57.

Certainly, these were cull cows, not fat steers from which steaks and choice cuts are made. But the food products they were turned into will sell for about the same price as they did before BSE. Someone is making some money.

Spring Cleaning

I’ve been busy today trying to untangle the complications of trying to get my dog to Brazil with me, on the same aircraft, and for less than my own ticket…. but had enough time to check out the regulars, and read my comments section.
For Willie – some much needed historical perspective. The Price of Freedom in Iraq at Outside The Beltway.
For Canadian readers, meet fellow Saskatchewan blogger, Theresa Zolner, and learn about how best juggle your choices on a preferencial ballot to your prefered candidate’s advantage. Tomorrow the Conservative Party of Canada chooses a leader.
By way of Drudge .. another scandal at a major media outlet – USA Today reveals Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Jack Kelley has been fabricating stories. For years.
And for your landscaping problems, John Kerry’s your man. All this and Vietnam, too.
And most importantly – Murray Wood on 650 CKOM radio just recieved his first report of a gopher sighting! It is spring! Time to go dust off the .22

Saddam, A Year Ago

New York Post

While much has been made about intelligence failures in the West, it seems that Saddam’s own senior officials, diplomats and spies offered him such a warped vision of the outside world that warnings went unheeded and the power of France and Russia to prevent the conflict took on mythical proportions.

On instructions from Saddam, Lt. Gen. Abed Hamid Hamoud, the head of the presidential office, ordered Naji Sabri, the foreign minister, to contact the French and Russian governments and tell them that Iraq would accept only an “unconditional withdrawal” of U.S. forces.
“Tell them that Iraq is now winning and that the U.S. has sunk in the mud of defeat,” said the letter, written on March 30 – 10 days into the war and less than two weeks before U.S. tanks entered the capital.
The letter was in response to a message the day before from Sabri, who had met the Russian ambassador to Baghdad and reported that Moscow believed “U.S. aggression has no future.”
“The conflict could continue for months, a year or two years,” the Russian envoy is quoted as saying.

Some of the intelligence fed back to Baghdad may explain why its analysis was so off the mark. One clumsy drawing from an intelligence officer at the Iraqi Embassy in Syria sent on March 22, two days after the start of the war, showed the location of 20,000 Israeli troops equipped with Patriot surface-to-air missiles allegedly camped in the western desert of Iraq.

Via Kathy Kinsley

Is Moron A Gender?

UN Commission on the Status of Women

When the US asked that the document explicitly state that ‘mother’ and ‘father’ were not under the umbrella of the term ‘negative gender stereotype’, she was jeered by the EU and cut off by the Canadian chairperson.

It’s not easy being a woman in Canada.

When discussing portrayals of women in the media and gender stereotypes, the Canadian chairperson Beatrice Maille said that countries must work together so that girls in the media aren’t portrayed as playing with dolls and boys aren’t seen as sports players as this perpetuates negative stereotypes. The representative from Sudan responded, “How can we prevent this portrayal of girls? Why should we prevent this? It’s the reality that most little girls play with dolls. In fact, I still play with dolls on occasion!”

We have negative gender stereotypes like Beatrice Maille to overcome.
Hat tip – Trudeaupia

Gay Equality Rights

Heterosexuals Demand Right To Be Gay
“Equality for Gay Heterosexuals” met yesterday to organize their first ever Gay Pride Parade. George MacRae, 47 and his wife, Janice spoke for their organization. Pushing back his baseball cap to reveal a tanlined forehead, George explained,

“All we’re asking is for society to allow us to stand up and say “We’re gay!”. Not all the time, of course, but most of the time. We have a heck of a lot of fun at poker rallies and fishing derbies, but we can never be gay. For years we’ve been forced to say we were ‘delirious’ or ‘ecstatic'”.
“They say only homosexuals can be gay. We can be ‘happy’ if we like, with all the same protections of happiness that homosexual people have. But ‘happy’ isn’t the same thing as ‘gay’, you know? It’s close, but it’s not the real thing. We just want to be equal and to live our lives as gay people in peace. Being a heterosexual and gay does nothing to dimish homosexual gayness. We think it strengthens it.”

gay.jpg MacRae’s wife has opened a dance club where members have a place to meet and socialize with other gays. Friday was the ribbon cutting, followed by a whist tournament and barn dance.

“Homosexuals don’t have to give up anything up to allow heterosexuals the right to be ‘gay’. Homosexual culture and traditions aren’t going to come crashing down because a man and woman want to be recognized fully as a gay couple.”

Shameless self promotion at the Beltway Traffic Jam

Canadian Immigration Fraud Ring Busted

Via Andrew Coyne
Federal Liberal appointee among those charged.

The RCMP accused Yves Bourbonnais, formerly of the Immigration and Refugee Board, and 10 others Thursday of forming a “very well structured criminal organization.” “The offences committed in the matter strike at the heart of the administration of justice,” said Staff Sgt. Sergio Pasin, lead investigator during a three-year probe of the activities.

The Mounties said the investigation revealed that between 50 and 60 people facing hearings were offered positive judgments from the board in exchange for cash bribes of $8,000 to $15,000 per person.
The people allegedly approached for bribes were from the Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern and Italian communities in Montreal and Ottawa, said RCMP Sgt. Jocelyn Mimeault, a force spokesman.
“Obviously what we’re talking about is corruption.”
He declined to say whether any rigged hearings actually took place.

