Bush troubled, troubling

Quote:

"I am troubled by the initial news stories," Bush said in his first public comments about the deaths of about two dozen civilians at Haditha last January. "I'm mindful that there's a thorough investigation going on. If in fact, laws were broken, there will be punishment."

Quote:

On July 18, 2005, after having brushed off similar questions about the Rove scandal for nearly a week, President Bush stated that "[i]f someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

Why are there still millions of people who still believe anything this man says? Bush has shown time and time again that whatever he wants to be true, will be declared true even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He said the war was about WMDs, but now says it's about freedom and democracy, like it was always that way.

I've said it before on this blog and I'll say it again:

You really can fool some of the people, all of the time.

This is why John Adams was so opposed to political parties: some people place loyalty to the party above loyalty to the country. When they get in power, it doesn't bode well for the country.

Three years on, and still no one has been fired for the Plame leak, and no one in the White House cares. After all, it only hurts their country, not their party, so why worry?

Stupid and Funny

Found on the 'net, I'm sure this is an old one.

Fighting the media

So Stephen Harper, in the fine tradition of politicians everywhere, thinks that the media is out to get him, and thus he no longer has to talk to him. This love-in with all things Mulroney is really getting out of hand but, so we hope, like Mulroney, he will learn that arguing with the media *in* the media, is a futile effort. I figure by the time the fall session of Parliament starts up, the chokehold on communications will have withered and passed on.

This is not, however, to say that the idea is completely wrong though. Canadians are much more indifferent to politics and media generally, so knee-capping the media doesn't resonate with the public as much as it did, say, 20 years ago.

Glory be!

It's warm and sunny! And I cut the grass!!!

Well...weeds, actually, no one will ever accuse me of poisoning our water system with pesticides or weed-killers.

But still, to finally be outside in a t-shirt at 830pm and the light still out, this is why we put up with winter. Yay!!!

The last word on Colbert

So I finally got around to watching the video of Stephen Colbert's performance last month, including his audition tape for the job of White House Press Secretary, and my judgment is that it was funny, but not 24 minutes worth of funny. There were several good lines, but a lot of other stuff was tired and unoriginal. He belaboured the point about how Bush doesn't let facts get in the way of his beliefs, but missed out on poking some Democrats as well, which would have softened up the audience a bit.

If it had been five minutes long, it would have been hilarious, but at 20 minutes plus, I was watching the clock.

And I don't even like Bush! Nor did I know he pronounced his name so that it rhymes with "camembert".

No kidding!

I'm forgetting what the sun looks like lately...

Committing to Failure

I'm starting to get a little bit miffed about all the harping about the Kyoto agreement and the Tories' talk about abandoning the treaty.

To recap, Canada signed an agreement that committed the country to reduce our emissions to 1990 levels by 2012. In 2006, we are almost 40% higher than the 1990 levels, raising our emissions more than even the US under George "Oil Can" Bush.

So the greenies and tree huggers want us to stay in a treaty whose obligations we have no hope of ever meeting? And also convince the uninformed that the Tories are bad for the environment when it was the Liberals who a) signed the treaty and then b) proceeded to do nothing to meet its requirements, other than giving Rick Mercer a lot of money.

What good is Canada staying in Kyoto if we aren't going to honour it? Better to make it official and then try something that doesn't involve mass unemployment, n'est-ce pas?

Countdown

Even if you don't like Nickelback, this video is very interesting. People whose opinions I generally respect have confirmed my opinion that this video is very nifty.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/artists/Nickelback/showVideo.aspx?fileID=1518 for Windows Media.

How much time do you have left?

Stephen Colbert redux

So I did a quick drive-by about Stephen Colbert's performance at the journo shindig in Washington last week, and web traffic spiked thereafter.

Does lightning strike twice? Well, yes, but the idea is the same anyway, even if nature doesn't cooperate.

Now I have to resist the temptation to write a throw-away post about a certain star of a beach rescue team who has her own personal flotation devices....

Cutting off your nose...

So a guy lane changes without checking the blindspot, and almost runs me off the road. I honk, evade, and recover and life goes back to normal, right?

