kickin' it with cg.

Art, Peace and Normalization.

2010-04-17T22:14:00.001-04:00

It has often been said that the arts promote learning and can inspire a culture of peace and hope. Along the same lines, there is an interesting resolution to story coming out of Israel this week that tests this adage.

The case began earlier this year with Ala Halihal, an Arab-Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian, seeking permission from the Israeli government to go to Lebanon to receive an award as winner of the “Beirut 39” literature competition. The event, which is awarding 39 Arab writers up to the age of 39, was developed as part of a UNESCO project. Essentially what happened was...

The author was informed that he had won the prize in August 2009 and immediately submitted a request to the Interior Ministry for permission to enter Lebanon. According to the 1948 Emergency Regulations, anyone wishing to enter an enemy country as defined in the Prevention of Infiltration Law must obtain a permit from the prime minister or minister of interior. Lebanon one of the countries classified as an enemy state.

Hlehel did not receive an answer from the Interior Ministry. Finally, in March, attorneys Hassan Jabareen and Haneen Naamnih, petitioned the High Court on his behalf.

The petitioners demanded that Hlehel be allowed to go to Beirut and that the state prepare clear and written regulations and criteria to determine what might qualify an Israeli wishing to visit the countries classified as “enemy” for a permit.

Perhaps, Israel's Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their world of black and white, felt justified, denying Halihal on the grounds of reciprocity.

The "accepted" view in the Arab world holds that a visit to Israel by an Arab author, artist or filmmaker is an act of treason, or at least a violation of the bylaws of professional associations. As a result, for example, the noted Egyptian author and playwright Ali Salem suffered the prolonged ostracism of his Egyptian author colleagues, who viewed his visit to Israel as a gesture of normalization.

Other Arab artists and writers who wish to visit Israel must do so surreptitiously to avoid the backlash.

Fortunately Halihal's appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court ended well, with a binding ruling that the state to explain why it had not established written regulations and criteria to objectively determine who was eligible to visit these 'enemy' countries and that Halihal must immediately be given a permit to visit Lebanon.

While the case seemed to have ended well, it certainly has raised a couple of important issues. First, as Haaretz notes:

And now none other than Israel, which has made normalization a precondition to the peace process and is demanding at least tiny gestures of normalization as a show of good intentions, has joined the coalition of the ignorant

While normalization with Palestinian artists has been tenuous as of late, it seems the current party line is beyond counter-productive. Nor does their hypocrisy help to inspire hope that such confidence-building would be treated in kind.

Secondly, and more fundamental is what an act like this, however small, means. Art can bring awareness to society and it is a powerful means of presenting truths about ourselves through such expression. There are many artists, and organizations who seek to promote tolerance and non-violence and to create a culture of peace through art. Amongst other things, perhaps this is something that Yishai and Netanyahu could better seek to learn.

Its a worthy cause.

Someone Is Always Watching.

2010-01-24T01:48:00.006-05:00

After last fall and news from Iran its no surprise the power Twitter has had on politics world-wide. Another case of a tweet that has had immense power locally is that of user @OGLE_Toronto who on Friday posted a TwitPic on their Twitter account of a sleeping Toronto Transit Commision ticket collector.

In effect, this tweet has become a lightning rod for transit riders frustrated with the TTC and has sparked a media controversy.

The responses have been mixed, with that of the TTC Workers' Union stating that:

it is "disturbing" that a transit rider snapped a photo of what appears to be a sleeping ticket collector instead of checking to see whether the worker was okay.

While Adam Giambrone, head of the TTC has created a “blue-ribbon task force” to propose ways to improve the commission’s customer service. However somehow, this controversy seems far from over.

As Mashable says:

The world is changing because of social media. Information can be spread in real-time to millions of people. It’s the same power that has helped raised millions for Haiti and forced big companies to listen to their customers.

But somehow, personally I seek very little solace in the lesson we might learn from technology as being that 'someone is always watching.'

Marriage... It's Changed.

2010-01-20T00:28:00.007-05:00

With the release of today's Pew Research Center report, many preconceived ideas about the economic dynamics of marriage seem to be turned on their head.

Entitled "The New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of Wives," the study shows that a "larger share of women today, compared with their 1970 counterparts, have more education and income than their spouses. As a result, in recent decades the economic gains associated with marriage have been greater for men than for women."

