How Easily They Forget...

Readers of the Nexus may recall a story from a couple of days ago about Ottawa's First Place Pregnancy Center filing suit against Planned Parenthood for "defamatory comments".

A rather typical enraged comment accompanied by the braying of a rather unsurprising cheerleader seems to miss the obvious point.

That the Sens Better Halves didn't boot the FPPC off the tree raffle charity, as Fern Hill dishonestly suggests here:

"We feminazis didn’t deny anyone funding. It was the Ottawa Senators’ fans — private individuals — who denied the anti-choicers their hard-earned dough."

But rather the First Place Pregnancy Centre voluntarily withdrew.

Now if only Fern Hill were to come out and suggest why they believe their side of the debate should be entitled to federal funding while they work so hard to ensure their opponents receive no funding, even when they're providing actual services to women...

Fat chance of that.

Let's Talk Anti-Semitism For a Moment, If You Will

Surprise! Canadian Cynic is a hypocrite

In a post today, Canadian Cynic takes aim at some recent comments made by Stephen Harper, linking criticisms of Israel and anti-Semitism.

Cynic offers up some comments made by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a McGill graduate and Barack Obama supporter:

"Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser, said that the pro-Israel lobby in the US was too powerful, while the slur of anti-Semitism was too readily used whenever its power was called into question...

Mr Brzezinski said "it's not unique to the Jewish community – but there is a McCarthyite tendency among some people in the Jewish community", referring to the Republican senator who led the anti-Communist witch hunt in the 1950s.

"They operate not by arguing but by slandering, vilifying, demonising. They very promptly wheel out anti-Semitism."

While there have been notable examples of anti-Semitism amongst members of the opposition parties, Brezinski's comments are actually quite cogent, and gives us important reason to think twice before buying into Harper's accusations of anti-Semitism.

Considering the number of Jews who can bring themselves to criticize Israel it's impossible to automatically condemn all criticisms of Israel as anti-Semitic. There is plenty of valid criticism to offer.

But quite frankly, it's impossible to take anything Cynic has to say about anti-Semitism seriously when one considers some of the company he keeps.

Notably, My Blahg proprietor Robert McClelland.

McClelland caused a serious stir in March of last year, when he responded to a commenter who wrote "When the State starts rounding up my Jewish neighbours, I’ll speak up" with the following:

"Not me. People like Klownsella, Chernyuk and Smeagol the Jew have taught me it’s not worth getting involved. When next they come for the Jews I doubt I’ll even be able to muster up a 'what a shame'."

Ironically, that was a response to a comment by Ti-Guy, one of Cynic's favourite whirling dirvishes. Even more ironically, the relevant portion of Ti-Guy's comment actually reads as folows:

"Judaism is inherently racist. You just have look at how Jews handles conversion (they don’t like it). That fact alone makes Judaism an affront to God.

But, I’m not a Jew and I really don’t care. When the State starts rounding up my Jewish neighbours, I’ll speak up."

It's hard to look at an individual who dismisses Judaism as "inherently racist" as a staunch defender of it.

It even leads one to believe that, just as Robert McClelland is a known anti-Semite, perhaps Ti-Guy may be as well.

Of course his selective a href="http://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-is-it-with-right-wingers-and-jews.html">outrage whenever his political opponents make similarly ill-conceived comments on the topic would lead one to suggest that, by golly, Cynic is really concerned about anti-Semitism.

And yet Cynic would go to incredible lengths to defend a demonstrated anti-Semite. Lindsay Stewart would also got in on the act.

So maybe Cynic isn't quite as pure vis a vis anti-Semitism as he'd like to pretend. Then again, it isn't really all that surprising, is it?

Elizabeth May to Jack Layton: "Leave Stephane Alone!!!"

"And how fucking dare anyone not jump on board with Dion after all he didn't do to curb climate change?"

Elizabeth May continued to fill the roll of unofficial deputy leader of the Liberal party yesterday on CTV's Question Period when she went after Jack Layton for his opposition to Stephane Dion's carbon tax.

"We need to act on the climate crisis, and a carbon tax is a litmus test of whether a party is serious about it or not," May -- allegedly the leader of the Green Party but looking increasingly more and more like a Dion lackey -- insisted.

She also insisted that Layton's opposition "is not part of the global social democratic approach."

Fair enough. Supporting politicians who do nothing at all about climate change when given the opportunity and charged with the responsibility is probably "not part of the global social democratic approach", either.

(Certainly, Al Gore didn't do anything to curb global warming. But unlike Stephane Dion, he never really had a mandate to.)

But there are countless other reasons why May's comments are a sad statement on the current state of the Green Party of Canada. Other than Elizabeth May going on national television and simply emulating Chris Crocker.

For example, how about a little consistency in cross-referencing the issue? Consider the following: the CTV story tells us that the Liberals have apparently decided to make the carbon tax "revenue neutral" by cutting income tax and applying the rest of that tax in the form of carbon tax.

Which actually doesn't seem like the worst idea at base level: taxpayers would have an incentive to reduce their carbon consumption, and many conservative-minded Canadians would get the tax cuts they perpetually yearn for.

Yet GreenParty.ca blogger Douglas Neil was among those who criticized the current government for its tax cuts, as did Stephane Dion who, as we recall, threatened to topple the government over a tax-cutting mini-budget, and has harped day and night about lost tax revenue and forecasted a federal budgetary deficit.

Yet if a carbon tax proved to be a successful incentive for Canadians to reduce their carbon consumption, the government would be out that amount of revenue. Certainly, Dion could devise some sort of a "gotcha, sucka" claw back to reclaim such revenue as income tax, but that would be rather disingenuous considering that tax savings are supposed to be a reward for reducing carbon consumption.

At the end of the day, what turns out to be the principle difference between Stephen Harper's tax cuts and Stephane Dion's carbon tax on federal coffers? Not a whole lot.

Jack Layton -- who also opposed the tax cuts -- seems wise enough to recognize that, and wise enough to not make a hypocrite out of himself by jumping behind an initiative that would reduce the revenue available to fund the social programs that the NDP has always unflappably supported, and the Liberals have long pretended to.

At least Layton's "cap and trade" system would actually produce revenue for the government to invest in carbon-reducing initiatives -- although May and her compatriots will almost certainly turn on "cap and trade" policies John McCain (a Republican) is proposing one.

Yet, in the face of the carbon tax's inconsistency with their own previous stances, Elizabeth May really has little to say other than criticizing Jack Layton for not jumping in line behind her as a Stephane Dion lacky.

All Dion wants to do is hurt the Liberal party, she insists. "He's a human!!!"

In fact, Elizabeth May probably considers us all rather unfortunate that Dion even continues to come up with ideas for us bastards.

Jack Layton had better leave Stephane Dion alone. Elizabeth May means it.

As Seen in the Toronto Star...

Hmmmm. Looks familiar...

From today's Toronto Star:

"Environmentalists say greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 50 per cent to 80 per cent by 2050 to stop global warming."

Wait: 50 to 80 percent? By 2050?

Where has that been seen before?

Oh, yeah. In the Conservative Party Clean Air Act:

""Every single Liberal leadership candidate who has proposed targets for greenhouse gas emissions had proposed that those targets will be met by 2050. The difference is this ... we are committing today, for the first time ever, to introduce meaningful, tough regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 65 per cent by 2050. We'll do far more than the Liberals ever did."

-Jason Kenney

65 percent? That seems right in that 50-80% that the Star's vaunted environmentalists insist is necessary to curb global warming.

But wait: didn't the Star insist that the Clean Air Act was bad? That it was "failing Canadians"?

Apparently, the environmentalists they interviewed for today's op/ed article must not think so.

This has been another "accuracy in reporting" moment.

No, You Haven't

"Sticking with the facts" requires actually reporting them

...But unfortunately, some people don't seem to understand that.

Yesterday, the irredeemably intellectually lazy ideologue who calls himself Mentarch took some time out of his busy schedule to pout about being referred to as a historical revisionist naysayer.

And insisted that he "stick[s] with the facts - as I have labored to time and time and time and time and time and time and time again."

Except that he really hasn't. Upon examining any number of Mentarch's Afghanistan posts, any number of factual errors can be identified -- some of them actually quite prevalent in the mainstream media coverage of Afghanistan (upon which he overwhelmingly relies when he isn't just vainly linking to his previous posts), others not so much.

A few examples?

Treating the Taliban as an umbrella term for all of the various insurgent groups active in Afghanistan right now -- currently, at least seven -- many of whom actually have differing and opposing goals, and are as likely to fight one another as they are to fight NATO troops.

Or insisting that the Kabul government is negotiating with the Taliban when they call upon American troops to not arrest Taliban insurgents -- despite the fact that this is actually part of a calculated government program to undercut the insurgency's manpower by pardoning their foot soldiers so long as they disarm themselves and agree to accept Afghanistan's constitution. (As it turns out, the Taliban leadership is actually ineligible for such a pardon.)

Or cherry picking examples of failures in Afghanistan -- it would be naive to pretend there haven't been any -- while willfully ignoring any successes, which really has become the modus operandi of Mentarch and some of his braying associates.

All of this will be elaborated on in a future post, research for which is currently being conducted, and not merely via computer keyboard, either.

But the matter really comes down to one of two things: either Mentarch has not done any research other than what can be turned up via a rudimentary Google search, and thus has not "labored" to "stick to the facts", or has done so and is simply ignoring any information that may serve to undercut the case he wants to make about Afghanistan.

Noam Chomsky developed a cogent term for this -- he referred to it as "historical engineering", and reminded his readers of one important fact: it's easier to revise history while it's still being written. And if Mentarch has shown us anything, it's that if you're a "Progressive Historian" for whom the actual "historian" part of that label takes a backseat to the ideology, revising history while it's still in progress really is just the ticket.

But one shouldn't be surprised if someone as abrasively arrogant as Mentarch -- an individual who actually believes he can politicize the very concept of incompetence -- either doesn't understand this, or simply won't admit it.

Sadly, it's all par for the course.

Clearly, Expierence Not Equal to Expertise

Sigh. They make it entirely too easy

Readers of the Nexus -- and holy shit are there ever a lot of you, may recall a post meticulously dissecting a rather foolish post by Matt Bin in which he suggested that Canada should feel obligated to shelter Iraq war resisters because we sheltered Vietnam war resisters during that conflict.

Apparently, Cynic wants to take issue with the fact that anyone would question Bin's expertise in things military:

"First, there was guest poster and military authority Matt Bin, waxing philosophical on the subject of war resisters, a post which has, at this point, collected some 23 comments. Not surprisingly, this was followed in short order by an opposing screed from Axis of Douchebaggery's Patsy Ross, who hilariously -- from the depths of ignorance almost beyond description -- wrote:

"The truth is that if Matt Bin was really such an expert on the military, he would understand a few things about the military."

Hmmmmm ... so, on the one hand, we have Matthew Bin who, according to his bio, "served as a Bombardier in the 11th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, from 1991 to 1994," and is the author of a book on Canada's peacekeeping forces, "On Guard for Thee."[sic]"

And also evidently doesn't know the difference between a volunteer and a conscript. As was half the point of the post.

But this is the peril of individuals like Matt Bin promoting themselves as experts on the military: on occasion, someone will evaluate your claims. And when they don't stand up to scrutiny, the only reasonable thing to do is to question their expertise.

Sadly, experience does not necessarily equal expertise. Matt Bin's recent remarks have panned out to be proof of that.

But it is an interesting look into the mind of Canadian Cynic, wherein apparently you don't question the doctor who's sewing your arms on backwards. By golly, he went to med school -- he simply must know what he's doing.

Federal Funding For Me, Sweet Fuck All For Thee

Heather Mallick reveals the depth of hypocrisy within so-called "women's lobby"

In a story that is slowly starting to grow legs across the blogosphere, Ottawa's First Place Pregnancy Centre is suing Planned Parenthood Ottawa for comments issued in a press release that eventually resulted in First Place withdrawing from the Ottawa's Senators' Better Halves (hockey wives and girlfriends) annual tree raffle.

Along with Kids Help Phone and Harmony House -- an Ottawa-area women's shelter -- First Place was to split up to $150,000 in support of its services. That's no small chunk of change for an organization that receives no government funding.

Yet, when one examines the entire controversy, one uncovers a not-so-subtle layer of controversy under Canada's feminist establishment, wherein they enforce a deeply-ingrained need to attempt to set the public agenda and allow no deviation whatsoever -- even from public organizations.

A significant portion of the tale revolves around author, journalist and activist Heather Mallick's direct intervention in the matter with Sens Foundation Dave Ready.

Before we can get to that, however, it's actually quite interesting to examine the verbal beating that Mallick heaps upon the Sens Better Halves and, in the process, any and all women who choose to date or marry hockey players:

"I hate picking on women. We're born at a disadvantage and in our wild flailing to stay afloat, we make such easy targets. But really, do the wives and girlfriends of the Ottawa Senators have to dress up in matching pink team sweaters and call their ad hoc union "The Better Halves?"

It's bad enough that these women have hooked up with bruised artist-athletes with careers of inevitably brief span, sold by hockey corporations as if they were cans of Spam, shipped around the continent without notice, thus dooming their wives' careers from the start. But must The Better Halves bully young pregnant women during their own brush with greatness? I'd like to ask the nice ladies about this, but these shy creatures are as hard to track down as the tiny, near-extinct, muntjac deer."

It isn't terribly relevant to the topic at hand, and it's because it isn't all that relevant to the topic that the attack on the poor ladies -- who were only trying to support some local charities -- wasn't all that relevant in the first place.

That aside, Mallick took such a personal interest in the matter in which she called up Ready and allegedly took him on a tour of the First Place website, through several links which don't seem to exist on the site. Birth Pangs' blogger Fern Hill insists that the links were later removed from the site (something which actually is in the realm of possibility, but hard to accept without proof that they existed in the first place).

This, like Mallick's attack on the Sens Wives, is actually largely immaterial. What is really of interest here is Mallick's attitudes toward the entire episode:

"The problem is worse than just some hockey fans inadvertently donating to a cause they may oppose — that is a personal issue between a fan and her team (in my case, the Canadiens). What irks is that our tax dollars are involved.

The raffle money is channelled through the Sens Foundation, the team's registered charity arm, which is matching every dollar raised by The Better Halves.

Not only does the foundation, which normally does good — make that wonderful — things appear to be breaking Revenue Canada's rules for charities, it is breaking its own rules.

Both the taxman and the foundation agree that donations can only support registered charities. They can't support "political or lobby" or "advocacy or special interest groups." And they shouldn't."

As it turns out, Mallick is actually wrong about two things.

First off, First Place Pregnancy Centre is a registered charity, as the CBC story later notes.

But Mallick herself seems to be overlooking the fact that, for decades in this country, Status of Women Canada has provided funding to various pro-abortion groups. There is clearly absolutely no question that money came from the pockets of Canadian taxpayers, including taxpayers would probably would not have supported such groups.

Yet Mallick, in an article appearing in Chatelaine magazine, makes it perfectly apparent that she believes that taxpayers should be obligated to support the causes she thinks they should, regardless of whether or not they actually agree with it, when she accuses the Harper government of misogyny over the changes made to Status of Women Canada:

"Stephen Harper has crushed Status of Women. The federal agency no longer fights for "equality," that dirty word having been removed from its mandate. No, this now-puny agency exists "to facilitate women's participation in Canadian society by addressing their economic, social and cultural situation through Canadian organizations."

I don't know what that means – that we can now purchase tampons tax-free at the local Legion Hall? Or get our driveways shovelled gratis? – but it does signal that the Conservatives don't like women, especially the ones who speak up."

Of course, not all Canadians agreed with the means under which the Status of Women operates. Particularly troublesome was the program portion effectively culled from the Status of Women -- advocacy, which comes with a double-shot of zero accountability (no accountability in terms of how money granted for "advocacy" is actually spent, and no accountability for results).

Yet when the government moves to shift funding away from wasteful non-services like "advocacy" toward actual services, Mallick joins the chorus of objections.

Here's where the rampant hypocrisy comes in. When the federal government dumps millions of dollars into programs that often pursue causes that many Canadians wouldn't agree with and fund pet projects by special interest groups, Mallick's OK with it.

But when the Sens Better Halves choose an organization that provides actual services to women, Mallick is opposed to that. Mostly because she's opposed to the service itself:

"They exist solely to prevent abortion," Mallick writes. "Terri Mazik, executive director of First Place, sent out a press release attacking 'our colleagues at Planned Parenthood' for their press release. She says First Place makes its position clear by saying it doesn't do "abortion referrals," ignoring the fact that no one does. Referrals aren't necessary; all anyone needs is to be guided to a phone book."

Which is actually an interesting way for Mallick to ignore the fact that First Place Pregnancy centre is actually very up-front about its stance toward an abortion.

Mallick insists that "Planned Parenthood told me it frequently talks to women who went to these apparently welcoming places for counselling on the three options — abortion, adoption and parenting." (Again, the fact that the centre does not refer women for abortion, and is upfront about it should make this rather curious.) "The group says women report feeling badly treated," she adds. And certainly some of them probably would feel "badly treated" if they went to First Place seeking an abortion referral and didn't receive one.

In fact, when one examines some of the services First Place offers, one notices that they offer post-abortion recovery services for women "experiencing emotional effects after an abortion".

Many pro-abortion activists have made it quite clear what the pro-abortion lobby thinks of the very idea that some women experience depression after an abortion. They deny it, despite the various reports of depression by women who have had abortions and research that has determined that women become more vulnerable to depression following an abortion -- a risk that is much higher for women closer to their due date.

In even suggesting that abortion comes with any sort of risks at all, First Place is waaaay off the reservation in the eyes of Mallick and those who think like her.

As their method of squeezing such organizations out of existence, Mallick and likeminded activists have targeted their sources of funding -- in this case, donations from private organizations.

Yet when their own lobby groups and special interest groups are denied funding, they denounce it as a terrible injustice.