Not quite. Guy and friends are miffed that I honked (or some other reason, who knows/cares?) so after getting some distance ahead of me, slows down and, as I pass, a collection of arms with the middle finger raised come up.

The kicker? It was pouring rain at the time. So these pinheads figure it's worth getting themselves soaked, just so I can ignore them and carry on with my life as if they never existed.

To spite your face, indeed.....

Together

At home.

At last.

The opinion of Afghanistan

Once again, poll numbers show a drop in support for Canada's mission in Afghanistan, and once again, the government is doing the right thing and ignoring these opinion polls. This is good for several reasons, such as:

a) The opinion of Canadians changes every couple of months, so you can't really build a military mission around that kind of timeline;

b) We made a committment to Afghanistan that we would help it rebuild and move on from decades of civil war and insurgency;

c) Most Canadians aren't even sure what our troops are doing in Afghanistan in the first place, even though the media have done a better job of reporting the issues over the last couple of months.

And so on and so forth. The simple fact is that our troops are part of Canada's committment to the people of Afghanistan, and to our allies that are also helping the country to rebuild. It appears that a lot of Canadians want the world to think highly of us, but without making any real efforts on the global stage.

For sure, there are many other worthwhile causes that demand our attention in the world, but since Afghanistan has the world's attention (for the most part), our limited resources are best deployed as part of a broader alliance. Canada simply doesn't have the resources (or the mandate) to go it alone in places like Darfur or the DRC.

If, however, Canadians want to ensure that the world's opinion of Canada is as high as our own opinion of ourselves, we're going to have to do some dirty work every now and then. Afghanistan is a good place to do that.

Stephen Colbert: Live and in your face!

So I stumbled upon an editorial cartoon indicating that Stephen Colbert nailed George Bush in his recent speech at a gala event in Washington last week. Having no idea what they were talking about, I did some quick Google searches and found what was being talked about. While I have not watched the video, I did read one of the transcripts and, yeah, it was pretty brazen and blunt to do something like that, but isn't that the point of these dinners? And Bush himself made fun of his lack of WMD's two years earlier, as noted in Editor and Publisher. Everyone thought that was funny, even though 500 US soldiers had died when Bush did that little joke; are the next 2000 dead US soldiers laughing material as well?

My personal take, just from the transcript, is that it had some funny moments and some clunkers as well, but if Bush and his army of supporters aren't able to laugh at themselves every now and then, it's probably because they know that what they are doing isn't funny anymore.

Love is...

...giving up your plans for a romantic night in order to tend to your loved one's excess of wine, and bodily rejection thereof, in the bathroom at 3am.

In sickness and health indeed...*snicker*

Still, it was a fun night and now the big family farewell happens today. It's probably better that we drank to excess last night, thereby avoiding any embarrassing situations with the whole family present today.

The wait is over

She has her passport, and we are travelling next week. What a long, strange, trip it's been, and what the hell was I thinking when I sent that photo of us at Hallowe'en 2000?!?!?!?

On flags and ceremonies

I think, by now, the kerfuffle over the flag issue has exhausted itself as the facts became known. Lew Mackenzie did a good interactive session on the Globe and Mail's website last week which, if nothing else, served to show how ignorant a lot of people are (including the media). The basic fact is that DND will lower flags at its HQ and at the relevant military bases, with each province or municipality free to do as it pleases. The only issue was the lowering of the flag on the Peace Tower, which as has been noted, follows a set of rules established by Heritage Canada, and is lowered on November 11th to honour all Canadian military personnel killed in the line of duty. Veterans associations were not happy with the Liberals breaking this tradition and I tend to agree that all soldiers should be honoured at once, instead of each one individually.

As for media coverage, the send-off in Afghansitan is open to the media, as our funerals where the families give their consent. I am not certain where people get the idea that the government is trying to hide the bodies to avoid losing support for the operations in Afghanistan, since the media plasters any deaths of Canadian solders over the front page. However, I think it should be up to the individual families to decide if the arrival of bodies should be open to the media or not. If several deaths occur at the same time, one family's objections can trump the other families' wishes.

The send-off, to me, seems the most appropriate place for the media because it's a military event. The arrivals and funerals are private, family events in my opinion.