As the Washington Post details;

Looking at the impact of nearly four decades of social change, the report shows that men increasingly get a significant economic boost when they tie the knot -- improving their household incomes and often pairing up with a partner who has at least as much education as they do. Compared to 1970, when men usually married women with less education and fewer wives worked, these changes have contributed to a "gender role reversal in the gains from marriage," the report said.

"What's radically changed is that marriage now is a better deal for men," said Richard Fry, co-author of the report, published by the Pew Research Center. "Now when men marry, often their spouse works quite a bit. Often she is better-educated than the guy." In 1970, unmarried men "had a higher economic status than married guys," he said, "but no longer."

While there is no doubt these significant economic changes for married people combined have trasformed the dynamics of marriage, what I believe is worthy of further research, is the impact, if any, on that of how these trends have affected the social and interpersonal dynamics of marriage. Perhaps then, with better understanding of contemporary marriage and shifting societal expectations we can learn and accept all who choose to undertake its demands.

The Smearing of TIFF & Attempt To Silence Art.

2009-09-16T14:09:00.002-04:00

This 2009 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has been shrouded in controversy this week after a variety of film makers, actors, academics, and activists signed and released a statement called the "Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation" alleging amongst other things that the Festival:

has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.

The protesters loose claims stem from the Festival's selection of Tel Aviv for it’s City to City Program which showcases 10 films by local filmmakers. In its inaugural year, "the goal of City to City is to take a closer look at global cities through a cinematic lens, especially cities where film contributes to or chronicles social change in compelling ways."

The protesting group, which initially included Jane Fonda (who has since apoligized for her involvement), Danny Glover, David Byrne, Ken Loach and author Naomi Klein stated that:

"The emphasis on 'diversity' in City to City is empty given the absence of Palestinian filmmakers in the program. Furthermore, what this description does not say is that Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine's main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population. This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv/Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps in the Occupied Territories or who have been dispersed to other countries, including Canada."

Amongst one of the key signatories, filmmaker John Greyson withdrew his film 'Covered' from the Festival. This film, ironically is a short “about the 2008 Sarajevo Queer Festival, which was cancelled due to brutal anti-gay violence” or rather more to the point: censorship.

Making the case that the Festival is being complicit by Israel’s propaganda machine, the group added:

In 2008, the Israeli government and Canadian partners Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, David Asper of Canwest Global Communications and Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation launched "Brand Israel," a million dollar media and advertising campaign aimed at changing Canadian perceptions of Israel. Brand Israel would take the focus off Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its aggressive wars, and refocus it on achievements in medicine, science and culture. An article in Canadian Jewish News quotes Israeli consul general Amir Gissin as saying that Toronto would be the test city for a promotion that could then be deployed around the world. According to Gissin, the culmination of the campaign would be a major Israeli presence at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. (Andy Levy-Alzenkopf, "Brand Israel set to launch in GTA," Canadian Jewish News, August 28, 2008.)

In 2009, when the TIFF announced that it would focus on Tel Aviv. According to program notes by Festival co-director and City to City programmer Cameron Bailey, "The ten films in this year’s City to City programme will showcase the complex currents running through today’s Tel Aviv. Celebrating its 100th birthday in 2009, Tel Aviv is a young, dynamic city that, like Toronto, celebrates its diversity."

Festival organizer, Cameron Bailey directly responded to these allegations:

As the programmer of City To City, I was attracted to Tel Aviv as our inaugural city because the films being made there explore and critique the city from many different perspectives. Furthermore, the City to City series was conceived and curated entirely independently. There was no pressure from any outside source. Contrary to rumours or mistaken media reports, this focus is a product only of TIFF’s programming decisions. We value that independence and would never compromise it.

The goal of City to City is to take a closer look at global cities through a cinematic lens, especially cities where film contributes to or chronicles social change in compelling ways. We believe that the 10 films in our inaugural programme do just that. We encourage everyone to see the films, engage in debate and draw their own conclusions.

In addition to City to City, our Festival lineup also includes other important films from the region, including two films by Palestinian filmmakers and others from Lebanon and Egypt. As these films address the past history and current realities of the region, we hope they will become part of this year's conversations.