At the end of the day, the matter becomes really simple. If, as Mallick insisted, tax dollars -- whether they be provided directly or through tax deductible donations -- should be kept out of the hands of political lobbies and special interest groups, then this should certainly apply to all political lobbies and special interest groups. It should also apply to the groups that were previously funded through Status of Women, and have recently been cut off from such funds.

Of course, many of these individuals will never simply come out and admit that actions such as those of Planned Parenthood and attitudes such as Heather Mallick's are born out of an ill-conceived notion that they are entitled to a monopoly on the public agenda.

Instead, they want to accuse First Place of spreading libel chill, or want to insist that Planned Parenthood's actions are about forcing a private foundation to be apolitical.

But the fact is that they've become rather smart ideologues. They know that, when you despise the ideas that an organization stands for, the best way to erase it is to deny them funding. Whether for good or ill, that is precisely what they've accomplished in the case of First Place.

Unfortunately, this means that it will be increasingly difficult for First Place to provide services -- real services, much unlike the advocacy whose loss these individuals lament at length -- for women experiencing crisis pregnancies who may not want to choose an abortion.

As is so often the case it's these women -- who are real people, experiencing a crisis pregnancy as a real problem -- that are going to suffer for the ideological wranglings of those who insist they act on their behalf.

To top it off, Mallick and her compatriots have the gall to insist that organizations that provide these services should be denied funding if they operate according to principles considered anathema by the pro-abortion lobby. All while they insist they should be entitled to plethoras of federal funding in order to provide services of no real substance at all.

The hypocrisy is absolutely astounding.

Sheltering Iraq War Resisters is a Bad Idea

Matt Bin puts ideology before reality in plea to support "conscientious objectors"

Yesterday, Canadian Cynic spared some seething space at the Temple of Sycophantic Groupthink for Matt Bin, who has a few things to say about recent decisions reached by the Supreme Court of Canada regarding Iraq war resisters hiding in Canada.

Bin thinks that the government should intervene in the decisions and allow the resisters to stay:

"This week, the Refugee Board ruled that American war resister and Iraq veteran Corey Glass was not eligible for refugee status. He was ordered to leave Canada within 14 days, or face deportment.

Corey signed up with the National Guard in 2002 as a 20-year-old, hoping to do humanitarian work. In his own words:

"When I joined the National Guard, they told me the only way I would be in combat was if there were troops occupying the United States. I signed up to defend people and do humanitarian work filling sandbags if there was a hurricane. ... I should have been in New Orleans, not Iraq."

Yet he was deployed to Iraq in 2005, and when on leave later that year, he attempted to quit the military; when that was unsuccessful, he fled to Canada and applied for refugee status. Since then, the Canadian War Resisters Support Campaign has been working to keep him, and about 100 other known resisters, here in Canada."

It certainly does sound awful when one hears it in Glass' own words. It makes it sound as if he was the victim of a great personal deception -- he signed up to do humanitarian work, then was given an entirely different message altogether.

Yet, for someone who actually reads into the story, what emerges is actually quite different, as it turns out that Glass was working in Military Intelligence:

"In 2005, he was deployed to a U.S. base in Iraq, where he worked in military intelligence.

"Through this job I had access to lots of information about what was happening on the ground in Iraq," he said. "Through what I saw, I realized innocent people were being killed unjustly.""

If Glass himself had really enlisted to be a humanitarian, one would wonder how long that notion persisted once he was assigned to military intelligence.

One wonders what role Glass imagines military intelligence officers would have played in filling sandbags in New Orleans.

Not to mention that there are all kinds of other organizations one can join in order to be a humanitarian without the risk of ever being sent off to war. They just don't pay as well as the Army does.

And while one can certainly empathize with his concern for civilian casualties -- frankly, there would be something wrong with Glass if he weren't disturbed by it -- as it also turns out, Glass did not complete his tour of duty (which he volunteered for):

" He said he tried to quit the military, but his commander told him he was simply suffering from stress and needed downtime, he said.

He went home on leave and said he was not coming back."

There certainly does remain the argument that if Glass was really suffering from stress as much as his commander believed he was, then he should have been honourably discharged.

But he wasn't. It also isn't up to the Canadian government to dictate to the American military who should or should not be honourably discharged from their army.

"So here's a clear-cut chance to demand that Dion and his party show some backbone, stand up to the CPC, and support the motion to make Canada again a safe haven from militarism.

I was a soldier myself. I have friends who are veterans of virtually every foreign mission our military has participated in since 1990. I think that one of the crowning achievements of the Chretien government was to keep us out of the Iraq quagmire -- when there was plenty of pressure on him to send us there (not least of which from Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, who, at the time, actually went around opposing the government, if you can believe). If we refused to send our own men and women there, how can we not protect other countries' men and women from the same fate?"

The truth is that if Matt Bin was really such an expert on the military, he would understand a few things about the military.

Starting with the fact that every soldier serving in the United States military signed up for that service. The various forces of the United States military -- army, air force, navy, marine corps, intelligence -- are volunteer forces.

As such, there are numerous reasons why it simply isn't feasible for the Canadian government to allow Iraq war resisters to take up permanent residence in Canada.

First off, whether we like it or not, it isn't up to the Canadian government to dictate to the American government whether they may send their soldiers -- who, just to reiterate are, like the Canadian forces, volunteered for service -- to war or not.

If individuals like Corey Glass were conscripts, as were those who Canada rightfully sheltered during the Vietnam conflict, that would be another thing. But they aren't, and as Michael Ignatieff reminds us, that makes a big difference:

"Many, many very deep and and close friends of mine when I was an undergraduate at the University of Toronto came up to Canada to resist the draft. A Prime Minister that I very much admire made that a principle for Canada to give refuge to people who, for reasons of conscience, could not serve.

But I think that without pronouncing finally on the issue, I think there are some substantive differences between the situation in the '60s and the situation now. The individuals concerned volunteered for military service. The draft is not involved. Compulsion was not involved in the Iraqi case. I've met some of them personally. They volunteered for service and then came to have moral difficulties which they have every right to have. Now they want to stay.

The difficulty I have is that we are allies of the United States. Being an ally doesn't necessarily mean we approve of their policies in Iraq, but we're shoulder-to-shoulder in Afghanistan.

I'm uncomfortable about saying that people who volunteer for military service for a NATO ally should be given refuge in a country that is also an ally actively involved in combat. I'm not pronouncing finally on this, I'm just trying to be open and honest about my actual difficulty. This is an actual difficulty for me.

I don't want us to sacrifice our tradition of being a country that is a haven for people who have problems of conscience with military service, but I don't see that there is a perfect fit between what we did in the 1960s and what we're being asked for in 2007."

That is, frankly, because there is no perfect fit between the two. And while one can object to the Iraq war (as this author chooses to) for many of the same reasons one objected to Vietnam, to pretend the ordeals being faced by soldiers in each case are the same is utter logical fallacy.

To try to transform the issue into a partisan football under the same guise is simply facetious.

"It's time to help ensure that Canada remains not only a refuge from militarism, but a bastion against militarism. We can regain the moral standing we held throughout the Vietnam War by refusing to send Glass and all the other resisters back to the USA to punishment and, even worse, a forced redeployment to Iraq. We can show that Canada is strong enough to refuse to hold the bully's coat, strong enough to decide our national agenda for ourselves, strong enough to take in these victims of the US empire-building scheme."

Bin clearly vehemently wants to compare Iraq to Vietnam, and insist that the situation is the same. Except that it clearly isn't.

There's a world of difference between enlisting for military service then deciding you object to the conflict of the day and being conscripted into military service when you have no desire to serve.

As Michael Ignatieff notes, if the men were conscripts, that would be one thing. But they made a commitment that they're responsible to uphold.

If Glass had completed his required tour of duty and been stop-lossed, that would also be another thing entirely. He made his commitment, would have fulfilled it, but the American government would have violated their obligation to him.

But he didn't complete his tour, and he wasn't stop-lossed. He made a commitment to the US military, and it isn't up to the Canadian government to tell him that he shouldn't have to fulfill it.

At least Glass can make the claim -- however naive -- that he didn't expect to be shipped to Iraq because that war hadn't started yet. Afghanistan had, and he should have expected to possibly be shipped there, but Iraq was clearly well outside of Glass' expectations.

Not so for Brad McCall. McCall enlisted in the US military in 2006 -- when the war in Iraq had been in progress for three years -- then came to Canada in October 2007 because he "didn't want to kill".

"I don't want to go to Iraq because I don't want to be a war criminal," McCall would insist. "Any participation in the war in Iraq can be punishable as a war crime. The war is a criminal act, in my opinion and many countries' opinion."

McCall, in 2006, knowingly and willingly enlisted in the United States Army while it was fighting a conflict McCall denounces as a war crime, then fled to Canada when it came time to actually ship out.

If McCall really felt so strongly about the war in Iraq, one wonders just what he was doing signing up in the first place.

For his own part, however, "military expert" and "former soldier" Matt Bin seems to think that the government of Canada should be in the business of overlooking the fact that these individuals are volunteers in the first place in order to make a political statement.

"We desperately need the Liberals to take a stand for us, and for all Canadians. A majority of Canadians (64% of Ontarians, in a recent poll) want Canada to keep the resisters safe. The Liberals are the swing party, and their support for the resisters will ensure that these brave men and women will not be forced to return to the US military, and possibly to Iraq. To get the Liberals' support, we need to make sure they know that it's politically safe for them to do so."

What Bin doesn't seem to understand is that it will never be politically safe for the Canadian government to commit such an act.

For one thing, the act would have serious diplomatic consequences with our number one trading and security partner -- consequences that simply cannot be risked without appropriate justification. In the cases of Glass and McCall, at the very least, such risks can't be justified. They made a choice, and have to live with the consequences.

For another thing, such an act would have serious consequences in terms of our government's ability to send our own soldiers to war -- or even into increasingly dangerous peacekeeping operations. If we set the precedent that personnel who voluntarily enlist for military service can simply leave the country when they decide that -- for whatever reasons -- they don't want to serve, our own troops will be able to make the same argument under international law.

And the prospect of the government openly interfering in decisions made by the Supreme Court of Canada are far from the least of our concern. The government can certainly hold whatever opinion it likes regarding this matter. But government decisions are still subject to law. In this case, immigration law.

The broad comparisons struck between Vietnam war resisters and Iraq are poorly considered, and Bin (and those who share his opinion) simply haven't considered the consequences of allowing these individuals -- who volunteered for the service they're dodging -- to stay.

Allowing them to stay is a bad idea.

The Stupidest Fucking Thing in the World To Say

Clinton ices any last slim hopes of being president

If Hillary Clinton had any hope, however slim, of being the Democrat nominee for President -- let alone being elected President -- she has certainly whittled that away with some recent and ridiculously stupid comments made while on the campaign trail.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don't understand it," Clinton noted when asked about the possibility of her dropping out of the race.

Of course, it's hard to believe that comment had nothing to do with the recent health problems befalling the incomparable Senator Ted Kennedy.

Clinton picked the wrong time to try and pander to the Kennedy family, and in the worst possible way.

Clinton's apology aside, it's hard to look at this as anything but the final nail in her campaign's coffin. What a way to throw even the slimmest hope away.

Putting History Back on the Road

Ford restores Terry Fox van

On the same day it was reported that up to 430 manufacturing jobs may be headed the way of the Galaxie, the Ford Motor Company gave Canadians a pretty thoughtful gift.

28 years after the incomparable Marathon of Hope, Ford has restored the 1980 Econoline Van given to Fox as a gift.

While it's probably of little comfort to the Windsor-area workers who will be out of work once Ford sorts out who is and isn't to be laid off, the restoration of the Terry Fox van is priceless beyond words.

Abortion Down in Canada

Good news regardless of which side of the debate you're on

A recently-released Stats Canada report should give Canadians with any amount of interest in the abortion debate reason to smile today, as it's been revealed that abortions in Canada declined in 2005.

In 2004, 100,039 were performed in Canada. In 2005, 96,815 abortions were performed -- a decline of 3.2%.

Most encouragingly, the number of abortions performed on women under the age of 20 continued to decline. In 2004 13.8 women in this age group out of every 1000 had obtained an abortion. In 2005, the number was reduced to 13 -- a reduction of nearly one abortion per 1000 women (it may not seem like much, but it does add up).

The abortion rate amongst this age group of women has been declining steadily since 1996 -- the year in which that rate peaked at 18.9.

This is good news for anyone with any amount of interest in the abortion debate, regardless of whether they hold pro-abortion or anti-abortion views.

However, the findings do have implications for the way the debate will continue to be framed. Previous studies reveal that the lower numbers are due not to teenagers having less sex, but rather due to teenagers having less unprotected sex.

Those who also oppose birth control will find their lives made significantly more difficult. After all, if abortion really is as morally repugnant as they insist it is, they should approve of -- or at least be willing to tolerate -- anything that leads to a reduction in abortion. It's very simple logic.

And while abstinence education certainly does have a place in sex-ed classrooms (but never at the expense of education on birth control and contraception), the idea of "programming" teenagers and regulating their lives so they cannot have sex will never work.

Where there's a will, there's a way. If teenagers are going to continue to have sex -- and in a society as sexualized (be it for good or ill) as ours we simply know they will -- we would be better served to ensure they're having it as safely as possible.

The continuing decline in abortion numbers is proof enough of that. It's something for all Canadians to feel encouraged about. Anti-abortion activists should feel encouraged that fewer abortions are being performed. Pro-abortion activists should be satisfied that birth control and contraception may one day make the abortion controversy itself obsolete -- although those days (if they ever arrive) are way off in the distant future.

And while abortion will continue to pose key ethical dilemmas to our society (dilemmas regarding, for example, how late women will be allowed to obtain abortions, and what methods can be used), it should be a source of comfort for Canadians to know the realities underlying the issue are moving in what very much should be a mutually satisfying direction.

It's Because they Lie. All the Time. Redux

But what's a little white lie between hate mongering demagogues?

If there's any trait Canadian Cynic likes to pretend he values, it's honesty. After all, he spends so much timeg excoriating other bloggers for their alleged lack of honesty, one begins to imagine: yep, by golly, that Cynic sure cares about it. Why, one would have to expect that he, himself, should be quite an honest guy.

Think again.

Normally, Cynic settles for ordinary, run-of-the-mill intellectual dishonesty. But in the comments section of a recent post, Cynic has apparently decided that mere implicit dishonesty has jumped the shark, and instead decides to outright lie:

"Oh, for fuck sakes, kids, let me help you out. Patsy Ross has made it abundantly clear, on at least one previous occasion, that he unequivocally supports the murder of medical professionals that perform abortions."

Really? Is it really so?

Nope. Not by a longshot.

In fact, here at the Nexus, I've been rather explicit in regards to the topic of those who target abortion clinics for attack. In several posts.

Like here:

"Consider this latest episode over the alleged brutality of the anti-abortion movement (actually only the brutality of a small number of anti-abortion activists, but brutality nonetheless).

So, I told Lulu I'd see her fundamentalist terrorism, and raise her blogmate's own amusement over the injuries inflicted on one Ed Snell."

"Fundamentalist terrorism"? Why, one hardly approves of someone's actions if they're willing to describe them as "terrorism"!

Again here:

"as I've said, the amount of violence directed at abortion clinics and abortion doctors is entirely unacceptable. I'm even willing to denounce it for what it is -- terrorism."

"Entirely unacceptable"? That sure doesn't sound very supportive!

And again in the comments section here:

"Now I'm not going to suggest that the violence being perpetrated against abortion clinics should be applauded. As I've mentioned before, it's contemptible, and should be criticized."

"Contemptible"? Why that isn't supportive at all!

And here:

"I regard the murder or attempted murders of clinic workers and patients as crimes at best and terrorist acts at worst."

"Crimes at best"? "Terrorist acts at worst"?

That's pretty explicit -- just like the lies being peddled by Canadian Cynic and his pack of mindless hyenas.

Now, this unfortunately brings us back -- once again -- to the Ed Snell affair. A matter which, as much as they dishonestly insist otherwise, this hateful flock of parrots refuses to let die.

Liberal Supporter continues to demand a yes or no answer to a question that -- as seen above -- has clearly and explicitly been answered as an excuse to throw a rhetorical handgrenade into a debate that they can't win on moral grounds, at least not as they insist on contesting it -- in refusing to admit that what was done to Snell was wrong.

Yet at least one of them -- the esteemed Dr Dawg -- did manage to figure out what the issue really is, and was able to do what his compatriots could not -- emerge a moral winner in the debate:

"As I understand it, the Snell assault was perpetrated by the boyfriend accompanying a woman into the clinic. There is no evidence that he was a pro-choice activist--just a guy royally pissed off at having his girlfriend called filthy names by a mad, drooling Bible-basher.

That doesn't excuse his pushing Snell off the car roof."

And while the relevance of whether or not Richardson was a pro-abortion activist or not to so many members of the pro-abortion lobby's applause of his actions, and that of assumptions about what Snell may or may not have said to provoke it are another matter entirely, Dawg is the only one of them with the moral wherewithall to figure it out:

What Richardson did is inexcusable.

Moreover, he's the only one with the moral courage to actually come out and say it.

And how do the sycophants at the Groupthink Temple insist on trying to conceal their lack of moral clarity and cowardice?

By changing the subject, and repeatedly lying in order to do so.

If it hadn't become so utterly standard of their conduct by now, one would almost be surprised. Unfortunately, it's become the standard modus operandi over at the Groupthink Temple. No one is surprised by it any longer.

Mr Popularity Says "No Mas!"

Word to the wise: never start what you can't finish

One almost has to hand it to Canadian Cynic: when he's taking a savage ass-kicking, he can stay in it as long as anyone.

Take, for example, the Wanda Watkins affair. Everyone -- Cynic himself as much as anyone -- knew he was wrong. And despite the breadth and depth of the black eye he inflicted upon himself, simple hubris prevented him from ever admitting it. He's taken nearly a full year of kicks in the pants over it, and remains as petulant as ever. It's not terrible surprising. It's his style. Frankly, it would be surprising if he did admit fault.