More background info here

Like Sands Through The Hourglass

so are the Days Of Their Lies…

In his opening statement to the Commons committee investigating the mess, the defiant former public works minister painted himself as the victim and said that the public accusations and innuendo has all but ended his long political career.
“I feel that I am the one who has paid the greatest price for this scandal so far,” he said. “I have lived up to my part of the bargain. In return, I now learn that I should be considered responsible for a fiasco that was not of my doing.”

[cue violins]

Gagliano was in charge of the department when it funneled millions of dollars to Quebec advertising agencies for little or no work.
As minister, Gagliano said he did everything in his power to fulfill his cabinet obligations. Management was not his responsibility, though. As such, holding him accountable for every department employee is unfair.
“I never had the control or power over my department that would have given me the ability to answer for all that went open with them.”

“I am just a patsy!”

Gagliano acknowledged he met with Guite three or four times per year and had signed off on some seven-figure spending increases without reviewing any documentation.
“I assumed all the paperwork … was in the file,” he said. “I didn’t see it, I didn’t ask for it.”

While his life trickled away waiting for a bone marrow transplant from his long lost brother, his ex-wife secretly plotted to steal the family firm…

In his questions for the former minister, Conservative Party MP Peter MacKay communicated his disbelief.
“You’re telling us today that you were just essentially a finger puppet of your own department, that you had no control over the sponsorship program?” he asked.

Hard to believe, but true. And the story doesn’t end there…. lost and presumed dead for these past two years, in reality, Gagliano was being held captive in a fortress in Denmark.
to be continued…
Andrew Coyne has the Hogan’s Heroes version.

Rocks At The Windshield

The latest in a series of “Whew! That was close!” asteroid sightings.

The object, designated 2004 FH, is roughly 30 meters (100 feet) in diameter and will pass just 43,000 km (26,500 miles, or about 3.4 Earth diameters) above the Earth’s surface on March 18th at 5:08 PM EST (2:08 PM PST, 22:08 UTC).

Apparently, the earth travels in the wake of some giant galactic sanding truck.
Even a little asteroid would cause a lot of planetary inconvenience – something you wouldn’t wish on your worst en..e…m … well…. there is a spot on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and another just north of Baghdad, and …
Well, no. That would be unkind.
Besides, the Eiffel Tower is kinda cool.

Beating Al Queda At Their Own Game

Wizbang makes a case for bombing Spain.

Rather than kill 200 people he should kill maybe 300 or so to show our power. Then, before the Spanish have time to bury their dead, he should release a grainy, low quality video saying that if the Spanish do not return Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to power we will bomb them again. If history is our guide, we will be rewarded with a U.S. friendly administration.

If it worked for Al Queda…

All of this of course begs the question, why stop at Spain? When Jacques Chirac’s reelection is at hand, a single bomber could insure the French see us as an ally again. German elections are always fun to watch anyway, why not let a few kilotons fly their way?

Hat tip – Outside The Beltway

Hey, Who Turned Out The Lights?

Another scathing Auditor General’s report – this time, national security.

The Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness — which has a budget of $52 million per year — will come under particularly heavy criticism.
It faced a big test last August 14 when most of Ontario was hit with a power blackout and was found wanting.
For example, OCIPEP lost telephone, electricity and computer services at its own building.

Just great. 52 million bucks a year, and the brain trust at the command center for Emergency Preparedness never thought to pick up a couple of generators.

CTV’s Craig Oliver says unlike the auditor general’s�sponsorship scandal report, which came out February 10 and is still causing political reverberations, no wrongdoing will be suggested.

I see. If Liberal hacks skim off public money that was destined to be pissed away in unnecessary advertising schemes anyway – that’s “wrongdoing”.
But if Liberal negligence and incompetence exposes living breathing Canadians to terrorism, death, destruction and chaos – it’s not?

Account Security

In this day and age of identity theft, I’ve often joked that anyone who steals mine was going to a lot of trouble to get their credit rating downgraded.
But when I recieved a call last month from someone purporting to be from my bank, I refused to volunteer the information they requested to “confirm” my identity. I asked they call my local manager and she could discuss any alleged problem with me. The first caller said they would do just that – and I didn’t hear anything more. When I was in the bank later that day, I mentioned the incident. The employees were concerned.
Two days later, it happened again. This time I was ready for them.

“Hello, is this Catherine McMillan? This is *The Bank. We have a problem with one of your accounts.”
“Really?”
“But first I need to verify your identity. What is your date of birth and phone number?”

(You mean the number of the phone I just answered?)

“Don’t you have that already?”
“Yes, I’m looking right at it. I need to make sure I’m talking to the right person.”
“Sorry, I don’t give out personal information on the phone. I have no way to tell if you are who you say you are. So, why don’t you call Betty, my manager? The Bank is about 50 yards from here – I can just go talk to her.”
Click*

Thought so. Screw you, scam artist. You’re going to have to get up earlier than that to fool me.
Yesterday, I got a terse letter from the The Bank. There was a problem with one of my accounts. Their attempts to contact me by phone had been “unsuccessful”. Persistant bastards, I thought … it was a cheap photocopy, with the logo fading off at the top. But the information looked legit, they had the account number right. And I figured, it’s not like there’s any real money in it. I called and sure enough, was asked for the same information to verify my identity. And it was legit. The problem proved to be minor.
Wow. Small wonder so many people fall victim to scams.
* Bank identity deleted to protect the innocent and what little money I do have.

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