John writes that his protest isn’t against the films or filmmakers we have chosen, but against the spotlight itself. By that reasoning, no films programmed within this series would have met his approval, no matter what they contained. For us, the content and form of films does matter. In fact, when I met with a number of the signatories earlier this week, I encouraged them to see the films before passing judgment on the programme. Regrettably, they chose a different route. We know some of them to be veterans of Toronto’s battles against censorship -- all the more surprising to watch them denounce a film series without seeing the films in it.

We recognize that Tel Aviv is not a simple choice and that the city remains contested ground. We continue to learn more about the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. As a festival that values debate and the exchange of cultures, we will continue to screen the best films we can find from around the world. This is our contribution to expanding our audiences’ experience of this art form and the worlds it represents.

Further, Bailey in an interview soon after the letter was released:

“It’s important to note,’’ he says “that the [Tel Aviv Spotlight] was independantly conceived and curated. Entirely. We were looking for a place on the planet where there was new work happening. I was interested in bringing the culture of the city to Toronto to spark debate. There was no influence from any outside sources.’’

Does that include cash inducements, I ask? “The only financial element is the Israel Film Fund which funds filmakers travelling to festivals. And that’s all there is.’’

In response to the protest, another group of artists have decried these efforts to silence Israeli filmmakers. Amongst them, which include Natalie Portman, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jerry Seinfeld, Darren Starr, Jason Alexander, Lenny Kravitz, Lisa Kudrow, Canadians Robert Lantos, Ivan Reitman, David Cronenberg, Moses Znaimer and Patricia Rozema they endorsed the following statement as a response.

“We don’t need another blacklist.

“We applaud the Toronto International Film Festival for including the Israeli film community in the Festival’s City to City program. The visiting filmmakers represent a dynamic national cinema, the best of Israel’s open, uncensored, artistic expression. Anyone who has actually seen recent Israeli cinema, movies that are political and personal, comic and tragic, often critical, knows they are in no way a propaganda arm for any government policy. Blacklisting them only stifles the exchange of cultural knowledge that artists should be the first to defend and protect. Those who refuse to see these films for themselves or prevent them from being seen by others are violating a cherished right shared by Canada and all democratic countries.”

Some have suggested that there are shades of anti-semitism at work here, and it looks as if there some validity in this claim. Since to create an environment in which a religious or ethnic group can be persecuted, it is first necessary to demonize and vilify them to the point that their humanity is in question, which is what this protest intentionally does.

You folks are being criticized for encouraging censorship, whether you admit that you seek such censorship or not. A letter that compares Israel to South Africa and Israel’s actions to South African apartheid in the context of criticizing a slate of films at a film festival, is not a letter that merely seeks to bring up some history. It is a call to action. It is also a warning to any other film festivals and their directors who seek to put on Israeli films that they will encounter fierce criticism in the media.

The targeting of Israeli films shown in a program at a major film festival is also a call to audiences to view those films as your group wishes them to be viewed and not as they would be viewed without your politicization of those films. Your group has set the agenda and nobody who will enter the cinemas to watch those films will be able to disengage your criticisms of Israel from their viewing. You have damaged the work of these filmmakers by doing this.

You have also falsely connected their films to the “destroyed Palestinian villages” upon which Tel Aviv supposedly resides. Never mind that this is highly misrepresentative of Tel Aviv’s history – the bulk of its land was never Palestinian land or was purchased outright – or the manner in which these “destroyed Palestinian villages” fell into Israeli hands (the villagers abandoned them before the ‘48 war even began). Anybody reading your group’s letter will enter those films with false impressions.

You have created the terms of the debate, ugly and false terms, but now you wish to present yourselves as victims of those who would respond.

A recent Toronto Star editorial also ponders the odious nature of the protest:

It is tempting to ignore this latest, tedious tiff over TIFF, spawned by a few dozen protesters who signed the petition – Jane Fonda and Naomi Klein among them. The anti-Israel diatribes are becoming a bore: Complaints against the Royal Ontario Museum for showing Israel's biblical Dead Sea Scrolls; "Israel Apartheid Week" for high-minded student activists; CUPE locals calling for a boycott of Israeli academics; and the latest Pride parade featuring a float that attacked gay-friendly Israel for apartheid policies (ignoring other Middle Eastern regimes that persecute gays).