But when he's had enough, it's easy to tell when he's had enough. It's usually about the time he starts deleting comments that reveal what a contemptible hypocrite he is.

Not unlike a lot of demagogues, Cynic has proven that he simply cannot stand it when the same light that he uses to cast shadows upon other people is directed back at him.

In this case, the tipping point seems to be -- once again -- the shameful Ed Snell affair, in which Cynic and his cohorts bent over backwards to excuse an assault perpetrated against 69-year-old Ed Snell by the 23-year-old Nathan Richardson. And an obfuscatory hand grenade lobbed by Liberal Supporter, one of Cynic's doubly contemptible sycophants (it's hard to be more contemptible than Canadian Cynic, but this particular cretin manages to accomplish that task with seemingly no effort at all).

The episode in question actually begins with not one but two examples of incredible facetiousness and stupidity from Cynic and one of his blogmates.

Which clearly drew blood, because Cynic responded by doing what Cynic always does when his pride is legitimately wounded: desperately grasping at straws to try and draw even.

But if anything, Cynic has wholly overestimated the noted docility of many of his targets -- all too many of whom have become entirely resigned to his anonymous abuses. Faced with an opponent who refuses to cave in, refuses to give away, and refuses to play nice, the allegedly vaunted intellect of his parrots (read: commenters) is revealed to basically be non-existent.

Take for example, Liberal Supporter, who insists on asking questions that have already been answered -- namely, whether or not I myself approve of attacks on abortion clinics. The motive of this isn't, of course, to uncover some kind of shocking new revelation about my attitudes -- I've made no bones of my contempt for terrorists of all stripes -- but merely to obscure the issue by changing the frame of the debate.

It's extremely indicative of the consummate arrogance of these individuals that they believe they can throw such a grenade into a debate and demand that someone throw themselves upon it. But when someone refuses to answer such a question, and instead challenges someone on the original topic -- why those who condemn violence against perpetrated by the other side of a debate would excuse and applaud violence perpetrated by their own.

But when the target stops playing by what they pretend the rules are and start playing by the same rules as Cynic and his commenters, it all goes downhill from there, as they realize they really have no way out: either start debating, or back out slowly.

Which tends to necessitate interventions of the sort Cynic has indulged himself in this case.

But as virtually everything regarding Cynic does, this begins and ends with a fundamental inability to be honest. It begins and ends with a fundamental inability to admit what this entire thing is about in the first place.

It remains about what it's always been about: someone stood up to him, and like any common bully, he simply cannot stand it.

It wasn't about right or wrong -- Cynic tried to justify his attack on Wanda Watkins by citing other equally-shameful attacks on Cindy Sheehan, while never explaining what it is that he believes excuses such behaviour from himself. Similarly, Cynic refuses to acknowledge the criticisms offered to other people who cross the line. Oddly, some of them -- such as Wendy Sullivan -- seem far better equipped to accept those criticisms than Cynic himself would like people to believe. Others -- like Neo Conservative and Kate McMillan -- are no different from Cynic (yet another uncomfortable truth Cynic is unlikely to own up to).

So what's it really about? We actually do know the answer to this question.

Cynic would like people to believe that his opponents are all slavering, rabid right-wingers, full of hatred for anyone and everyone who doesn't fit the mold they would like to impose on Canadian society. Cynic would like people to believe it's about a clash between so-called progressive values and so-called conservative values.

Yet when someone takes issue with him who doesn't fit the rabid right-winger label that Cynic claims is the target of his hatred -- when someone stands up to him who actually holds more progressive values than he does -- he makes it entirely obvious what it's really about.

It's all personal. It's about this self-perceived right to attack people, promote hatred, trample the values he claims to stand by, corrode the social contract that makes a healthy democracy viable, assassinate character, and attempt to harass his political opponents into silence.

More pointedly, it's about the destruction of the bonds of mutual respect and obligation that make a healthy democracy possible in the first place.

It's rather amusing that Cynic would pretend to say anything with the "utmost respect", as that's what the issue is fundamentally about: respect. Or, more pointedly, disrespect.

To those unfamiliar with the actual concept the word "respect" embodies, lack of respect and disrespect are actually very different things, in the sense that disrespect is very much intentional.

There was once a time when the criticism offered here at the Nexus was actually for Cynic's own good. It was offered in the vain hope that he would realize that what Cynic did to Wanda Watkins was wrong, and would do the right thing and apologize.

But that was a long, long time ago. Now, this issue is all about disrespect, and it's fucking mutual.

Coming Soon to An Election Near You

Senate elections coming to Saskatchewan

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Bert Brown to the Senate, Brown became the second elected "Senator-in-waiting" appointed to the Red Chamber. The first was Stan Waters, who was reluctantly appointed by Brian Mulroney after winning an election.

With Senate elections in Alberta proving to be a modest success -- to date, only two elected Senators have been appointed, and in 2004 20% of Albertans chose to spoil their Senatorial ballot -- it was only a matter of time before Senate elections came to other provinces.

British Columbia followed Alberta's lead in 1997, although it has yet to hold a single Senatorial election. As of this fall, the Land of Living Skies is apparently going to become the third.

"I have always found it troubling that our Senate has been appointed rather than elected," said Saskatchewan party MLA, Justice Minister and Attorney General. "So when the opportunity started to manifest itself that we could have the potential for elected senators without going through full constitutional reform, I thought 'this is a good idea.' Our premier thought it was a good idea, so we started to go forward with it."

This follows a bill introduced by Harper that would implement the system on a federal basis -- a bill that has seemingly made little progress despite significant public support.

Naturally, there are those who don't like the idea of reforming Canada's aristocratic branch of government. In particular, Liberal leader Stephane Dion dismissed the bill as "completely, completely irresponsible."

For their own part, the NDP want to outright abolish the Senate -- a move that would actually come with some rather frightening implications.

If resistance to Senate reform continues to be so fierce, the only way to accomplish this worthy and necessary goal may be province-by-province.

The province of Saskatchewan should be applauded for making this bold move. The opportunity to elect Senators in Saskatchewan is as overdue as anywhere else in the country (exempting, naturally, Alberta).

Bravo, Saskatchewan.

Unrepentant Old Hippie: Reporting From the Land of Oz

Opponents to Bill C-484 continue to live in a fantasy world

One really has to hand it to Canada's pro-abortion lobby: they really are determined to live in a fantasy world, and nothing -- nothing -- can shake them out of it.

Readers of the Nexus may recall some recent flights of fantasy from Joyce Arthur, the coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, wherein Arthur promoted hysteria surrounding the Bill.

In a post today, JJ -- also known as the Unrepentant Old Hippie -- chooses to indulge herself in her own flight of pure fantasy, in which she suggests that, by golly, proponents of Bill C-484 just can't explain how Bill C-484 would protect pregnant women:

"Oh, I'm boiling over now. Yeoww! I just read an editorial that ran a few days ago in the Ottawa Citizen, written by MP Ken Epp, sponsor of the nefarious Bill C-484 (aka the Kicking Abortion's Ass bill). In the article, Epp wondered why pro-choicers would be so anxious about his harmless little Kicking Abortion's Ass bill. He huffed:

"There is something seriously wrong with our system when the so-called "right" to end a pregnancy takes away another pregnant woman's right to have her wanted baby protected in law."

Fetus fetishists foamed and frothed and cheered, and who could blame them -- that's one of the greatest PR slogans since "Coke Is It". Short, emotive and completely devoid of substance. That's why those who support this odious bill are never able to respond when asked to elaborate on just how Bill C-484 protects a woman and/or her fetus. No substance, no answer forthcoming."

Oh, no?

Perhaps it would shock JJ to find out that the -- extremely simple -- answer to that question has been provided. In fact, it's been provided right here:

"If individuals like [Gary] Bourgeois had to worry about facing charges related to crimes against two victims, the deterrent would be that much stronger.

What, after all, would make a stronger deterrent: a few extra years in jail for crimes against a single victim? Or (providing that consecutive sentencing is instituted) 26 years for crimes against two victims?"

And here:

"to pretend that Bill C-484 will do nothing to reduce violence ignores the very principles upon which criminal law protects society: punishment, rehabilitation and deterrent.

Under current law, an individual who kills an unborn child without killing the mother will be charged with aggravated assault at worst. Under Bill C-484, that individual would be charged with murder, which covers a much higher penalty, and thus a greater deterrent. It certainly won't prevent all violence against pregnant women and their unborn children, but it will be a start."

This principle remains rather simple: in Canada, aggravated assault carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.

Murder, on the other hand, carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. First degree murder, in particular, carries a penalty of an automatic life sentence with no eligibility of parole for 25 years.

Under Bill C-484, an individual who attacks a pregnant woman and kills her child without killing her would be charged with at least a count of aggravated assault (against the mother) and murder (to whatever degree applicable) against her unborn child.

Thus, the deterrent is much stronger.

This particular point really uncovers the implicit irony in JJ's argument: she insists that no proponent of Bill C-484 has explained how the bill would help protect women -- a claim that is categorically false.

"Here's the substance, baby, the meat of the matter: Bill C-484 does nothing, diddly, squat, nada to protect a woman's wanted baby, and any rhetoric about the "protection" this bill provides is nothing but a steaming load of bullshit of the highest order. All C-484 does, and all it was ever meant to do, is give the fetus post-mortem recognition as a victim of a crime. From there it's a short hop to fetal personhood rights, and then the contentious issue of whose rights trump in the event of an unwanted pregnancy."

Yet, JJ and her ilk have yet to explain to anyone how the bill wouldn't protect women, and have yet to explain how some of their propositions -- in particular, universal child care -- would.

Furthermore, in the United States, 37 states have enacted Fetal Homicide Bills, and they have yet to lead to a wholesale outlawing of abortion as the pro-abortion movement insists that it would.

But that's the appeal of living in a fantasy world: one can pretend that such simple facts aren't so -- a luxury individuals like JJ wouldn't enjoy if they were to wake up to the real world.

Talking Themselves to Death, Bloggy Edition

Just because you can produce a talk radio show doesn't mean you should

For the last several days, the internet has been abuzz with the vicious ass-whipping delivered to Kevin James, a talk radio host.



James' irredeemable stupidity aside, as well as Chris Matthews' blatant oversimplification of the issue at hand (talking to terrorists is one thing, but the notion of negotiating is another entirely and in the absence of negotiation, is there really much point? This is a valid question), the matter quickly becomes a cautionary tale.

Just because you can go on broadcast media and shout yourself hoarse doesn't mean you should. At the very least, someone should stop and think for a couple of seconds before they do that.

Take, for example, Brass Balls Radio, a new online talk radio show being offered by Girl on the Right's Wendy Sullivan. The internet has continually offered those so inclined more and more tools to express themselves in various media formats.

But just because someone can express themselves in these formats doesn't mean they shouldn't stop for thirty seconds and think about it before they do.

The inaugural program, recorded on May 17, and co-hosted with Mike Williams, is an agonizing, amateurish mish-mash of thoughtless throw-away comments.

"I hear Nancy Pelosi is in Iraq, I think she's fighting with the Taliban although I'm not sure," Sullivan says at one point. "It's kind of funny considering she was in Israel the other day. I think it's quite possible that she just stole secrets and sold them to little brown people."

"Are you saying, then, that her lips are not filled with collagen? That they're filled with C-4 and she's smuggling it across the border?" she asks her co-host.

"She could be injecting C-4 in her ass, too," Williams replies. "That's unconfirmed."

"You know I've never really looked at her from behind and I'm OK with that," Sullivan adds. "She's got an OK face, considering it's made of some of Cher's ex-body parts."

On one hand, someone could certainly write such comments off as the "unavoidable humour" Sullivan promises at the start of the broadcast. On the other hand, the comments really do speak for themselves.

"When your parents are babyboomers, the most spoiled generation in history -- the first generation to have colour TV, and two cars in the driveway, the first generation to go to University -- they just don't know how to live in the real world," Sullivan insists. "They've never been hungry. They've never had to work for a living. They had everything handed to them."

"We've had the hedonistic generation and in my lifetime, mercifully, they're going to die," Sullivan adds.

If there was any substance following such comments, one would consider some response other than "holy shit".

When Sullivan and Williams finally get down to discussing some things that they probably imagine has some substance, they don't do much better for themselves.

"I don't think we should have sent more troops into Iraq, I think we should have sent hookers," Sullivan latter opines. "I think we should have sent planes full of prostitutes to just calm them the fuck down."

This is shortly after dismissing Islam as a religion of "sex and death", and before recategorizing Islam as a "dangerous, dangerous religion of sex and death."

"Seriously, they need to get laid," Sullivan adds. "Islam needs to get laid. Not by force like they usually do -- because really, don't have a Muslim at a party where girls are drinking, trust me."

"Whenever you see religions of sex and death the FBI is usually busting them up. How come marrying off children and polygamy is only illegal when white people are doing it?" Sullivan asks.

"It's only illegal when the white guy does it," Sullivan complains. "But when a brown guy marries off his 12-year-old daughter to some Pakistani she's never met or has sex with her -- but only anally to keep her virginity -- or has four wives (which, here in Ontario, they're all collecting welfare for their wives -- isn't that nice? Welfare for four wives! All of them! Get a job or get out), it's not illegal, it's their culture!"

"Only illegal when the white guy does it," Sullivan concludes.

And this is only if one can get through the agonizing extended discussion of what computers they have. Good grief.

One would think that they would have stopped to think for about thirty seconds before opening their mouths. After all, it isn't as if there are people out to get them.

Talk radio has been almost overwhelmingly dominated by conservative commentators over the past several years. But unfortunately, all too many of these commentators -- Kevin James, Wendy Sullivan and Mike Williams alike -- are simply talking themselves, and any credibility they would wish to lay claim to, to death.

A Conservative Who's Funny, And They Can't Stand It

Yet somehow a faux-Progressive who's a hypocrite is A-OK

If one were to look up "predictable" in the dictionary, one would most likely find a picture of Canadian Cynic -- well, that is if he weren't too cowardly to show his face in public.

But sometimes they do manage to surprise. For example, when Cynic decided to launch another one of his pathetic little spitballs in the general direction of the Nexus today, he could have addressed the two examples of brazen stupidity picked from his site yesterday.

Instead, Cynic wants to take issue with a post noting John McCain's considerable deftness with humour, and (predictably) does it in the most hypocritical way:

"Oh, yawn ... apparently, the Twatrick is back, trolling desperately for readers in the comments sections here since no one will read his litter box of a blog. But here's Patsy in a recent post:

But even at 72 years of age, [Sen. John McCain] is still young at heart -- with the sense of humour of a man half his age.

Especially when he calls his wife a "cunt," right, Patsy? Apparently, that's cool if you're a conservative, is that how it works? Quite the role model you have there, Patsy. I guess calling someone a "cunt" is cause for sweaty pearl-clutching only if the speaker is a moonbat leftard. How utterly unsurprising."

Now first off, Cynic seems to be having some reality-related issues.

But beyond that: oh, goodness! John McCain used the C-word!

But wait... one remembers someone else using it too... now who might that have been?

Oh, yes. That's right. It was Cynic. And not just once, either.

One might think that Lulu, the Groupthink Temple's resident hatemonger-ette, might take exception to that.

Nope, not in the slightest.

Of course, one can almost hear the lame excuses already:

"But, but, but... that's different!"

Sure it is. But Cynic can rest well assured: soon enough his picture will be immortalized in the dictionary beside "hypocrite", as well. Also, "pathetic".

Joyce Arthur Continues Down the Yellow Brick Road

Abortion Rights Coalition coordinator continues to peddle hysteria, disinformation, false choice

Ever since the debate surrounding Bill C-484 -- the unborn victims of crime bill -- has intensified, one thing that has stood the test of time is the pro-abortion lobby's refusal to engage in honest debate on the topic.

For her own part, the Coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (and self-Googler) Joyce Arthur has continued to take her message to the places where it will receive the least possible scrutiny -- in this case, an article in Edmonton's Vue Weekly.

The article starts off rather predictably:

"In March, a new law that gives fetuses legal personhood passed second reading in the House of Commons. This bill threatens both abortion rights and the rights of women in general."

Arhur certainly wants her readers to believe so. What follows is nothing more than a folly of hysteria, disinformation and false choice.

"Bill C-484, the 'Unborn Victims of Crime Act,' creates a separate offence for injuring or killing a fetus when a pregnant woman is attacked. The language of the bill is unprecedented, basically transforming fetuses and embryos into persons with rights. The bill has a clause that specifically negates the Criminal Code definition of 'human being.' Currently, a child becomes a human being when it has exited the birth canal alive, but Bill C-484 says this definition is not a defence for injuring or killing a fetus. In other words, the fetus is a human being under Bill C-484."

Arthur is, unfortunately, right about this. The Canadian criminal code arbitrarily states that an unborn child is not a person until it is born alive.

That law is written. However, just because a law is written doesn't mean it's right or just.

Canadian law has adhered to other arbitrary definitions of personhood before. In particular, Canadian law once only recognized wealthy white individuals with penises as persons (read: property-owning white males).

It took long, hard agitation on behalf of various "radicals" such as Nellie McClung and Carrie Derrick in order to change that unjust legal issue.

Ironically, it's taking long and hard agitation on behalf of others, now being dismissed as "radicals" (as if radicalism is now such a bad thing) who would likely insist they're anything but radical.

"The bill does contain an exemption for “lawful” abortion, and exempts pregnant women themselves from prosecution for harming their fetuses."

It's good to hear the pro-abortion lobby finally acknowledge this, but unfortunately, they've only insisted on engaging in protracted rhetorical gymnastics in order to argue around this simple fact.

"However, the bill sets a very dangerous precedent because it can be used as authority to give more rights to fetuses in new contexts. For example, legislators can cite the act to justify re-criminalizing abortion. Judges could interpret other laws meant for protecting children to compel pregnant women to meet a standard of care for their fetuses."