Now TIFF is the target for those who would treat Israel as a pariah, demonize every aspect of its existence, and smear its supporters in Canada. TIFF, they imply, is in the pocket of the Jews – from both Canada and Israel. Their open letter conspicuously highlights the names of "Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, David Asper of Canwest Global Communications and Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation," noting ominously that TIFF is now "complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine." Cue dark clouds of conspiracy.

Replying to his accusers, TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey says he chose Tel Aviv to inaugurate an annual "City to City focus on films" that will showcase cities through a cinematic lens. TIFF took no Israeli money. The festival will also be showing films by Palestinian, Egyptian and Lebanese filmmakers when it opens this Thursday.

What a strange plot twist: Canadian filmmakers who pay lip service to free expression trying to bring the curtains down on Israeli filmmakers whose art is tainted by their Tel Aviv origins. But if the protesters are applying a litmus test to all world cities, why not castigate city hall for twinning Toronto with Chongqing, given China's human rights abuses? Or demand that Toronto sever its "friendship" links with Volgograd because of Russia's political sins?

Tel Aviv, it seems, makes for a more tempting target.

Either way, it is shocking that some would freely make unsubstantiated accusations of this sort. Moreover, even though the protestors didn't even have the chutzpah to call for a boycott, in fact — the whole protest seems like an exercise in grandstanding to take the focus off the films and create an environment where people would view them, and the festival through a nefarious lens.

Rape, Shmape.

2009-08-13T12:35:00.005-04:00

On a recent trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged 17 million dollars in new funding to combat sexual violence. Sadly though that's not the story most of the media is covering.

Instead there has been intense focus on Clinton's snippy response to an apparently rude question from a Congolese student during a forum in Kinshasa:

“We’ve all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country — the interferences from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think, through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton, and what does Mr. Mutumbo think on this situation?”

Although ther standard media line was that the question was mistranslated, that has since been debunked.

Given that it now appears that the question was translated correctly — and that the male student wanted to know not just what Bill Clinton thought of Chinese relations with Congo but also what the former N.B.A. star Dikembe Mutumbo, who was present at the event, thought, too, but expressed no interest in the perspective of America’s female secretary of state — is it possible that Mrs. Clinton has gotten a raw deal from commentators in the United States for her angry reply?

More to the point, while most of the derisive commentary on Mrs. Clinton’s flash of temper contextualized it by noting that her husband had just been lauded for his trip to North Korea, few noted that she was in the middle of a trip to Congo, where the plight of women, many of whom suffered violent sexual abuse during recent fighting, is a major issue.

Perhaps more absurd is the news media coverage that followed. "I'm the Boss!" headlines screamed, even Jon Stewart disappointingly joined on the bandwagon.

SAs the documentary The Greatest Silence: Rape In The Congo points out:

Since 1998, tens of thousands of women and girls have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated and tortured by soldiers - both from foreign militias and the Congolese army that is supposed to protect them. But perhaps the greatest tragedy, and danger, is that victims almost all remain silent about what they have suffered, too afraid and ashamed to speak out. As a result, the world is largely ignorant of their horrific plight and of the political conditions that allow it to continue.

The question remains, is Clinton's announcement and focus on the crisis of sexual violence against Congolese women not newsworthy enough?

Holocaust Shtick.

2009-07-31T21:10:00.005-04:00

In what can only be described as bizarre, comedian Roseanne Barr and Heeb Magazine have created some controversy surrounding a recent interview and photo shoot.

In the shoot, Barr poses gleefully dressing as Adolf Hitler, complete with a swastika armband, pulling a tray of burnt “Jew Cookies” from an oven. Barr, a Jewish grandmother herself allegedly requested that she be dressed as the führer for the photos.

Barr went on the depart some additional pearls of wisdom:

…on politics The rich ain’t going anywhere. They are done with that Christian Right- type stuff—there’s no more money in it. They have become the Christian Left now.

…on vegans Vegans are all coke-sniffing, cigarette-smoking faux socialists who listen to music that has no melody at all, so fuck them.

Apparently Barr feels guilty about it though.

Sexism: Olympics Style. Part Deux.

2009-07-18T22:11:00.000-04:00

Last year I explored the International Olympic Committee’s exclusion of women's ski jumping for the Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010. Not that there is anything new about sexism in the Olympics, but this case, and its recent conclusion demonstrates it in a way that is quite outrageous.

The story began in November 2006 when the International Olympic Committee rejected the inclusion of women's ski jumping for the Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010. IOC President Jacques Rogge explained that only 80 women were competing in the sport and including it in the 2010 Games would dilute the value of medals won in other events.

Even though nearly all Olympic sports have both a men's and women's event, the Games position towards ski jumping was to let it be a male-only competition. The IOC explained that its decision not to include women's ski jumping at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games was based on technical merit and wasn't discriminatory.

However a coalition of international women ski jumpers disagreed and filed a lawsuit against the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) last year challenging this decision arguing that their exclusion from the Vancouver Games violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "The failure to include women's ski jumping events in the Games violates every woman's right to equal benefit under the law," according to the documents filed in British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver.

VANOC argued that the IOC decides which sports are allowed in the Games and that the Charter doesn't apply to it.

In order to be considered for inclusion in the Olympic Games, the IOC said past world championships were one of several criteria used to determine which of several possible new events would be included in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

"Events must have a recognized international standing both numerically and geographically, and have been included at least twice in world and continental championships," according to the statement, which was re-released by the IOC on Friday.

The statement said the decision not to include Curling Mixed Doubles and Women Ski Jumping in the 2010 Winter Games "was made as their development is still in the early stage thus lacking the international spread of participation and technical standard required for an event to be included in the programme."

But some say the IOC is using the technical merit justification as an excuse and that requirement was formally dropped by the IOC in 2007. They also pointed out that world championships for women's ski jumping were held this year in Liberec, Czech Republic.

Supporters of women's ski jumpers argue there are 135 women ski jumpers in 16 countries. This compares to other sports already in the Games like snowboard cross, which has 34 women from 10 countries, skier cross, which has 30 women from 11 nations, and bobsled, which has 26 women from 13 nations. They also argue that women's marathon was added to the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles after a single world championship in 1983.

Of note, the Canadian Government fully supported the lawsuit and "would try to convince the IOC to include women's ski jumping at the Vancouver Games." David Emerson, Canada’s federal minister responsible for the 2010 Games, said it’s “extremely disappointing” women are not being allowed to ski jump at the Olympics.

“Ski jumping is an important sport and we’re investing a lot in jumping and training facilities in Canada and to not have women able to participate on the same basis as men, to me, I just don’t think it’s right.”

While members of the Canadian ski team were vocal in their dissent, the United States Ski and Snowboard Association took a more diplomatic tact. The association is the governing body for ski sports in the U.S., Tom Kelly, vice-president of communication, refused to say if he thought women were being discriminated against.

“We have great respect for the process the IOC has for bringing the sport into the Olympics. We were disappointed when the IOC made it’s decision (on 2010.) We are very optimistic for 2014. The first world championships will be held next year and that is a critical event in the growth of the sport. When we get to the world championships, and the world sees what these women can do, that is a great message to send to the IOC.”

Sadly though – the battle for female ski jumpers to compete in the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver was lost.

In a ruling issued last week by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon expressed sympathy for the women, but said the court doesn't have the authority to force the IOC to include the sport in the 2010 Games.

In her reasons for judgment, Fenlon agreed with VANOC that the issue is an IOC responsibility. While she conceded that women are being discriminated against, the responsibility for eliminating that discrimination is the IOC's, not VANOC's, she wrote.

Fenlon also sided with VANOC in its argument that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not apply in this case. The IOC is not governed by the Charter nor does it fall under this court's jurisdiction, she wrote.

After the ruling, the IOC issued a statement:

"While we are pleased that the Games can now proceed as planned, we strongly disagree with the court's analysis that the IOC acted in a discriminatory manner."

It repeats the IOC's explanation for the decision not to include women's ski jumping in the 2010 Winter Games: "Our decision was based on technical issues, without regard to gender."

Those technical issues they included the number of women ski jumping at an elite level and the number of countries competing in the sport and restating that too few women and countries compete to justify Olympic competition.

Fenlon addressed that directly in her: "If the IOC had applied the criteria for admission of new events to both men's and women's ski jumping events," she wrote, "neither group would be competing in the 2010 Games."

As more succinctly, as 16 year-old ski jumper Zora Lynch says "It’s not about the competition between the sports. It’s about gender equality and that kind of stuff."

Plumpy'nut.