Of course, those people who are actually familiar with the bill itself know this to be untrue.

Certainly, legislators could attempt to cite the bill as justification for re-criminalization of abortion -- something an admittedly disturbing number of grassroots social conservatives support -- but they would still have to pass a law to actually recriminalize abortion, which would have to pass not only through Parliament (in itself an unlikely feat), but also through several committees (a doubly unlikely feat), and the Senate (something almost entirely implausible).

Any Judges who felt so compelled certainly could try to interpret other laws in such a way -- but they could not use Bill C-484 in order to do it, because it explicitly exempts any act of omission or commission on behalf of the mother.

Even if a Judge did try to set such a precedent, it would still have to pass through several appeals -- including, inevitably, one before the Supreme Court.

The likelihood of such a ruling surviving is extremely slim. Not only did the Supreme Court of Canada set the precedent that fetuses do not qualify as persons until they exit the birth canal, but Canadian courts have consistently set precedents that are alarmingly dismissive of the victimization of the unborn child.

If Bill C-484 really does pose such an imminent threat to women, that threat certainly won't come about as a result of the acts of legislators or courts.

As for Arthur's point about compelling women to "meet a standard of care for their fetuses" (read: unborn children), one would wonder why Arthur and her ilk are so opposed to something as implicitly reasonable as that.

"So-called “fetal homicide” laws in the United States have been used primarily to target pregnant women—not third parties as the laws intended. Hundreds of American women have been arrested under fetal homicide laws, or under child endangerment laws that cite a fetal homicide law as authority. Most of these women are poor minority women, and have drug or alcohol abuse problems. But some women have also been charged with murder after suffering a stillbirth, in one case after not following a doctor’s recommendation to have a Caesarean section. Is this the road we want to go down in Canada?"

Once again, all of this falsely assumes that Canadian law operates according to the same nuances as American law. Simply not so.

Beyond that, many of the cases sited by the pro-abortion lobby in support of this point are promoted under extremely dubious interpretations.

In most of these cases, the women charged and prosecuted were either knowingly and willingly using drugs or alcohol while pregnant -- something that, quite frankly, Canadian law should address.

In one particular cited case from 1973, Claudia Tucker chose to shoot herself in the abdomen in order to terminate an eight month pregnancy. She (a mother of two) would later claim she didn't know she was pregnant until after it was too late to get an abortion. But in the United States women are allowed to seek abortions until their pregnancy has reached 23 weeks.

It's impossible to believe that a woman pregnant twice previously wouldn't know the signs of pregnancy until it was too late.

And this is only one example of the extreme intellectual dishonesty under which Joyce Arthur and like minded pro-abortion zealots have resorted to in order to push their agenda.

"Bill C-484 conflicts not only with the Criminal Code definition of human being, but with important legal precedents. The Supreme Court of Canada has decisively ruled in several cases that fetuses are not legal persons, and a woman and her fetus are 'physically one.' We cannot compromise women’s established constitutional rights in order to give rights to fetuses. Creating a legal separation between a pregnant woman and her fetus has tragic and punitive results. For example, pregnant women in the US will forego pre-natal care completely if they fear arrest for drug abuse."

In the same vein, however, for generations British Common law treated women and children as the property of their husbands. Because the British Constitution is unwritten and exists only in the form of various legal precedents, emancipating the legal status of women from their husbands very much did compromise what was considered a Constitutional right of British men -- and Canadian men as well, seeing as how the Canadian constitution wasn't repatriated until 1982.

Very few proper-thinking people will pretend that the lack of legal recognition of women as persons wasn't unjust. To claim it's any less unjust to explicitly define other human beings as "not persons" is an absolute embarrassment to the social tradition of feminism.

Perhaps such mothers will decline to seek pre-natal care in order to dodge responsibility for the harm they're doing their children. But law should still have mechanisms in place to take children from such clearly unfit parents.

"We all want to protect pregnant women from violence, but this bill is the wrong tool, and unnecessary. Judges already have the discretion to apply harsher penalties in these cases, and they have done so. But what’s really needed are substantive measures to prevent domestic violence, including more supports for abused women, more public education and better enforcement of existing criminal laws against violence."

But, as already shown, not only does the law not recognize the second victim. Considering that -- as the Olivia/Lane Talbot (Jr) case shows us -- unborn children can be targeted quite deliberately, it is simply logically remiss to pretend an unborn child can't be a victim.

What Joyce Arthur is actually proposing here is a false choice. She suggests that Canadian law can either prosecute crimes committed against unborn children -- and if they can be deliberately targeted (as the Gary Bourgeois case also confirms) they can be victims -- or address domestic abuse issues.

But this is a false choice because Canadian law faces no such law -- it can (and should) do both.

"We need a range of equality-advancing programs and policies that would help women leave abusive relationships, such as measures to reduce poverty, racism and economic inequality, as well as a childcare program. But these are all the things that the Harper government is not doing, or has reduced or taken away outright."

Certainly, these are all things that Arthur must believe Canadians need. Some of them (poverty reduction measures, racism reduction, and assisting women in leaving abusive relationships certainly are) but how some of these things -- particularly child care -- would help reduce crimes committed against pregnant women and, by extension, their unborn children, Arthur would have to elaborate on more than a little.

"Prime Minister Harper promised that a Conservative government would not legislate on abortion, but this is exactly what is happening, not just with Bill C-484, but with two other Conservative private member bills introduced last fall. Bill C-338 would re-criminalize abortion by prohibiting abortions after 20 weeks gestation. Bill C-537 would guarantee the 'right' of medical personnel to refuse to provide medical care for religious reasons, which would mostly restrict women’s ability to access contraception and abortion care."

First off, however, recent polls have found that 72% of Canadians favour some regulation of abortion. A previous poll found that 64% of Canadians support legally protecting the fetus before birth (although they disagreed about at what point of the pregnancy this protection would begin).

Furthermore, Arthur once again chooses to discard honesty in order to promote her argument. Putting a time limit in place of abortion would actually put Canada in line with other countries where abortion limits have been put in place, yet have failed to result in an outright criminalization (or re-criminalization) of abortion.

But Arthur's opposition to legislation such as Bill C-537 really shows what the issue is about for Canada's "pro-choice" movement, and it certainly isn't about choice. If the issue were really about choice, they would support the right of physicians to not perform procedures they find ethically objectionable.

To pretend that such a bill would limit access to contraception is specious at best and facetious at worst. The bill would do nothing to limit a woman's access to other doctors -- doctors willing to prescribe contraception as sought -- nor would it prevent access to contraception in a day and age when condoms are available in virtually every corner store, and in the bathrooms of (often less-than-reputable) gas stations.

"Bill C-484 is a radical bill because it positions the fetus as a woman’s co-equal. By focusing on fetuses, not injured pregnant women, the bill is offensive to the full humanity of all women, not just pregnant women. The not-so-hidden agenda of the bill is to recognize the 'rights of the unborn' so that abortion can be restricted in the future. Indeed, fetal personhood is a long-standing objective of the anti-abortion movement."

Frankly, the idea that fetuses cannot be allowed to have any rights of any form is offensive to the full -- and indisputable -- humanity of unborn children. The very full -- and indisputable -- humanity that the pro-abortion (not pro-choice) movement moves rhetorical heaven and earth to deny when they dismiss fetuses as "nothing but a clump of cells", as opposed to the human life that it is.

"Only about 20 organizations across Canada officially support Bill C-484, and every last one of them is right-wing, religious and/or anti-abortion.

Not a single mainstream women’s group supports the bill. But the 100 groups opposing the bill so far are diverse: they include anti-violence groups, women’s shelters, medical organizations, legal associations, drug policy groups, labour unions, anti-racist groups and a broad range of women’s groups. None of these groups were even consulted on the bill before it was introduced by a Conservative, anti-abortion MP. They oppose the bill now because they know it won’t work to reduce violence against women. They already know that the best way to protect fetuses is to guarantee the rights and safety of pregnant women, because when a pregnant woman is safe, so is her fetus."

Arthur is again indulging herself in protracted intellectual dishonesty. To pretend that the opposition to Bill C-484 is more legitimate because it comes from such "diverse" groups is a specious claim.

Not only do the varying groups that Arthur cites not truly represent a diversity of opinion on any particular topic, but often they possess significant overlap of membership.

But to pretend that Bill C-484 will do nothing to reduce violence ignores the very principles upon which criminal law protects society: punishment, rehabilitation and deterrent.

Under current law, an individual who kills an unborn child without killing the mother will be charged with aggravated assault at worst. Under Bill C-484, that individual would be charged with murder, which covers a much higher penalty, and thus a greater deterrent. It certainly won't prevent all violence against pregnant women and their unborn children, but it will be a start.

No one rejects the idea that Canada needs stronger laws to address domestic abuse. But to pretend that the fruits of ideology could supplant one of the basic underlying principles of criminal law is utter folly.

To pretend that Canadian law should cave in to hysteria, disinformation and false choice is the height of such folly.

John McCain (Barely) Not Acting His Age

McCain out"hipping" his younger opponents

It would be a severe exaggeration to suggest that American pop culture lives and breathes by Saturday Night Live. This has been the case before -- twice before, and ever-so-briefly on each occasion -- but certainly not now.

That being said, John McCain continued to beat his two younger potential opponents to the pop culture punch this week, as he appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live.



Of course, not even American comedy lives and breathes by Saturday Night Live. If anything, the America comedy world orbits around Jon Stewart's The Daily Show (which, to date, has produced comedy superstars like Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell, and up-and-coming stars like John Oliver and Rob Corddry).

McCain has appeared on the Daily Show more often than any other guest (11 times).

McCain's certainly joking when he asserts that he has "the oldness" to defend and honour America (although, if such a trait were required, he certainly has it). But even at 72 years of age, he's still young at heart -- with the sense of humour of a man half his age.

The Apologetic Government

Harper government to apologize twice more

Rarely have the words "I'm sorry" come so easily to a government.

When Stephen Harper raises in Parliament on 11 June to deliver an apology for the abuses that took place in Canada's Residential Schools, he will deliver the third major apology of his tenure in office.

On 22 June, 2006, Harper apologized for the Chinese Head Tax. On 26 January, 2007, Harper apologized to Maher Arar for the rendition ordeal he experienced as a result of the RCMP's disclosure of inaccurate information.

Harper's apology for the Residential School travesty won't even be his last. It's recently been revealed that Harper will also deliver an apology for the Komagata Maru incident of 1914.

While these apologies -- all of them long, long overdo (with the exception of the Maher Arar apology, which was delivered fairly promptly) -- certainly don't erase historical injustice, they're a worthwhile first step on the road to recovery.

While some people naturally won't like it, these apologies are necessary.

Good for Stephen Harper (good for Canada).

And Here's a Second Daily Dose of Stupid

Apparently, Cynic doesn't know who Stephane Dion is

In other Sycophantic Groupthink Temple-related news, those paying attention to that particular tragic band of mindless douchebags has probably noticed a recent hard-on Cynic has had for Sandy and her numerous recountings of the Harper government's accomplishments.

And while Cynic seems hell-bent on continually obscuring the record by whining about all the things this government has done that he doesn't like -- like existing -- he's taken it upon himself to confirm for the rest of us that he might not even know who Stephane Dion actually is:

"Here's a thought, Sandy -- perhaps Stephane Dion DIDN'T GET IT DONE simply because, unlike Stephen Harper and his gang of neo-con fuckwits, he's never led the governing party of Canada. Or is that difference a little too far beyond your intellectual grasp?"

Of course, what the perennially-dishonest Cynic is (most likely intentionally) overlooking is precisely what Michael Ignatieff was bringing to Liberals' attention when he noted that they "didn't get it done" on climate change:

Stephane Dion was Canada's Minister of the Environment for more than a year-and-a-half from July 2004 until February 2006.

What did Dion, as the Minister responsible for implementing the Kyoto protocol -- ratified by Canada in December 2002 -- do to actually implement it?

The answer: like his predecessor, David Anderson, sweet fuck all.

This has been another "accuracy in blogging" moment.

Moral Puritans of the Hateful Left Redux

Surprise! Conservatives like sex, too

In a post today at the Canadian Cynic Temple of Sycophantic Groupthink, Groupthinking High Preistess Lulu wants to take issue with Mesopotamia West's Frank and some "erotica" he published on his blog.

Now, as it turns out, the story in question is actually some excessively tame stuff.

But this whole tale -- a rather pitiful excuse for criticism -- really just goes to show you that maybe these douchebags at the Groupthink Temple just don't know what the internet is for in the first place:

Clinton's Foreign Policy Casts Shadow Over Potential Superticket

Bill Clinton's legacy of lax foreign policy poses dilemma for Obama/Hillary ticket

With the Democrat Presidential nomination pretty much decided -- the prospects of a Hillary Clinton comeback are very dim indeed -- the biggest question on many people's minds is: who will Barack Obama's running mate be?

Although one has cause to wonder whether or not the intensity of the ill will between the Clinton and Obama camps will prevent it, many people have been speculating on the appeal of an Obama/Clinton superticket -- among them Fidel Castro.

But considering the challenges facing the United States at this time (in particular, the war on terror), an Obama/Clinton superticket would have one key -- possibly insurmountable -- weakness: foreign policy.

While it's extremely difficult to find a US President who doesn't compare favourably to the current President in foreign policy, Bill Clinton is actually only barely one of them. Bill Clinton's foreign policy legacy will certainly not be what Clinton wants to be remembered for.

To pretend that Bill Clinton wouldn't be a fixture in any administration his wife is involved with smacks of naivete. And that is why Clinton's foreign policy record will be so troublesome for a potential superticket.

Some key episodes in Bill Clinton's foreign policy record include withdrawing US troops from the Peacekeeping mission in Somalia, ineffectual responses to Al Qaeda terrorist attacks (although one would be remiss to fail to mention that Clinton made Osama Bin Laden a top priority for US intelligence services), failing to respond to genocide in Rwanda, credibility-demolishing flip flops in regards to Bosnia-Herzegovina and rejected Haitian refugees after a coup d'etat in that country.

Clinton also failed to submit the Kyoto protocol to the Senate for ratification -- a move that is devastating to his credibility vis a vis climate change.

Clinton did have some successes. He manged to bring Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansing of Kosovars to a halt, effectively contained Saddam Hussein in Iraq and fostered some key peace agreements in the Middle East.

But if Clinton's foreign policy record looks strong compared to that of George W Bush, it's only because he's being compared to George W Bush.

Of the lowlights of Clinton's foreign policy record, the most damning is his response to US casualties in the battle of Mogadishu. When public opinion in the US turned against the peacekeeping mission in Somalia, Clinton withdrew American troops from Somalia, posing the UN mission with a serious credibility issue.

It would later be discovered that the militants who perpetrated the ambush that set off the incident had been trained by Al Qaeda. Though Clinton certainly took Al Qaeda seriously enough later in his Presidency, his early failures cast a shadow over his entire presidency.

Clinton demonstrated he is not willing to pay a political price in order to support his country's interests abroad, or even to do the right thing. He would confirm it when genocide broke out in Rwanda, when American officials insisted that 100,000 Rwandans would have to die in order to justify risking a single American life.

Given the particular foreign policy challenges the United States faces today, Bill Clinton's foreign policy record will pose a lot of uncomfortable questions in the -- admittedly unlikely -- event that Hillary Clinton is named Obama's Vice Presidential nominee.

John McCain will certainly continue to face uncomfortable questions of his own. But at least he can offer a consistent answer to those questions: something that neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton have done.

This is perhaps only one more reason why the superticket -- or "Frankenticket" -- may not come to pass.

Religious Intolerance By Any Other Name

Is still religious intolerance

Let it never be said that Canadian Cynic doesn't have his uses. They're few and far between, but he does have them.

Coming to us via the perennially-crazed Lulu at Canadian Cynic today is the Atheist Conservative, who has an imaginary bone to pick with Stephane Dion over whether or not Dion is a Scientologist:

"I don’t want to assert to [sic] heavily here, as I don’t have any evidence besides Stéphane’s own writings.

What concerns me is his recent "Bridge to the Future" plan. It smells like Scientology. It stinks like Scientology, I should say. The Scientology belief is that people progress along a "Bridge" to unlock their personal inner power.

I ravaged the internet and could only find cursory hints that Stéphane might have links to Scientology, but nothing definite.

We need to hammer this quickly. If Stéphane Dion is a Scientologist, he needs to be resign from public life for the betterment of the entire country.

I know I’ve got a bit of tinfoil-hattery going on here, but I think, in this case, it’s healthy. It’s possible, and it would be nice to see politico’s distance themselves from this dangerous, murderous cult."

What "Loreweaver" seems to be taking issue with is an essay Dion published in Policy Options Magazine. Ironically, the opening paragraph casts a long shadow over Loreweaver's post. For once, Stephane Dion -- allegedly a very poor communicator -- has said something I couldn't say better myself:

"As the party of the centre in Canada, the Liberal Party
of Canada spent much of its history building an
inclusive country."

While I contend that the Liberal party certainly hasn't built our "inclusive country" all on its own (consider that the alleged centrepiece of the Liberal party's accomplishments is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms originally written as the Bill of Rights by John Diefenbaker), the ultimate premise of Loreweaver's post -- that Scientologists are somehow unfit to hold public office by simple virtue of being Scientologists -- flies directly in the face of the inclusive country that Canadians have built together.

In the long and short of it, Loreweaver takes exception to the very gall of Dion to use a bridge metaphor in the article. (Apparently, Scientology uses a lot of bridge metaphors as well.) He then uses this as an opportunity to jump to the conclusion that Dion is a Scientologist, and thus unfit for public office.

For its own part, Dion's article is often a historical revisionist flight of fancy -- imagining that the Liberals built programs such as Universal Health Care because they believed in them, not leveraging the survival of their minority government because it was demanded by Tommy Douglas and the NDP -- but it's really just a regular recounting of Dion's policy beliefs. None of it seems terribly religious in any regard.