2009-07-14T14:53:00.005-04:00

I wrote the original diary on this topic almost a year ago to the day and thought perhaps that it was a topic worthy of revisiting.

Every year, malnutrition kills five million children - that's one child every six seconds. Many do not get the milk, vitamins and minerals their developing bodies need. Furthermore, some mothers in these villages can't produce enough milk themselves and can't afford to buy it. Even if milk was available, its very difficult to store -- there’s no electricity, so no refrigeration. Powdered milk is useless because most don't have clean water.

But now, 'Doctors Without Borders' or 'Médecins Sans Frontières' believes that there is a product that can save millions of these children. And could possibly be the most important advance ever to cure and prevent malnutrition.

Plumpy'nut.

A ready-to-eat, vitamin-enriched paste - it's cheap, easy to make, and extremely easy to use. It is a simple formula: made of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, and enriched with vitamins and minerals. It tastes like a peanut butter and is very sweet, and because of that many of the children love it. Developed by a nutritionist, it does not need refrigeration, water, or cooking; it is simply squeezed out in a paste and thus many children can even feed themselves.

Each serving is the equivalent of a glass of milk and a multivitamin.

In Niger, West Africa, where child malnutrition is widespread, 'Doctors Without Borders' has been handing out Plumpy'nut. This was covered in a segment by 60 Minutes.

On a list of 177 developing countries, the United Nations ranked Niger dead last. More than 70% of the people are illiterate and earn less than a dollar a day. The average woman will give birth at least eight times in her life. But largely because of malnutrition, one in five of their children will die before they reach the age of five. Of those who survive, half will have stunted growth and never reach full adult height.

Niger has become Plumpy'nut's proving ground. A daily dose costs about $1; small factories mix it there and in three other African countries. In Niger, most children need help now during what’s called the "hunger season," just before the new harvest. Old food supplies have run out and about all that’s left is millet, a basic grain women pound for porridge. But millet doesn’t have enough nutrients to keep kids alive; in the western world it is used it as birdseed.

Dr. Susan Shepherd, a pediatrician who runs Doctors Without Borders in Niger, says children that would have been hospitalized in the past can now be treated at home. "The reason we can do that is because we can give children Plumpy'nut here in the ambulatory center, and they take a week’s ration home. Moms treat their children at home and come back every week for a weight check," Dr. Shepherd explained.

Children are weighed and measured at the distribution sites. They're also examined to make sure they don't have any serious infections. Malnutrition destroys a child's immune system, so they're more susceptible to diseases and less capable of recovering from them.

If Plumpy'nut is the answer, how come kids are still dying?

"The answer is getting to kids earlier," Shepherd says. "Once children are as sick as she is, Plumpy'nut is not gonna save her."

What about peanut allergies?

"We just don't see it. In developing countries food allergy is not nearly the problem that it is in industrialized countries."

Fortified ready-to-eat products, like Plumpy'nut, save children's lives. nutritional specialist for Médecins Sans Frontières, Dr. Milton Tectonidis says if the more countries were willing to spend part of their food aid on this, more companies will start making it.

"Even by taking a miniscule proportion of the global food aid budget, they will have a huge impact, huge impact!" Tectonidis says. "We're not even asking for billions. It will solve so much of the underlying useless death. So we gotta do that now."

"Wasted life. Just totally wasted life for nothing. Because they don't have this product, *a little bit of peanut butter with vitamins,"* Tectonidis says. "What a waste."

Médecins Sans Frontières is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural or man-made disasters.

Hitler? He Got Things Done.

2009-07-05T00:49:00.002-04:00

Yesterday Bernie Ecclestone, the head of Formula One, in an interview with London's The Times newspaper, said that he preferred totalitarian regimes to democracies and praised Adolf Hitler for his ability to “get things done”

“In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done.

In the end he got lost, so he wasn’t a very good dictator because either he had all these things and knew what was going on and insisted, or he just went along with it . . . so either way he wasn’t a dictator.” He also rounded on democracy, claiming that “it hasn’t done a lot of good for many countries — including this one [Britain]”.

Ecclestone later praised the concept of a government based on tyranny.

Politicians are too worried about elections,” he said. “We did a terrible thing when we supported the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He was the only one who could control that country. It was the same [with the Taleban]. We move into countries and we have no idea of the culture. The Americans probably thought Bosnia was a town in Miami. There are people starving in Africa and we sit back and do nothing but we get involved in things we should leave alone.”

Ecclestone, who owns F1's commercial rights, is no stranger to controversial remarks. He once said women should dress in white "like all other domestic appliances." In The Times interview, Ecclestone claimed that had been a joke, adding "I would love to have a good lady race driver and preferably black and Jewish too, but they might take maternity leave."

Children of Heaven.

2009-06-22T21:27:00.000-04:00

"I think that the manifestation of our culture in terms of our identity is absolutely crucial." Former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin

Children of Heaven is a 1997 Iranian film by Majid Majidi. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.

Thoughts and prayers.

#iranelection.

2009-06-16T21:08:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend as total chaos broke out in Iran one wouldn't have known anything about it if they weren't on the tubes. As E.D Kain writes,

if I wasn’t online, an avid blogger and reader of blogs, and if I didn’t frequent the New York Times, I wouldn’t know a damn thing about the phenomenon in Iran. It would feel like just any other story from the “crazy Middle East.” I wouldn’t have seen images of the streets of green-clad protestors. I wouldn’t have seen the beatings or the fires or read the twitter feeds or the first hand accounts. I wouldn’t have seen the youtube videos. And lest it be forgotten, the news most people receive if they receive any at all is from their televisions.

This utter and complete failure of the MSM did not escape those of us connected as we literally watched the horrors and chaos coming from Iran right before our eyes.

Twitter users were posting “#CNNfail” on thousands of tweets Saturday night saying that their coverage of important news like the Iranian elections were downplayed by the cable network.
Here are some of those tweets:

clickmomukhamo: OMG! Major developments in Iran yet CNN isn’t breaking into Larry King who’s interviewing some bikers! #cnnfail

lifeonqueen: CNN is screwing the pooch on this one - top story on web is Six Flags bankruptcy not Iran. Way to miss history CNN #CNNfail

geoffeighinger: RT @Elektracutie They should quit the news and just do travel brochures. #cnnfail

ivanlasso: RT @dabloguiman: COVER IRAN NOW!!!! @CNN @CNNbrk @CNNWORLD #iranelection #CNNFAIL pls RT

Many American Twitter users praised British and other international news outlets for covering the Iranian election aftermath of riots and civil unrest. The “#cnnfail” tag was the third most tweeted topic on the microblogging network Saturday night. The “#iremember” tag and “#Iranelections” tags were first and second respectively.

Which has been leading some to ask - “Is Iran the end of the MSM?” The answer is probably no right now - but as Kain notes:

We are witnessing two revolutions here – one, the “green revolution” in Iran which may or may not be a success, and the other the technology and news information revolution. We are witnessing the unwitting suicide and slow death of the news media as we know it, as they cave to ratings and apathy rather than getting out there and covering a real story, as they aid and abbet the numbing and dumbing down of the American people.

Well put. Oh and don't forget your hashtags.

Getting Out of the Gutter.

2009-06-12T21:27:00.007-04:00

Amidst a climate of war, global warming, skyrocketing deficits, whopping trade imbalances, gas gouging, corporate corruption, a burst housing market bubble, illegal government spying, rampant corruption, torture, war atrocities, racism, marriage inequality a crumbling infrastructure, Bin Laden, failing schools, loss of competitiveness, war profiteering, a shrinking middle class, health care crisis and more... some Republicans have more than lost their way. They have gone so far astray that it may too late to turn back.

In light of recent events, Paul Krugman notes that right-wing hate has become a serious threat:

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

Stoked by bigotry, religious intolerance, willful ignorance, and belligerent nationalism have turned many on the right into mean and hateful ideologues. The cultural and intellectual 'wars' are furthered by demagogues ranting about the evils of liberalism, the welfare state and those who would seek to remove god from their society. Michael Rowe observes the party-split in, "Death at the Holocaust Museum and the Degradation of the American Dialogue."

The difference between John McCain and Sarah Palin became clearest to me in the middle of the campaign last summer.