But Loreweaver's attitude really underlies what is all too often a rash streak of religious intolerance underlying the beliefs of the most devout fundamentalist atheists.

The argument put forth is that Scientology is inherently menacing to public policy, and that any Scientologist should be immediately disqualified from holding public office because of their religious beliefs.

Such attitudes have been seen before. In the United States, hostility to Catholicism became the basis for discrimination against Irish immigrants, who were viewed as potential traitors to the United States (it was assumed their first loyalties would always be to the Pope).

This hostility was so deeply rooted that John F Kennedy became the first Catholic President of the United States in 1961 -- nearly two hundred years after the United States was established.

The hysteria that took root then is ultimately the same as the hysteria that takes root now: particular candidates should be considered unfit for public office because they can't be trusted not to govern according to their religious views. The argument raised by Loreweaver against Dion is ironically the same argument raised by countless other "concerned parties" (who often also identify themselves as atheists) against Mike Huckabee, who reportedly believes in creationism.

Yet both the United States and Canada have both been governed by religious people beliefs ever since the establishment of either country. The "imminent disaster" that so many critics, like Loreweaver, site when insisting that individuals with unsavory (or, as is the case with Scientology, kooky) religious beliefs be considered unfit for public office has yet to materialize.

There are, of course, scenarios in which an individual has embraced religions refined into political ideologies -- this is the case with the most militant Muslims and Christians -- who, one hopes, the public at large will reject if they can't be trusted not to govern according to religious dogma.

But such is hardly the case with Dion. In the short run, Loreweaver's entire argument becomes more than a little pointless, as it turns out that Stephane Dion is a non-practicing Catholic. Not a Scientologist.

But even if Dion were a Scientologist, his worthiness for public office should be assessed according to his political beliefs, not his religious beliefs.

To declare him unqualified by simple virtue of his religion is the height of religious intolerance -- bigotry that, unfortunately, the most extreme fundamentalist atheists are more than willing to promote as "sensible" and "rational".

But never in the history of the world has bigotry -- flat-out bigotry -- been "sensible" or "rational". Mostly because bigotry is born in the most insensible and irrational places the human heart has to offer.

Ironically, this is a lesson that Cynic and his ilk have to learn as well -- but that's another story for another day.

Contest Over

Edwards endorses Obama

As the months-long campaign for the Democrat Presidential nomination has drawn on, contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both been looking to land that perfect knockout punch -- either at the polls, or in terms of key endorsements.

Yesterday, Barack Obama has probably landed that punch. It was rumored to be months in coming.

As reported at length virtually everywhere American politics is reported on, yesterday former candidate John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama for president.

"Democratic voters have made their choice, and so have I," Edwards announced.

"There is one man who knows and understands that this is a time for bold leadership. There is one man that knows how to create the change, the lasting change, that you have to build from the ground up," he added. "There is one man who knows in his heart there is time to create one America, not two ... and that man is Barack Obama."

Edwards took some time out to lavish some praise on Hillary Clinton, whom he reportedly considered endorsing.

"What she has shown ... is strength and character, and what drives her is something that every single one of us can and should appreciate," Edwards said. "She is a woman who, in my judgment, is made of steel, and she's a leader in this country not because of her husband but because of what she has done."

Clinton has put up a very respectable struggle, but Edwards' endorsement may have knocked her campaign down for the last time.

In terms of the delegate count, Edwards' endorsement is largely inconsequential. He has a grand total of 19 pledged delegates. None of them are obligated to support Obama, and they aren't nearly enough to secure a decisive victory.

But with Obama ahead in the popular vote, pledged delegates and even superdelegates (which Clinton had looked to as her last, best hope), Edwards support should be enough to swing enough of his supporters to transform Hillary Clinton's already-uphill climb into a sheer 90 degree grade.

Of course, given the numerous calls for Clinton to quit the race so Democrats can focus on John McCain, and Clinton's steadfast refusal to quit, to presume she'll finally throw in the towel would be more than a little bit premature.

At least we can presume Edwards finally got his Jet ski.

Partisans With Short Memories

Omar Khadr affair has serious implications for Liberal party

There's little question that the ongoing Omar Khadr affair poses a significant dilemma for Canada, one that, by necessity will eventually have to be addressed by the sitting Conservative government.

Yet as the issue continues to gather steam as a partisan issue, the Omar Khadr case has also taken on some very serious implications for the Liberal party -- implications that Romeo Dallaire and Stephane Dion don't really seem to comprehend.

"Canada is alone among Western nations in not having secured the release from Guantanamo of one of its nationals. Prime Minister Harper must finally ensure Mr. Khadr receives the same consular support that any other Canadian -- detainee or not -- would receive," Dion lectured in September 2007.

Dallaire first publicly announced his intention to agitate on Khadr's behalf on May 1 of this year.

"I'm going to be a pain. Every time I stand up in the Senate, the leader of the government knows I'm coming at her and every time she gives the same answer, she is losing more and more feathers," Dallaire said.

"There is no depth of logic in [the government's position]," Dallaire added. "There is a real smell of short-term political fiddling. There's no doubt that's influencing the decisions. It's setting up Canada to lose enormous credibility when it's being tested on one of its own people."

Of course, the problem for Dallaire -- and for the entire Liberal party -- is this: where was Romeo Dallaire before May 1, 2008?

Where was Stephane Dion and the Liberal party in July of 2002 when he was first arrested by US troops in Afghanistan?

The answer: in power.

Where was Stephane Dion and the the Liberal party on September 19, 2004 when Omar Khadr turned 18 years old?

The answer: in power. Romeo Dallaire would be appointed to the Senate the very next year.

And what did the Liberal party do to help Omar Khadr? Not a damn thing up until their ouster from office in January 2006.

This party that now wants to agitate on Khadr's behalf, and take up the mantle of human rights and clemency for child soldiers, didn't do a damn thing on Khadr's behalf when they were in power and had the ability to do so.

It's a reality regarding this affair that only serves to undermine them politically. While both men may well be legitimately concerned for Khadr's well-being -- and Dallaire's previous tragic experience with child soldiers arms him with particular credibility to this end -- their previous inaction only serves to discredit them.

As each man seeks to lecture the government from the opposition benches of their respective House, their sudden show of concern is starkly contrasted by their previous silence while sitting on the other side of the aisle.

There is a serious issue underlying the Khadr case that must be resolved.

But in order to contribute constructively, Dion and Dallaire need to cool their partisan fires, think back to all the things they didn't do when they had the opportunity, and accept their share of the responsibility for the current state of affairs vis a vis Omar Khadr.

Then we'll be one step closer to recognizing the Khadr affair for what it is: a non-partisan political issue that demands resolution.

The Toronto Star Asks:

How low will the Conservatives go?

Not this low:



This has been another Accuracy in Reporting minute.

Hillary Finds the High Road

But can she walk it?

As the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination has drawn on, it has typically become even more contentious and even more divisive.

Hillary Clinton finally spoke out on that particular topic today, as she noted that she would prefer her supporters vote for Barack Obama should he secure the Democrat nomination.

"Anybody who has ever voted for me or voted for Barack has much more in common in terms of what we want to see happen in our country and in the world with the other than they do with John McCain," Clinton announced.

"I'm going to work my heart out for whoever our nominee is -- obviously I'm still hoping to be that nominee, but I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that anyone who supported me... understands what a grave error it would be not to vote for Senator Obama," she added.

Yesterday, Clinton won the West Virginia primary in a 41-point victory dismissed by some as irrelevant -- a win Clinton desperately needed to justify staying in the race.

But with the vast majority of observers insisting that the race has largely been decided in Obama's favour, one has to wonder if Clinton has finally found the high road so she walk it, or so she can use it to travel to a Vice Presidential nomination.

After all, one remembers some of Clinton's recent rhetoric, and remembers how low Clinton was willing to stoop in order to get -- or at least maintain -- an edge over Obama in West Virginia.

But if Clinton is resolutely determined to actually walk the high road, the prospects of a Democrat president in 2008 may have just brightened significantly, as those helping to turn the lights down on that possibility -- entrenched Clinton and Obama supporters unwilling to vote for the other candidate -- may have just been given cause to think twice before voting for John McCain.

Tough Questions Regarding Omar Khadr

Child soldier, terrorist, or a little of both?

The controversy surrounding Omar Khadr came to a head during a hearing of the foreign affairs committee on international human rights, as Lt Gen (ret) Romeo Dallaire and Parliamentary Secretary Jason Kenney came to odds of Khadr's treatment.

Today, Dallaire compared Canada unfavourably to Al Qaeda for not treating Khadr as a child soldier.

"The minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, with civil liberties in order to say you are doing it to protect yourself … you are no better than the guy who doesn't believe in them at all," said Dallaire. "We are slipping down the slope of going down that same route."

For his part, Kenney took exception.

"Is it your testimony that al-Qaeda strapping up a 14-year-old girl with Down Syndrome and sending her into a pet market to be remotely detonated is the moral equivalent to Canada's not making extraordinary political efforts for a transfer of Omar Khadr to this country?" Kenney asked.

Dallaire was typically resolute in his answer.

"If you want a black and white [response] … I am only too prepared to give it to you: absolutely," Dallaire replied. "You are either with the law or you are against the law. You're either a child soldier or you're not. You're either guilty or you're not."

The dramatic nature of Dallaire's response aside -- that is certainly one thing that Dallaire excels at -- the issue really is not that simple, regardless of what Khadr's advocates may claim.

The Khadr affair has taken on some degree of partisanship, as the Liberal party's Dominic LeBlanc, NDP's Joe Comartin and Bloc Quebecois' Vivian Barbot have been quite vocal on his behalf.

For his own part, general Dallaire has proven to have little use for partisanship. As an individual with extensive experience dealing with child soldiers, his concerns are certainly genuine.

The confrontation really underscores a key dilemma as it regards Omar Khadr: notably, whether to treat him as a child soldier or a terrorist.

Certainly, the age at which Khadr was taken prisoner by US soldiers -- 15 years -- is of issue. There is absolutely no question Omar Khadr was a child soldier. However, there is a larger question about whether or not Khadr should be treated as a terrorist.

Dallaire insists that Khadr should be released almost immediately. But the experiences some other countries have had releasing terrorists should give Canadians cause to think twice.

Considering the experience Algeria has had with its clemency program -- in which terrorists surrendered peacefully in return for a full pardon, only to continue to plot and carry out attacks such as the various bombings this past year.

Of more concern still are the activities of Khadr's family. In particular, Abdullah Khadr, Omar's older brother, was arrested in Pakistan for buying weapons for Al Qaeda.

While Khadr's tender and impressionable age certainly warrant consideration, one must certainly consider that Abdullah Khadr -- 25 years old at the time of his arrest -- serves as an example that the militant ideology taught to them by Ahmed Said Khadr has taken root very deeply indeed.

If Omar Khadr is simply released into Canadian society, we must realize that we are taking a tremendous risk. Upon release, he very well could be a ticking time bomb.

It's important to note that Khadr's US military lawyer, Lt Cmndr William Keubler, has assessed Khadr very differently.

"The Omar Khadr they describe does not exist," Kuebler previously testified. "He is not one of our enemies in the war on terror, he is a fellow victim of those enemies."

Keubler's assessment of Khadr could very well be accurate. But Canadian officials had better be certain before releasing Khadr into the general public. The stakes are simply too high to take any unnecessary risks.

Some of Dallaire's other criticisms were spot on. The highly questionable legality of the legal proceedings -- not to mention the torture -- at Guantanamo Bay are clearly of concern to any country whose citizens are being held there.

The question is not really if the Canadian government should be seeking Khadr's release into their custody. Certainly they should. The question is what Canada should do with Khadr after taking him into custody.

It's a very contentious question, one that will continue to provoke a good deal of controversy yet. But one thing is for certain. Canada needs to bring Khadr home. His brother Abdullah's criminal responsibility is much more certain, and even he has been in Canadian custody since 2005.

"The way to sort it out is you get the prime minister of this country to call the president and say 'I want my boy out and we’ll fill out the paperwork after.' And that's it," Dallaire insisted.

Likewise, what to ultimately do with Khadr is something better left until after he's back in Canadian custody.

And When They Have Nothing Else to Say...

They resort to this. Anything to avoid addressing their own intellectual dishonesty.

But we aren't that surprised, are we?

Marty's Barking Up the Wrong Tree... Again

There's nothing like vindication to brighten your day

The perpetually intellectually dishonest Marty Rayner was at it again yesterday, taking issue with a post here at the Nexus noting the successful detection and prevention of two Kandahar bomb attacks.

One should recall that the post in question noted that the revisionist crowd would be dismissive of the recent success. And Marty, god bless his intellectually dishonest soul, just had to take it upon himself to prove it:

"It takes a special kind of stupid to take yesterday’s report that Afghan security forces foiled two improvised explosive attacks in the province of Kandahar and declare this “Another Sign of Success in Afghanistan” when you consider that over 920 police officers were killed by militants in 2007 and that on the very same day as the “sign of success” in question, Afghan police killed a protester and wounded three others who were demonstrating the earlier killing of three civilians by coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan."

Which would certainly be awful if it were all as simple as that.

Unfortunately for Marty, he declines -- as he so often does -- to fully address the news story he sites as proof that those Afghan police are just awful:

"Dozens of protesters blocked a road Saturday in eastern Afghanistan, claiming U.S.-led coalition forces killed three civilians, and a local official said police fatally shot one of the protesters and injured three of them.

Villagers from the area carried three bodies to a major highway during the protest. Police allegedly opened fire, killing one and wounding three.

The coalition said its troops were attacked Friday while searching compounds in the Shinwar district of Nangarhar province.

"Several militants were killed" and nine insurgents were arrested, the coalition said in a statement Saturday.

The coalition said the operation was targeting a "foreign fighter network" and that militants in the area had recently attacked coalition forces. The troops destroyed several automatic rifles, grenades and ammunition discovered in the compounds.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the government is investigating the villagers' claims.

"The coalition claimed they were fired upon from a house and the enemy were gathered there, but the villagers claim those people who were killed were innocent civilians," said Mohammad Hashem Ghamsharik, spokesman for the Nangarhar governor.

The head of the Nangarhar provincial council, Fazel Hadi Muslimyar, said police opened fire on the protesters, killing one and wounding three. Police refused to comment.

The Afghan government has pleaded with coalition forces to coordinate more closely to avoid civilian casualties, but foreign troops says insurgents hide in villages, using civilians as human shields."

The video, in particular, that Marty cites, is entirely in a foreign language. A grand total of one line in the entire minute-and-a-half long video is translated via subtitle, noting the claim that those killed and detained by US troops were civilians.

A claim that Rayner has decided to take at face value, despite the weapons cache discovered and destroyed.

Against this particular backdrop of deliberate misinformation, one is led to take with a grain of salt the claims that protesters were fired upon -- or at least wonders if, as is so often the case, these protesters were actually armed.

Rayner also notes the casualties taken by Afghan Police over the past several weeks -- once again, indulging himself in overlooking the fact that the casualty rates were addressed in the original post, and noted for what they are: evidence that, despite numerous examples of success, plenty of work still needs to be done.

Marty engages in all of this fanciful argumentation to underscore an argument that, somehow, the discovery and aversion of two bomb attacks isn't a success. The implicit stupidity of that particular argument need not be addressed here.

But what does need to be addressed here is the efforts of Rayner, and many of those who think like him -- to obscure the public record in regards to all things pertaining to Afghanistan. It will be addressed further in the future.

Through the Looking Glass

Martin Rayner, meet whoever the hell this guy is.

The obvious differences aside, it's almost like looking into one of those disturbing funhouse mirrors. Or like that old Star Trek episode.

"Dion's Carbon Tax Gambit" is Big Game Politics

Plays to weakness in Canadian politics

According to the National Post's Terence Corcoran, Stephane Dion's proposed carbon tax is a huge, ill-conceived gamble.

And it is. It plays to the general Liberal strength of putting together a good-sounding idea, making it look good on paper, then worrying about the planning after they get the votes.

But the carbon tax may be the first sign that Dion is ready to put his money where his mouth is, take some risks, and play big game politics. And if he plays his hand right, this is one idea that he very much could parlay into a tenancy at 24 Sussex Drive.

It isn't that the carbon tax is such a fantastic idea.

It won't do anything to curb carbon emissions -- economic research shows us that unless they're extravagantly high, taxes do little to provide an incentive to stop consuming a product, be it gasoline, tobacco or alcohol, and often in fact make a person feel entitled to continue consuming guilt-free.

It will absolutely never be revenue-neutral -- taxes, by their very definition, aren't ("revenue neutral" is an obfuscatory phrase).

Last, but not least, knowing the record of Liberal governments in Canada, we don't even have any guarantee that the revenue accrued under a carbon tax will be spent as Dion insists it would be -- in helping to offset carbon production with energy efficiency and carbon-capture projects.

But Dion's willingness to promote a carbon tax attacks what has become a structural weakness in Canadian politics.

In particular, a recent poll conducted by Nik Nanos found that most Canadians (31% of those polled) prefer Stephen Harper's vision of Canada. However, those that do account for less than a third of Canadians.

Dion himself slipped three points in the vision category. Jack Layton lost four points and Elizabeth May shed two. Harper, however, stood pat from previous findings.

Instead, an increasing number of Canadians are becoming unsure as to who is offering Canadians the best vision. According to Nanos' findings, a whopping 35% had no preference.

There's good reason for this, and it comes back to the very real sense among Canadians that our politicians have foregone any sense of vision.

And while the carbon tax's inevitable effect on fuel prices could make the vision that Dion is promoting potentially hazardous, one can't underestimate the potential drawing power of a politician with a vision.

After having spent so long without politicians with any demonstrable vision -- aside from Preston Manning, Brian Mulroney has been the only federal leader to give voice to any kind of vision at all, let alone one that Canadians are prepared to buy into.

There's also a lot to be said about a politician who's willing to take a risk. If Dion truly sticks to his guns on this one, he could see a lot more Canadians to take a long second look at the Liberal party. While there's no guarantee that they'll be willing to give him the political capital necessary to place his bet on a carbon tax, his chances to do that should improve significantly.

Then again, quite a few Canadians are likely not very eager to support a politician in gambling on Canada's future.

At the end of the day, Dion may find himself placing this bet all on his lonesome. But only time -- and lady luck -- will tell.

Another Sign of Success in Afghanistan

Afghan police foil bomb plot

In a turn of events almost certain to infuriate various historical revisionist naysayers, Afghanistan's police force took a big step toward earning their stripes today, foiling two bomb plots in Kandahar.

Afghan Security Forces started early in the day when they seized two vehicles filled with explosives and arrested three people. The arrest garnered information that allowed them to locate and disarm two Improvised Explosive Devices in the city.

Reportedly, one of the IEDs was found near a school.

The cars were suspected to be transporting explosives to Taliban forces in Panjwai.

"They were giving bombs from Pakistani Taliban to Afghan Taliban," said Kandahar provincial police Chief Sayed Aka Sakib.

Of course, to pretend that today's events represent a triumph for Afghan police and that all the hard work training police in Afghanistan would be more than just a little premature.

Some of the casualty rates being absorbed by Afghan anti-drug units demonstrate that there is still a lot of work to be done in Afghanistan.

But today's events remain an encouraging sign -- regardless of what the revisionists may or may not have to say about it.

Moral Puritans of the Hateful Left

CC & co have the vapours over the Julie Couillard "affair"

Who ever would have thought that Canadian Cynic and his parishioners over at Canadian Cynic's Temple of Sycophantic Groupthink had such bedrock social values.

As a matter of fact, they've been jumping all over what is becoming referred to as the Julie Couillard "affair" (quotations as original), and they're positively dizzy with scandal:

"How about we just agree that a sitting Cabinet minister should have better judgment than to fuck a former motorcycle gang chick and bring her to his swearing-in ceremony tarted up like a high-class hooker?"
-CC

"ZOMG she was showing her cleavage!!11!1!1!! That should’ve been the first sign that something was a little off about Miss Biker Chick Couillard."
-Lulu

"It was, however, unstylish and inappropriate for a swearing-in ceremony of a Cabinet minister."
-Ti-Guy

"I agree with Ti-Guy, it was inappropriate to dress like a high price call girl..."
-Cherniak_WTF

There's a fantastic amount of irony in this, given that these are individuals who love nothing more than an ad hominem attack launched at someone's appearance. Maxime Bernier shows up to his swearing-in ceremony with a hot date, and suddenly they all want to play Mr Blackwell.

But things take a turn for the truly hilarious when the perpetually-crazed Lulu tries to take aim at the widely-held belief that this matter is no one's business but Bernier and Couillard's:

"At least as far as Big Daddy is concerned. And he is shocked, just shocked, that the Opposition would behave like "gossipy old busybodies". Except — ooopsie — it would appear that some people with a better grasp on national security have a vastly different opinion."

At which point she goes on to quote remarkably selectively from the linked article:

"'Some security experts are taking issue with the Conservative government's characterization of the Maxime Bernier affair as a private matter, saying questionable personal links could leave the minister - and Canadian interests - vulnerable.'

Security experts? What do they know about security ... and stuff? Big Daddy has spoken.

'The Conservatives repeatedly brushed aside opposition cries that Bernier had placed national security at risk by allowing a woman with apparently unsavoury ties to enter his orbit. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Bernier and other top Tories insisted it's nobody's business.

But Chris Mathers, a security consultant who spent years as an undercover RCMP officer, said Bernier's close associates must be closely scrutinized. "It's a security issue, for sure. . . It's not a private thing when you associate with someone who has criminal associates, and you're a person in authority.

"The reason that's bad is that there could be some type of extortion of the woman, of the minister himself - there's all sorts of potential things that could happen." Mathers says ties to the murky domain of organized crime, however tenuous, could prove problematic: "It's a world where rumour and innuendo rule."'

After all, it’s not like this is the first time the KKKonservatives have had this kind of problem. One would think they'd learn from their mistakes.

'Wesley Wark, a University of Toronto historian and expert in security and intelligence, also rejected the government line. "It's a serious matter because cabinet ministers are privy to the most sensitive information available to the government of Canada," he said.

"And we expect them to be very responsible in terms of, first of all, how they handle that kind of information. They're in the same kind of position any senior official with access to highly classified material would be." Wark pointed out that romantic entanglements with security implications - most notably the Gerda Munsinger affair - have previously ensnared Canadian politicians.

Conservative Pierre Sevigny, one of John Diefenbaker's ministers, resigned from cabinet in 1963 following an affair with Munsinger, a prostitute and Soviet spy. In 1985, Tory defence minister Robert Coates stepped down after word of his visit to a strip bar in West Germany.'

I hate to call hypocrite — okay, I sooooooooo don't — but what do you think Big Daddy and his merry band of in-and-out fuckwits would do if this were a Liberal cabinet minister? Hmmmmmmmm? I think we're done here."

Now, Lulu's provided us with an absolute embarrassment of riches in potential embarrassment here, so one wonders where to start. Let's start off with the remainder of the article in question:

"However, another expert said it's important not to tar Bernier with guilt by association.

Wade Deisman, a criminologist and director of the University of Ottawa's national security project, said much of what's been said and written about Couillard is based on hearsay.

"She has never been convicted of a criminal offence. All that's been said about her is that she associated with criminals at some point, or people who were involved in organized crime.""

Remarkable indeed that Lulu would leave that out of her little tirade. But beyond that, one has to ask themselves the question: if Couillard's alleged connections to organized crime were really so serious, then what was the extent of her connections to organized crime?

Fortunately, an article in today's Montreal Gazette provides us with the answer:

"In 1997, a man's love for Julie Couillard forced him to make a tough decision, choosing marriage with her over his successful career as a Hells Angels drug dealer.

It was a decision Stéphane Sirois would later regret. But it also set off a chain of events that turned him into one of the best witnesses to testify against the biker gang in Quebec.

...

But there was nothing mysterious about the clear ultimatum Maurice (Mom) Boucher put to Sirois more than a decade ago.

With the biker gang war at its violent peak in 1997, the Hells Angels leader saw potential police informants under every rock.

Sirois had to choose between marrying Couillard, who had previously dated a man Boucher suspected was an informant, or continuing his life dealing drugs in Anjou and Tetreaultville as a member of the Rockers, the Hells Angels' puppet gang.

Sirois chose Couillard. But, as he would later testify in court, it was also a choice that turned his life around.

Sirois's marriage to Couillard lasted only two years. The marriage seemed doomed from the start. Hours before the wedding, members of the Rockers gang paid Sirois a visit and claimed he owed the gang $5,000.

Feeling his life was in ruins, Sirois sank into a depression in 1999, when he suddenly remembered the business card a police investigator gave him just after he married Couillard.

The Wolverine squad, elite investigators from various police forces assembled to target the province's biker gangs, knew Sirois fell out of favour by marrying Couillard. They approached him about working for them.

"I told them clearly I was not interested," Sirois said during a 2002 trial about the Wolverine squad's initial approach.

"I was already married and had been on my honeymoon. Two detectives from the Wolverine squad approached me. I told them no. I kept their card."

Then, in 1999, with his life in a mess, Sirois pulled out the business card and contacted investigator Robert Pigeon. It was the first step on a path toward becoming an undercover agent and one of the best witnesses against the Hells Angels during the trials that followed the 2001 roundup of Boucher's drug trafficking network.

(By the time Sirois testified, Boucher had already been convicted of ordering the killings of two provincial prison guards.)

Sirois signed a contract to work for the police in June 1999. His mission was to get back into the good graces of the Rockers by offering his services as a drug dealer. Within months, Sirois was given back his Rockers patch while he secretly recorded his conversations with fellow gang members and took careful notes on their activities.

Sirois gathered perhaps the most damaging proof that the Hells Angels' Nomads chapter, run by Boucher, was seeking to kill any members of the Hells' rivals in the Rock Machine. Sirois recorded a fellow Rocker while they dined at a Montreal sushi restaurant. When Sirois asked what it would take to impress their bosses in the Hells Angels, the Rocker revealed the biker gang was willing to pay up to $100,000 to kill off a full-fledged member of the rival gang."

So one of the individuals Couillard was previously involved with -- which allegedly makes her soooo threatening to national security -- not only gave up his life of crime to be with her, but also turned informant after the marriage was over.

If this is what's supposed to make Couillard so menacing to national security, very few people are likely to buy it.

But, Lulu and her hiveminded followers will almost certainly ask, what about Gilles Giguere? He was a bad guy, too, wasn't he?

Those of us who are actually following the story, and not spinning ourselves into a scandalous tailspin over the juicy parts, are familiar with Giguere, too. Gilles Giguere was a Montreal-area loan shark who was ordered killed by Maurice "Mom" Boucher, who suspected he, too, had turned informant.

Giguere was also responsible for Couillard's own short-lived run-in with the law:

"In 1995, Giguère, [Robert] Savard and lawyer Gilles Daudelin were arrested along with Couillard after the Wolverine squad investigated alleged threats and the attempted extortion of a Montreal real estate agent.

Couillard was quickly released without being charged and reportedly filed a complaint to the provincial police ethics commission. According to a representative at the commission office, the complaint never made it to the hearing stage."

Whether or not Giguere was actually an informant is a murky matter.

But Couillard's quick release certainly suggests that her arrest was largely on virtue of being -- as she so evidently often has been -- in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Remarkably, it's been revealed that Bernier didn't know about Couillard's history until he himself was asked by the media about it. To suggest that Maxime Bernier's judgment is remiss on account of something that he didn't even know about does tend to defy credulity.

But let's take a deeper look at the past scandals that Lulu savours in her post. In particular, let's take a look at the Sevigny-Munsinger affair:

"The Sevigny-Munsinger affair of the early 1960s is the touchstone of Canadian sex scandals and it was more driven by politics, not sex.

In fact, the affair between Pierre Sevigny, the Conservative associate defence minister, and Gerda Munsinger, a German waitress suspected of being an East German spy was long over - she had been deported - when a Liberal cabinet minister blurted out an accusation of scandal in the Commons.

The idea was that Munsinger was a spy who extracted classified pillow talk.

It led to a judicial inquiry which found no evidence of secrets lost, but did suggest that Sevigny should have been fired for the affair. Former prime minister John Diefenbaker had chewed Sevigny out, but left him in office."

Once again, Sevigny would needed to have known or at least had cause to suspect that Musinger was a spy in order for his judgment to be in question. One can certainly make the case that Sevigny should have been fired immediately upon the discovery of this little gem, but Dief has one thing to his credit: when he chewed someone out, they tended to stay chewed out.

And while it's impossible to approve of the cover-up of the incident once Musinger's espionage was discovered and she was deported, the discovery of spies traveling in Canadian government circles wasn't something merely restricted to Conservative governments during the Cold War -- one notable Soviet spy even worked in Pierre Trudeau's campaign office as part of his "Opposition Watch" program.

Pierre Sevigny sleeping with an East German Spy is pretty juicy stuff -- but a former Liberal Prime Minister winning power with a KGB agent working behind the scenes? While benefiting from that KGB agent's espionage skills? Whole different bag of hammers. (You don't leave hammers in the bag, Patrick -ed.)

Perhaps Trudeau's judgment should be questioned as well. And whether or not he knew KIRILL was a KGB agent? Entirely irrelevant, according to the line of thinking being promoted over at the Groupthink Temple.

And as for whether Bernier's relationship with Couillard was in any way inappropriate, one should certainly stop and consider this:

It isn't as if Bernier was married. And it isn't as if he's lying to the Canadian people about his relationship with Couillard, is it, wanks?



(Oh, just imagine how they'll howl about that.)

Truth Hurts

Better ban it

Apparently, the cognitive dissonance being experienced over at Unrepentant Old Hippie has simply become too much to take.

"I have a lot of patience, but even I have limits. You can come here and be a jerk, insult people, and falsely attribute things to me that I never said -- but only for so long. Then it becomes trolling -- annoying and boring."

Except that you did say those things, JJ. All of them.

Banning people from your Haloscan is one thing, but you'll never delete your own shame -- and you definitely have cause to be ashamed.

A French President Who Knows How to Handle Quebec

Sarkozy wants to help Canadian unity

In another move certain to infuriate Gilles Duceppe, today French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced he wants to "bring together" Quebec and Canada.

But what a difference 41 years can make.

On July 24, 1967, then-French president Charles De Gaulle addressed a crowd assembled outside Montreal City Hall. In years since, it would be identified as a hallmark moment for the Quebec sovereigntist movement. "Vive le Quebec libre!" he announced.

"I'll confide in you a secret that you will not repeat," he said. "Tonight and all along my route, I found myself in an atmosphere of the same kind as the liberation" [of France from Nazi Germany].

"One day or another, Quebec will be independent," DeGaulle was quoted as having said only four years earlier.

De Gaulle was visiting Quebec partially to commemorate Expo 1967, which was being held in Montreal. Historican (then-television reporter) Joe King, who reported extensively on De Gaulle's visit would later note that the visit "seemed staged to breathe nationalist life into Quebecers".

"He was pretending that he was liberating these villages," he added. "The whole thing was an act, from one end to another. The whole thing was a pretence to stir up trouble."

De Gaulle's characteristic arrogance is well documented in the pages of history. Certainly, De Gaulle was an individual who believed himself entitled to interfere in the affairs of numerous countries -- including Canada.

More than four decades later, there's been quite an attitude change in the French Presidency.

"The future of Canada and of France will be the future of two countries, not simply allies, but friends," Sarkozy said today. "Our friendships and our loyalties do not oppose one another. We bring them together so each can understand what we have in common. We will turn toward the future so the future of Canada and France will be the future of two countries that are not only allies, but two friends."

Sarkozy made the remarks while visiting a Canadian military cemetery in Beny-Reviers while commemorating the 63rd anniversary of VE Day, marking the end of the second World War in Europe. The sacrifices made by thousands of Canadian troops -- mostly English Canadians while most French Canadians stayed home -- in liberating France is something that De Gaulle certainly overlooked. Its comforting that succeeding French Presidents haven't done the same.

Of course, Gilles Duceppe will almost certainly have something to say about Sarkozy's efforts at helping to unite Canada.

Remarkably, although Duceppe will certainly protest until Canadians have tired of hearing from him, Sarkozy's intentions toward Canadian Unity will have far less an effect than he -- or Canadians -- would like to hope. France simply hasn't been viewed as important to Quebec nationalists for many years now.

All the same, relations between Canada and France -- especially vis a vis France are moving in the right direction. Nicolas Sarkozy is a credit to the country he serves.

Half Way to a Thousand Posts And Not Tired Yet

This is the 500th post published to the Nexus of Assholery. And while I try to refrain from self-indulgent monologuing, this is one time I think I've earned it, so I'll indulge myself in an opportunity to share some of my personal thoughts on exactly what's been going on here for the last few years.

First off, a lot of work goes into 500 posts -- at least, a lot more than one would expect. It's a long journey, and a lot is learned.

As a political blogger, you learn a lot of things on your way to 500 posts:

Some people will like you. some people won't.

Some people will debate you. Others will refuse.

Some people will be honest. Some people will blatantly refuse to be honest.

Some people will take criticism. Some people won't.

Some people will stand up with you for what's right. Some people will lack the courage.

Some people will respect you. Some people won't.

Some people will prove to be worthy opponents. Some people are simply pathetic.

A person makes a lot friends and a lot of enemies on their way to 500 posts. A person will win battles and they'll lose battles. There will be good times and there will be bad times. But it's been worth it here all along.

To my edification, I've won a lot more of my battles than I've lost -- although the defeated refuse to own up to their defeat. There are legions of hiveminded sycophants who would likely beg to disagree -- but it's hard to take such mindless individuals seriously.

It's rewarding to stick to one's principles and win while your opponents abandon theirs in the name of victory -- and thus lose. It's fun to watch your opponents play into your hands and attack what they believe are weaknesses, but are really places of strength disguised as obvious weakness.

(The fact that so many left-wing demagogues have yet to comprehend the Nexus Credo is proof enough of that -- as is the fact that some right-wing demagogues have yet to comprehend that this is not exclusively a conservative blog.)

If you're stalwart and disciplined enough, it's enjoyable to watch them scramble to assassinate your character, and put forth some rather pathetic efforts. The fact that they would resort to attempts at character assassination at all is evidence that, yes, you've gotten to them, and they simply don't know how else they can win.

(They can't; but fortunately, they aren't smart enough to figure it out yet.)

And the desperation, for some of them, is really starting to show:

"You progressive bloggers need to set up a schedule to organise your focus on Teh Nexus."

Of course, there are two problems with this: first off, that all too often, my opponents turn out not to be neither true progressives nor conservatives, but simple demagogues in disguise -- anything that gets people to buy into their every word, every thought, is inherently rewarding to them and unfortunately there are all too many people who are willing to do that.

The other problem is that they've already tried to play the numbers game and lost. The fact that I'm still here, still blogging, still defiant, and still taking it to them is proof enough of that.

They may not be honest enough to admit when they've lost. But the edifying thing about beating someone good and decisively is that you never need to hear them admit it. You just know you've won. Most of the time they know it, too, but just aren't honest enough to admit it.

But you see it. You see it weighing on them. And every so often, they let their facade slip, just a little. When they indulge themselves in fantasies like this:

"The righties like Patrick are just worried that the next time they go to bully some emotionally charged and vulnerable person that person will fucking punch him in the face and then curb stomp him. It's pure self interest, nothing more. It's hard to bully someone when your jaw is wired shut and you're in a wheel chair."

If that isn't a fairly disturbing look into the inner recesses of the mind of a demagogue, one would wonder what is. Besides, deep down, everyone around here knows who the bullies are. And these people seem to like them just fine.

Bullying isn't the issue. It clearly isn't when these people slavishly applaud and worship at the feet of a pack of consummate bullies. The issue is their desire to silence and utterly erase the views of anyone who disagrees with them.

If they haven't yet figured out that they'll never get that satisfaction, they need to get the message.

My name is Patrick Ross. I'm the author of the Nexus of Assholery, and I'm here to stay. No amount of attack is ever going to change that.

Those of you that message is meant for know who you are. Expect to hear from me early and often. Don't expect to enjoy it.

And I'll see you at 1000 posts.

Obama Expects to Have Nomination In the Bag

Barack: Two weeks to a finish

Barack Obama believes he's two weeks away from being able to get serious about his campaign to become the next President of the United States of America.

The magic date Obama's looking forward to is May 20. "If at that point we have a majority of pledged delegates -- which is possible -- then I think we can make a pretty strong claim that we have the most runs and it's the ninth inning and we've won," he insists.

Some estimates put Obama as few as 175 delegates away from an outright victory.

However, considering the Democrat practice of dividing delegates up proportionally, it's unlikely that Obama will achieve the 2,025 delegates by that date -- West (May 13) Virginia has 39 delegates at stake and Kentucky and Oregon (May 20) have 60 and 65 delegates, respectively.

Claiming the 175 delegates he needs to close the race basically depends upon Hillary Clinton throwing in the towel, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Recent estimates indicate that Clinton has sunk her entire Senate salary and all the proceeds from her book into the race.

"This is a little like déjà vu all over again," Clinton said. "Some in Washington wanted us to end our campaign, and then I won New Hampshire. Then we had huge victories on Super Tuesday. Then we won Ohio and Texas and Pennsylvania. And I was never supposed to win Indiana. Well, I am running to be president of all 50 states."

Meanwhile, Clinton has indulged herself in some potentially damaging political rhetoric.

"You know, there was just an [Associated Press] article posted that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans - white Americans - is weakening again, and how the whites in both states [Indiana and North Carolina], who had not completed college were supporting me," Clinton said. "These are the people you have to win if you're a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election. Everybody knows that."

It isn't too hard to look into that statement and read "white voters are going to decide the president". Those who are looking at this contest along racial lines are all too likely to read precisely that.

Racial tensions in the race have already exploded numerous times already. Most recently, on Tuesday, Clinton supporter Paul Begala insisted the Democrats "can't win with eggheads and African Americans".

This, of course, can't help but devastate the Democrats' claim that they are the party of "black America" and that they are the party of racial equality.

Certainly, Begalia, like Clinton, couldn't have intended the comments the way they sound. Unfortunately for them, however, those comments will all too often be treated the way they sound. And they don't sound good.

The Obama/Clinton contest has, at this point, been misplayed too entirely to benefit anyone but the Republicans. If Obama does manage to get this contest wrapped up in two weeks time, it will likely be to the benefit of the party.

Just don't expect Hillary Clinton to go quietly. She simply won't.

What Opposition MPs Gossip About Over Their Crib Games

Maxime Bernier's ex-girlfriend his own business

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier's ex-girlfriend may have been born to be wild, but the reaction of Opposition MPs to recent revelations about her suggest that they've spent the better part of their lives walking on the mild side.

It's recently hit the news media that Julie Couillard, a woman formerly so close to Bernier that he described her as his spouse, had previously been involved with some members of the Hells Angels biker club -- the very same organization likely responsible for recent threats against Diane Finley.

At one point, Couillard was even reputed to be a target of Maurice "Mom" Boucher. "At one point the suspicions were so high that there was a contract on her … She was going to get it. She came close to getting it," testified Stephane Sirois, who turned informant in 2003.

Couillard accompanied Bernier to Rideau Hall for his swearing-in as Foreign Affairs minister, and accompanied him on several trips abroad.

Unsurprisingly, Opposition MPs have demonstrated little shame in trying to transform the revelation into a soap-opera-plot-cum-political scandal.

"Mr. Bernier needs to explain because we want to know if there were any matter of national security involved," Liberal leader Stephane Dion announced.

"They are everyone's business and we will raise them in this House," Ignatieff added.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper disagrees. "I hear that one of my cabinet ministers has an ex-girlfriend," Harper quipped. "It's none of my business, none of Mr Duceppe's business, none of Mr Dion's business. Mr Duceppe and Mr Dion are quite a group of gossipy old busybodies."

And Harper's precisely right. Bernier's romantic liaisons are nobody's business but his own. And to suggest that a woman who was targeted for assassination by Maurice Boucher is a national security risk is more than a little ludicrous. If anything, the prospect that a villain like Boucher considered her threatening enough to want her dead suggests the exact opposite.

To put Bernier on trial for Crouillard's previous taste in men -- something he didn't even know about until the media brought it up -- is a ridiculous farce.

Unfortunately, the Opposition has shown a taste for ridiculous farce of late.

From the moment she arrived in Ottawa, Couillard has been fodder for ridiculous farce. Some may recall her name on the tongues of Parliament Hill gossips once before, when she showed up to Bernier's swearing-in ceremony wearing a scandalously revealing outfit.

If anything, Canadians should probably be wondering why Bernier and Couillard aren't still together -- biker girls tend to look pretty decent in black leather. Sexy. (You need a hanky to mop up some of that drool, perv? -ed.)

All joking aside, Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff need to remember that this is the Canadian House of Commons we're talking about here -- not The Young and the Restless.

Although one does wonder what Stephane Dion will do next week when his evil twin brother makes a reapperance on the scene. (You'll know him when you see him -- he's the one with the mustache.)

Nelson Mandela is Not a Terrorist

Nobel Peace Prize winner needs to be removed from terror list

In a not-so-shocking recent revelation, it's been discovered that former South African President Nelson Mandela is still on a list of those considered to be potential terrorists by the US government.

And the US Congress is only now debating legislation that would force his removal from that list.

Of course, the United States aren't the only ones who have experienced telling terrorists and legitimate freedom fighters apart. Perpetually fresh in the memories of many Canadians are the terminally stupid remarks of Conservative MP Rob Anders who, as a then-Canadian Alliance MP, called Mandela a "Communist and a terrorist."

"He's the politically correct kind of 'lib' left poster-boy of today," Anders would later add. "I would say that 30 years from now Nelson Mandela will not be lionized as much as he is today."

It was a stupid (as then-Prime Minister Jean Chretien generously described the remark) notion then, and it's still stupid now.

Only in this day and age could Nelson Mandela, who successfully managed to force the abolition of South African apartheid, share a space on a list with Osama Bin Laden.

Hopefully, that will change within the next 30 hours -- not merely the next 30 years.

There Are No Superheroes to Save Us From the Indiscretions of the Arms Trade

Superhero film highlights arms trade in a new way

This weekend's big box office winner, Iron Man, is far from the first film to take aim at the arms trade over the last couple of years.

Andrew Niccol's Nicholas Cage-powered Lord of War took aim at the international arms black market in 2005.

For the savvy viewer, Iron Man crosses the finish line as a similarly thought-provoking film (although admittedly with a lot more explosions along the way). This time, however, the film's target is the arms black market's necessary handmaiden, the legal international arms trade.

Robert Downey Jr -- a remarkably befitting choice -- plays Tony Stark, a carefree but brilliant man who has parlayed his unparalleled engineering genius into astounding wealth and renown as the world's top weapons manufacturer.

All too often, the only thing more appealing than his work life -- where he labours along side personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) -- are some of the obstacles he has to overcome -- particularly, attack dog reporter Christine Everheart (Leslie Bibb). Even his normally-stuffy military attache, Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) can be loosened up every once in a while.

However, Stark's life changes forever when he travels to Afghanistan to showcase an incredible new weapon he's developed -- think of it as a self-propelled cluster bomb on steroids. While traveling in Afghanistan, he's ambushed by what seem to be terrorists and taken hostage.

His captors turn out to be not terrorists, but the Ten Rings, a band of world domination types -- although some would argue there is little difference -- who expect him to build them a missile just like the one he just test fired.

To help him accomplish this, Stark is provided with a significant cache of his own company's weapons, which have somehow fallen into the hands of the Ten Rings.

But Stark has a problem. Shrapnel lodged in his chest during the ambush is being held at bay only by an electro-magnet installed in his chest by his cell mate. Instead of building a missile, however, Stark builds himself his ticket out of captivity -- the Iron Man armour which transforms Stark from billionare playboy cad into intrepid super hero.

Upon breaking out of captivity, Stark decides to shut down Stark Industries, leave the weapons manufacturing business, and perfect his armour design.

But Stark is eventually spurred into action when Everheart, his part-time nemesis reveals that recent atrocities taking place in a barely-identified place in the world (it could be a Middle Eastern country or an Eastern European country -- the film isn't entirely clear) are being committed with weapons manufactured by his own company.

Stark quickly discovers that Obidiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) has been selling these weapons to groups like the Ten Rings, and probably others like them. Now he intends to wrest control of Stark Industries away from Stark, and presumably continue to profit by selling arms both over and under the table.

Stark notes at one point of the film that the arms trade has "no accountability", and to a large degree this is true.

In particular, some may recall a revelation last year that Canada's federal government hasn't released a report on arms exports for the last four years. The last available annual report showed a jump to $678 million in exports in 2002 from $302 million in 1997.

In the meantime, Canada has become a mass weapons exporter -- the sixth largest in the world.

The emergence of Canada as a legitimate power in the weapons trade and a notable lack of transparency regarding who is selling those weapons, and to whom (in particular weapons weren't tracked if sold to the United States) has implications for Canada's foreign policy.

In particular, Canadian firms were known to be increasing their exports to various Latin American countries in the mid-to-late '90s.

Considering some of the events taking place during that time period -- civil strife in Guatemala and a suspicious coup d'etat in Haiti -- one can't help but wonder if the combination of arms exports to Latin America and a demonstrable interventionist streak in the foreign policy of Canada's biggest ally could have resulted in a chapter of Canadian history few Canadians would be comfortable with.

Another interesting issue at play is a lack of public knowledge of who is investing in Canadian defense firms -- namely, us. Every Canadian who has paid a CPP contribution has invested in the arms trade, as the Canada Pension Plan has invested no less than $2.55 billion in Canadian defense firms.

Certainly, numerous Canadians would find this particular revelation to be unsettling, to say the least.

There are reasons why the arms trade has many secrets it is loath to surrender -- just as Tony Stark discovers in Iron Man.

Just as the arms black market poses distinct challenges in terms of foreign policy, so does the legal arms trade. After all, the weapons sold in the black market have to come from somewhere. And while poorly-tended weapons stocks in former superpowers -- as well as stocks taken overseas and left their by existing superpowers -- have provided black market dealers with abundant stocks, what often offers them the best profit is the most current materiel.

And to pretend that arms firms have no incentive to sell to oppressive or warlike regimes would be nothing less than an exercise in naivete. Black market arms dealers can often be a means to this very end.

It's time for governments the world over to put a shorter leash on weapons firms.

After all, we can't count on real-world arms dealers to be as surprisingly conscientious as the fictional Tony Stark.

Even Though We Didn't Need It...

Proof that, as opposed to feeling a little embarrassed, these particular pro-abortion extremists are actually quite pleased with themselves.

Frankly, it's every wife beater's wet dream: if these people have their way, the day a domestic assault can excused by saying "the bitch had it coming" aren't all that far off.

Sad.

Gilles Duceppe to Canadian Francophones: Go Fuck Yaself

Surprise! Duceppe only cares about Quebeckers

Ever since its emergence in 1968, the Parti Quebecois and its federal stalking horse, the Bloc Quebecois, have often been fingered for having an insular view of Francophone issues.

In particular, Quebec sovereigntists have often pointed to the survival of French Canadian culture as the most important reason why Quebec needs to separate from Canada and become a sovereign state.

But if one ever points out that there are numerous Francophone communities throughout Canada -- not just in Quebec -- one often provokes a response from these individuals not much different from Dick Cheney: Wal-Mart greeter.

Such was the case today when Governor General Michaelle Jean conjured the utter gall to suggest that there are Francophones outside Quebec.

"There are a million of them out there fighting to save their language and their culture," Jean said. "And I will tell president Sarkozy, 'Look beyond Quebec.'"

Predictably, Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe is positively outraged. In particular, he's outraged that the Governor General -- a symbolic representative of the British monarchy -- would dare speak about matters pertaining to Francophone culture, or Quebec.

"I think France should look beyond Michaëlle Jean," Duceppe announced. "Mr. Speaker, we are elected. It's not like a monarchy. A monarchy is anti-democratic."

"The representative of the Queen repeated that the 400th anniversary celebrated France and Canada," he added. "Does the Prime Minister realize that we're talking about the 400th anniversary of Quebec City and of the Quebec nation? Isn't it the Quebec nation we are celebrating, and not a ridiculous monarchy?"

Of course, there are two problems with this. First off, Jean said the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Quebec City's establishment was an opportunity to celebrate "permanence of the French fact" in North America, "more particularly" in Canada -- and all of its Francophone communities.

Secondly, the establishment of Quebec city very much is, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper reminded Duceppe, common heritage.

"Four hundred years ago in Quebec City our country was born," Harper replied. "The foundation of Quebec City is also the foundation of Canada. The Governor-General is the successor of Samuel de Champlain, the first governor of Canada. All Canadians celebrate that very important historic event. It's our common heritage."

Even Liberal leader Stephane Dion -- likely desperate for an opportunity to take a crack at Duceppe -- added in that Quebec City is "considered the cradle of francophones in North America, the cradle of Quebeckers, French Canadians and all Canadians."

All of these things are, of course, true. But unfortunately the insular ideology of the Quebec sovereigntist movement has little room for such truths.

One of these truths undermines a fundamental principle of the Quebec sovereigntist movement, and the two political parties that have been created to advance its agenda: the idea that Quebec is the single and absolute stronghold of Francophone culture in Canada.

It is not the case.

In fact, Francophone communities endure in Canada from coast to coast to this very day. From Bonneville, Alberta to Nipissing, Ontario to Shippigan, New Brunswick -- and countless communities in between -- there is an abundance of Francophone culture in every single province in Canada.

Naturally, this shakes the Quebec sovereigntist movement, which is so often preoccupied with the concept of the Pure Laine Quebecois, and built upon what is -- regardless of whether they will admit it or not -- a racial/cultural ideology that offers little room for outsiders.

Certainly, the Quebec sovereigntist movement has often courted the support of ethnic and cultural minorities when it needed them. Yet one also remembers Jacques Parizeau's xenophobic response when Quebec's ethnic communities helped to rebuke the vision forwarded by himself, Rene Levesque and Lucien Bouchard.

It's unsurprising that Gilles Duceppe would react so violently to the very notion that Francophones outside Quebec matter. Those whose path he continues were never really ready to make room within their narrow view of "Quebecois nationalism" for minorities inside Quebec. Why would they worry about a few lingual minorities outside Quebec?

In this day and age, it isn't often that the Bloc Quebecois show their true colours. But today Gilles Duceppe has done precisely that, and in effectively raising his middle finder to Francophones outside Quebec (many of whom, by the way, have roots in Quebec) and scores of great historical Quebeckers -- like sir Wildfred Laurier -- Duceppe has shown the amount of respect he has for Quebec's real history, and the real history of Canadian Francophones.

Precisely none. Especially when he has the opportunity to peddle the Quebec sovereingtist brand of historical revisionism.

Hillary Clinton is Not Going Home

Hillrod to stay in the race despite major setback

After her big win in Pennsylvania, many people were beginning to think that Hillary Clinton's campaign was beginning to grow some real wins.

One day after a big loss in North Carolina and a narrow victory in Indiana, Hillrod's prospects of securing the Democrat Presidential Nomination are beginning to look continuously dimmer, as Barack Obama continues to nurse a narrow lead in terms of both pledged delegates and the popular vote.

To give herself an extra push, Clinton has loaned her campaign another $6.4 million. She had previously lent her campaign $5, meaning she has, to date, sunk $11.4 million of her own funds into her campaign.

Hillary Clinton is not going home.

Up until yesterday, Clinton's strategy was to erase some of Obama's lead in pledged delegates and popular vote enough to draw enough superdelegates to her side to offset the difference, and emerge the Democrat Nominee at the Democratic National Convention.

Even her chances of that are looking ever-slimmer as George McGovern -- a man who will certainly hold a considerable amount of sway amongst the party-elite-selected superdelegates -- has urged her to drop out of the race.

"It certainly was not out of any less respect for Senator Clinton," McGovern announced. "I think she has waged a really courageous and valiant campaign. She will have my affection and admiration for all of my days. But I think mathematically the race is all but won by Barack Obama and the time has come for all of us to unite and get ready for the general election in the fall."

McGovern, who previously supported Clinton, has now decided to back Obama.

It's hard not to admire Clinton for choosing to soldier on despite the extremely slim odds, and it all really comes down to one of life's simplest maxims: continue to fight so long as you can win.

Even though her chances may be slim indeed, Hillary Clinton very much can win this contest. While the party elite may not necessarily agree that prolonging the primary process is in the party's best interest, at least Clinton will make things interesting up until the very end.

Close Mouth, Swallow Pride, Repeat as Necessary

Alberta opposition parties may finally be starting to figure this whole Alberta politics thing out

After decades of Progressive Conservative government, Albertan politics may finally get the breath of fresh air that it so desperately needs.

As reported in the Edmonton Journal, the Alberta Federation of Labour -- one of the organizations behind Albertans for Change and the aggressive attack ad campaign against Ed Stelmach -- has proposed a "unity pact" between the Alberta Liberals and NDP.

"We are proposing an agreement that would stop centre-left parties from running candidates against each other because vote splitting is keeping the Conservatives in power," wrote AFL president Gil McGowan, who drafted the five-page proposal almost immediately after the 2008 provincial election.

In essence, the pact would combine three agreements:

First, the Liberals and NDP would decline to run candidates against one another, in theory allowing each "centre-left" candidate (as McGowan describes it) to monopolize the "centre-left" vote.

Secondly, the two parties would campaign separately, but agree on a core list of principles they would work in favour of if elected.

Thirdly (and finally), the two parties would institute major electoral reform should they form a government, including possibly a proportional representation system.

"I'll be blunt, it's deliberately provocative because after the election in March it became clear to me that we need to do more than the usual post-election navel gazing," McGowan insists. "We have to start thinking about new approaches because if nothing changes we're looking at another 40 years of one-party rule."

For their part, both NDP leader Brian Mason and Liberal leader "Cowboy" Kevin Taft have agreed to consider the pact.

"Everything's on the table at least for the Alberta Liberals," says Taft. "Everything from the name of the party, the leadership of the party, policies, the structure of the party, and the possibility of reaching out to supporters in other parties, all of that is on the table right now. There's a lot of conversations going on."

"I have my own views," added Mason, "but I think at this stage what I want to do is encourage party members to have that discussion and we need to work through this as a party to come up with an idea of where we want to go as a party."

Mason has also noted that the NDP are willing to work with the Albertan Green party.

Of course, there's no guarantee that Liberal or NDP candidates would manage to capture the entire left-of-centre vote in any one riding across the province. In fact, experience with the Conservative Party of Canada -- which has never totalled the combined vote of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties since merging -- in fact suggests otherwise.

But a non-competitive pact, particularly in urban centres such as Edmonton and Lethbridge, could make a few seats worth of difference. Based on 2008 results, not quite enough to form the government, but enough to strengthen the opposition enough to look forward to better results in the future.

"From the right of the political spectrum we will be accused of trying to hijack the political process," admits McGowan. "And from the left we will be vilified for 'selling out' and abandoning core principles. Harsh words will be spoken and more than a few relationships and friendships will be broken. But it still needs to be done."

Of course, forming a "unity pact" is only part of the strategy Alberta's opposition parties need to employ. Another part of a winning strategy for the Albertan Liberals and NDP is a good, hard second look at their respective policy platforms to evaluate whether or not Albertans are likely to favourably respond to.

The other side of the equation that will still need to be addressed is leadership. Brian Mason is irrelevant in Albertan politics, and will remain so indefinitely, unity pact or no unity pact. Meanwhile, Kevin Taft has taken on all the characteristics of an embittered, facetious little wannabe who is slowly beginning to realize he never will be. Neither one of these two men is capable of leading the province, and eventually their parties will have to address the sad state of affairs in their front offices.

Without better policy, more relevant to the interests, concerns and needs of Albertans and better leadership, the unity pact -- if adopted, and there's no guarantee of that yet -- will remain a moot point.

Alberta's opposition parties need to open their minds, close their mouths, swallow their pride, and repeat as necessary.

More Arguments We Suddenly Accept

Elderly man "had it coming" pro-abortion zealots insist

One simply has to hand it to some bloggers. The meaning of the word hypocrite simply never seems to penetrate their skulls, even while they're in the act of making one out of themselves.

And sometimes it starts with something so simple as forgetting the lessons that we're taught in the most formative years in our lives -- or making a conscious choice to discard them entirely.

Consider the recent case of various left-wing bloggers who approved of the assault on 69-year-old Ed Snell.

Their basic argument, in the end, has basically boiled down to "well, we had it coming."

And in their minds, it's an argument that we suddenly accept. Accept that we don't.

It behooves us to remember that Nathan Richardson, the 69-year-old Snell's assailant, was 23 years old -- a full 46 years Snell's junior. Clearly, Richardson is much younger, bigger, and stronger than Snell -- something that only serves to underscore the shameless brutality of Richardson's assault.

It's the very same principle why our society condemns violence by men against women. Generally, men are much bigger and stronger than women. It's why many women demand stronger domestic assault laws, to protect women.

But there are defenses that we simply don't accept. Arguments such as "she had it coming".

Provocation is rejected by almost anyone as a defense in the case of violence perpetrated by a man against a woman and, normally, against a senior citizen. But swap that woman for an elderly man with political opinions that the individual in question finds offensive, and the response suddenly changes from one of condemnation to something like the following:

"If you're going to stand on top of your car yelling at people, yeah, someone's probably going to take you down a peg." -Pedgehog

"Guys like Snell are the moral equivalent of fraudsters who deliberately step into the path of an oncoming car and then fake their "injuries" to be worse than reality, hoping for a financial payoff. In Snell's case, he was hoping for a legal payoff.

Too bad the judge didn't drop his sorry ass into a cell." -Chimera

"Does one have the right to follow up a verbal assault with a physical one?

If there is no other way to end the verbal assault, you're damn right you do. It may not be legal, but it was absolutely the right thing to do." -Realitybites

"Would it be terribly improper of me to point out that Mr. Richardson is quite the hotty, and is welcome to push me down any time he wants?" -Realitybites

"My feeling (and I'm guessing probably most peoples' feeling) is that Snell poked a stick through one too many fences expecting beagles to be behind them, and eventually came up with a rottweiller. That doesn't make the rottie a good guy, it just makes Snell a dummy who it's extremely hard to sympathize with, and easy to ridicule. Some would say he had it coming." - JJ

"I'd have kick the old fart in the nads while he was down for good measure - make him think twice about harassing my wife or girlfriend (don't tell my wife about her) during such a time." -Mike

"That's precisely the reason why not following up with a kick to the head was a bad thing to do." -Chimera

"I couldn't care less if the old guy disagreed with my POV -- he was being an asshole, for the umpteenth time in his life, and he got what was coming to him." -JJ

"Snell got what he deserved. Like I said at JJ's, I would have kicked him in the nuts a few times while he was down. It would have been worth it." -Mike

Suddenly, these are the kinds of defenses these people believe should be accepted.

But if we don't accept the "he had it coming" defense from nine-year-olds who beat up on five-year-olds... if we don't accept them from men who beat up on women, why on earth would any rational, sane adult accept them on behalf of 23-year-old men who beat up on 69-year-olds?

We don't. Then again, these aren't rational, sane, well-adjusted people. It's become entirely evident that this particular faction of the pro-abortion lobby has completely lost their minds.

It's all rather sad. One certainly doesn't have to approve of Snell's views, or of the method he chooses to express them, in order to admit that the violence perpetrated against him was wrong.

And it was. Indisputably -- whether these hateful psychopaths want to admit it or not.

The funny thing is that as soon as an abortion clinic doctor is targeted by an act of violence, it's used to paint the entirety of the anti-abortion lobby with the same terroristic brutality, despite the fact that many members of the anti-abortion lobby are willing to come out and condemn such violence.

Yet when violence is perpetrated against an anti-abortion activist -- even in the course of a confrontation as lop-sided as this one -- they approve. If one were to treat these individuals as they evidently imagine themselves -- as representatives of their movement -- it becomes hard to believe that the entire movement doesn't carry the very brutal, violent edge that they imagine -- and condemn -- in their anti-abortion opponents.

It's all the more reason for, whenever these particular crazed extremists of the pro-abortion lobby rant and rave about the latest outrage perpetrated by anti-abortion terrorists, their condemnation should be greeted with nothing but scorn. Sympathy should be extended to the victims and their families, but the cowardly, shameless hypocrites who approve of and, make childish excuses for, violence perpetrated against their anti-abortion opponents deserve to be treated with nothing but contempt.

We will not accept those arguments from men who beat women, and we will not accept them from young men who assault septuagenarians.

May 2008 Book Club Selection: Worth the Fighting For, John McCain

Better know a would-be President vol. 1: John McCain

With the 2008 United States Presidential election quickly approaching, time is becoming of the essence to start to get familiar with the candidates.

Although many Canadians like to imagine a degree of detachedness from American policy, the fact of the matter is that whomever gets elected President of the United States -- long considered the leader of the free world -- will have a real impact on people the world over.

This month's Nexus book club selection will be the first of a three-part series. In the vein of Stephen Colbert, we'll call it "Better Know a Would-Be President".

It's unlikely that a clear picture of who will be the Democrat nominee will emerge anytime soon, so it may be best to start with the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain -- and perhaps best to at least start with his own words.

Worth the Fighting For is an illuminating look at McCain, his career, and the values that make him tick. Not only does the book deal with his military career and chronicle how it blossomed into a political career, but it also provides a deeper look into McCain himself, by continually profiling various individuals he has come to regard as a hero. (Yes, even those who consider themselves Presidential material have heroes.)

On the political side, McCain pays particular attention to his various cooperative efforts with Democrats (quite fittingly, for the man who has managed to garner himself a reputation as the most non-partisan of the partisans).

Not that he doesn't spend any time on any "outrages" perpetrated by Democrats -- the sordid John Tower affair garners particular attention. McCain very much is capable of partisanship.

Unlike many politicians, he's also capable of owning up to his own mistakes. He even goes out of his way to address his own flip-flopping over the Confederate Flag during the South Carolina primary -- one that certainly helped him lose the state when he contested the 2000 Republican presidential nomination.

If the observations of commentators like Warren Kinsella prove to be astute, John McCain may very soon be making many decisions -- trade-related, foreign-policy related and defense-related -- that will have very real impacts on the lives of ordinary Canadians.

The time to better know a would-be President is now. Worth the Fighting For provides a window into the deeper heart and mind of the man. It doesn't necessarily provide a complete picture -- autobiographies rarely do -- but it's an excellent start.

Even the Toronto Star is Starting to Figure it Out...

The Liberals are the party of big business.

The Conservatives? Not so much.

Insite Making Partisan Mountains Out of Political Molehills

Safe injection site poses dilemmas for addiction treatment, federal government

If one were to believe some of the rhetoric being forwarded by supporters of Insite, Vancouver's Safe Injection Site and (predictably) opposition MPs, one would think that the site is under immediate threat of being shut down by federal Health Minister Tony Clement.

"This is going to be catastrophic for people who have substance abuse problems, for society, for taxpayers, for crime," said Liberal MP Dr Keith Martin. Martin was, at the time, referring to then-forthcoming Conservative party drug policies.

Some may recall that the policies covered three different pillars: enforcement, prevention and treatment. In one of the most blatant examples of intellectual dishonesty in recent history, various left-wing ideologues refused to ackowledge the fact that $32 million -- the largest parcel of funds being doled out under the new program -- was directed toward new treatment programs, while another $10 million toward prevention programs. The very same treatment and prevention programs that most of Canada's top drug-policy experts advocate.

One sees a similar rhetorical feat being accomplished in regards to Insite. While those who support the site and those who benefit politically from portraying the government as dangerous and reactionary in regards to it have combined their efforts to perform an act of rhetorical slight-of-hand to try and apply pressure to keep the site open, it turns out that a lot of the hysteria suggesting that the site is in imminent danger of being closed is simply that: hysterics.

But to begin to demonstrate this, one really needs look no further than the most recent news-making item regarding Insite: the release of a recently-completed report about Insite's impact -- or, more notably, lack thereof -- on crime rates in its surrounding community.

"We looked at crime rates in the area surrounding Insite, and we talked to business operators, we talked to service providers, to police, to residents in the surrounding vicinity. We found, overwhelmingly, people had very positive sentiments," said Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Vancouver's Simon Frasier University. "Not only that, crime rates were quite unaffected by the implementation of Insite. ...In fact, we found some improvements in public order with respect to decreased injection debris, decreased injections around the site and those findings simply corroborated other research that had been carried out prior to our study."

Insite operates under an exemption to Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

"I don't think there's much doubt anymore," Boyd said. "We have to move to close this chapter and give Insite a long-standing exemption."

There is strong support for Boyd's case. But one also needs to keep in mind that it was Tony Clement, in October of last year, extended Insite's exemption, which was due to expire. This was the second extension that Clement had granted the operation while his Conservative government examined the issue.

Naturally, the extensions themselves were treated derisively by opposition MPs who benefit politically from portraying the Conservative party as being too hard on drugs.

"If Prime Minister [Stephen] Harper really believed that Insite is a useful tool in treating addictions, he would have extended the program for years, not months," said Martin, who insisted that the extension was simply a "stalling tactic" used to leave the issue open so the Conservatives could close the site if they're able to win a majority.

"I am a little cynical about these short-term extensions. It's no way to address a serious health issue," agreed Victoria NDP MP Denise Savoie, who also harped on the Conservative party's alleged "narrow ideological view" on drugs.

This, one remembers, was coming from a party whose press release counter-factually admonished the Conservative party for allegedly not supporting treatment and prevention. Talk about a narrow view.

It would also be indicative of a narrow view to suggest that a fledgling government -- as the Conservatives have been for the past two years -- shouldn't review any active policies of the previous government that may give them cause for concern. And whether the varying supporters of Insite like to admit it or not, Insite does pose a number of practical, moral and ethical dilemmas for the government -- dilemmas that require time to examine.

In particular, Insite does pose a dilemma for politicians who understand that crime often has an interrelated nature. Drug addictions, in particular, have been shown to have an impact on property crime rates. While Insite has been decisively shown to not negatively impact crime rates in its community, the study itself was still important. Property crime in regards to Insite is one dilemma we can now consider effectively solved.

A Health Canada report released last month dealt with this particular dilemma, along with numerous others.

Among those other dilemmas is whether or not Insite provides users with an incentive to seek treatment. Harm reduction strategies clearly do a lot of good. The one particular benefit that offers the greatest public advantage is probably stemming the spread of sexually-transmitted disease.

The recent Health Canada report suggests that the number of referrals from Insite to detoxification and treatment centers has increased the overall use of these facilities -- certainly yet another feather in Insite's cap.

Another dilemma is whether or not the public funding for Insite is a particularly wise investment considering that it essentially supports the use of illicit substances. Clearly, the public benefit of the site would have to exceed its costs. The Health Canada panel conducted a cost-benefit analysis of Insite and found that it accrues $4 worth of public benefit for every single dollar spent. Clearly Insite passes this test as well.

The report also concludes that Insite saves lives by preventing drug overdoses.

"Overall, the report is very positive and confirms our research that the site is doing what it's supposed to do -- provide health benefits without increasing harm," said Sam Kerr, a researcher for Centre for Excellence on HIV/AIDS.

But meanwhile, one also needs to consider the fact that many organizations -- including the CEHA -- were apprehensive about even this study, concerned it would be used as a pretext for closing the site. Clearly, that isn't the case.

With the federal government's investigations into whether or not Insite represents a wise expenditure of Canadian tax dollars bearing obvious fruit in terms of keeping the site open, those who support the site -- and those who seek to benefit politically from it -- have resorted to strenuous data mining on the topic, scouring Tony Clement's comments regarding drug policy in general in order to find some sort of evidence that he intends to close the site.

What has emerged are some rather ludicrous attempts at twisting some otherwise largely-benign comments. In particular, some of these individuals went out of their way to distort some comments made by Clement to the Canadian Medical Association:

"The messages young people have received during the past several years have been confusing and conflicting to say the least," Clement announced. "We are very concerned about the damage and pain that drugs cause families and we intend to reverse the trend toward vague, ambiguous messaging that has characterized Canadian attitudes in the recent past."

"Harm reduction, in a sense, takes many forms," Clement added. "To me, prevention is harm reduction. Treatment is harm reduction. Enforcement is harm reduction."

And, of course, they are. But the simple truth of Clements words didn't stop individuals like Stephen Hwang, a researcher at the University of Toronto's department of medicine, from trying to read intonations of ideological danger into Clement's comments.

"The health of a nation is placed in peril if our leaders ignore crucial research findings simply because they run contrary to a rigid policy agenda driven by ideology or fixed beliefs," said Hwang, in a letter co-signed by 130 like-minded doctors and scientists.

But if Clements agenda was really "driven by ideology or fixed beliefs", one might have expected that he would have avoided visiting the safe injection site, or acknowledging any information that supports it. Instead, he's done the exact opposite.

"I had a good chat with the staff there, understood some of their procedures, asked a lot of questions, got a lot of answers," Clement announced after touring Insite in January 2007. "I think I am continuing to get a deeper understanding and this is all part of being the best health minister I can be for the country."

That was a big part of the short-term rulings made by Clement, while he waited on his own research into Insite, its impact on the surrounding community, and the impact on its users. The fact that the research corroborated previous research is and remains largely immaterial. The simple fact of the matter is that facilities like Insite need to be reevaluated on an annual basis.

Even though Insite is clearly an ideal way to help tackle some of the serious issues that accompany drug use right now, there's no guarantee that the factors that make it so ideal -- a favourable cost-benefit ratio, low impact on crime rates, referral to addiction-treatment services and saved lives -- will endure indefinitely. There may very well come a time in the near future when a new approach becomes necessary, be it due to changing conditions in the surrounding community, or the introduction of newer, more dangerous designer drugs, or any number of other things that are almost certainly going to change in a dynamic society.

Until that time arrives, however, it would clearly benefit Canadian society to allow Insite to continue performing its valuable services. A longer extension to its Drug and Controlled Substances Act clearly needs to be granted, just as Neil Boyd insists.

However, that extension needs to be well short of permanent. At some point over the next two or four years, Insite should be evaluated by Health Canada again, and continually every two or four years after that.

Insite should never be allowed to attain the position of an ideological drug policy orthodoxy that may never be challenged. In fact, it needs to be challenged on an annual basis, and Canadian society needs Insite for as long as it can stand up to scrutiny.

Such reevaluations should be considered minor political maintenance for an operation that, by its very nature, will almost always be contentious.

In the meantime, Canadians should reject the rhetoric of those trying to transform these political molehills into partisan mountains.

Canadians Continue to Vote With Their Wallets

Even the NDP is out-fundraising the Liberals

Liberal leader Stephane Dion should probably be in the process of re-thinking any thought he may have had about trying to force an election this summer after seeing 2008's first-quarter fundraising numbers.

January through March of this year, the Conservative party pulled in $4.95 million from 44,345 donors. The Liberals raised a mere $846,129 from 10,169 donors -- only four times what the Green party pulled in ($210,962 from 4,731 donors).

Even the NDP managed to raise more funds than the Liberals, amassing $1.1 million from 13,329 contributors.

And you can't win an election with money alone, the Liberals need to keep in mind the other half of this old Jean Chretien maxim "you can't win without it".