At a town hall meeting, McCain was confronted by an elderly woman who told McCain that she was a supporter of his because Obama was "an Arab." McCain was clearly uncomfortable, and it was patently obvious why. It had nothing to do with McCain's feelings about Arabs. It had to do with an old-school Republican accidentally moving the rock, and coming face to face with what actually lived beneath it. He recognized that the woman was making an unambiguously racist statement about his opponent, and he was mortified to be asked to answer it. Even though McCain famously and horribly bungled his answer ("No ma'am, he isn't. He's a decent family man.") I knew when he meant. He was addressing the intended racial slur and disavowing it, however badly.

In that moment, I felt deeply for my Republican friends who, on some level, must also be experiencing the embarrassment and discontent of recognizing that their party had been hijacked by racists and religious fanatics who derided education and achievement as "elitist."

But the alarms about just how bad things are even being rung by some 'conservatives.' Joe Scarborough, former Replubican Member of Congress and talk-show host on the Today Show:

I don't know if it was the death of the old Republican party. Maybe the next election will be the death of the old Republican party. Are Republicans going to wake up? Are they going to realize that not only do they need Dick Cheneys in the party, but they need Colin Powells in the party? They need to expand--I mean we should want everybody in the party that we can get and not have a harsh ideological test. That's what I talk about in the book. We all run around talking about Reagan, Reagan, we've got to be more like Reagan. Well, we've got Reagan's ideology down, smaller government, less taxes, but we forget Reagan's temperament. We have to have a better temperament. We can't be shrill. We can find the middle of America. Ronald Reagan, everybody's quoting Ronald Reagan. Palin was quoting Ronald Reagan --

Rowe explains just how poisoned the discourse has become:

There was a time when intellectual honesty was not considered unpatriotic; when compassion for, and understanding of, your fellow man was a sign of strength, not weakness. There was a time when the phrase Have you no shame? meant something, and the First Amendment was not used as toilet paper to wipe up the excremental verbal degradation of vulnerable segments of the American population. A time when it was expected that citizens would understand the difference between free speech and irresponsible speech. Somewhere along the line, a cancerous segment of American popular culture and media cunningly exploited the long-standing, honorable American "cowboy" motif and mentality. They grafted cruelty, divisiveness, and ignorance to it, making the two appear indistinguishable, and natural allies. And they are neither, or at least ought not to be.

There is no Environmental Protection Agency to measure hate pollution in national dialogue, and no mechanism in place to warn us when the poisonous rage spewed into the national consciousness by shock-jocks, poisonous television pundits, megachurch leaders, and oh-so-subtle politicians, has reached dangerously toxic levels.

Much like the other crazed political parties of the historic past, many Republicans seem determined to assign subhuman status to a large group of their own citizenry. Perhaps a starting point for the 'conservatives' wanting to get out of the gutter would be to stop casting your lot once and for all with the same ignorant, racist fools whose complete lack of ability to think either critically or rationally, have damned near turned your party in the crumbling and dangerous ruin that it has become.

James Von Brunn: Freeper.

2009-06-10T17:50:00.001-04:00

The gunman that murdered Stephen Tyrone Johns at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC was a right-wing extremist and Freeper. As ThinkProgress notes:

A white supremacist born in 1920. Brunn has been approvingly cited on Stormfront, a national white supremacist website. He is apparently the author of a tract called, “Kill the Best Gentiles,” which his website describes as “a new, hard-hitting exposé of the JEW CONSPIRACY to destroy the White gene-pool.” Brunn, a WWII veteran, also wrote a screed on President Obama’s citizenship that was re-posted to popular right-wing message board Free Republic:

Obama is missing!
DN.no (Nowegian Forum) ^ | December 2, 2008 | James W. von Brunn
Posted on December 2, 2008 3:40:03 PM GMT-05:00 by wannabegeek

Obama is missing!

The American People Demand to Know:

WHO SENT YOU???

Obama has lived for 48 years without leaving any footprints -- none! There is no Obama documentation -- no records -- no paper trail -- none -- this is no accident. It is being done on purpose with Media help - but to serve whom & why???

MISSING-HIDDEN DOCUMENTS:

Original, vault copy of Certificate of Live Birth in the USA -- Not Released (1 version hidden in Hawaii, Original found in Kenya)

Certificate of Live Birth -- Released - Proven Counterfeit (www.ObamaFiles.com)

Obama/Dunham marriage license -- Not released

Soetoro/Dunham marriage license -- Not released

Soetoro adoption records -- Not released

Fransiskus Assisi School School application -- Not Released

Punahou School records -- Not released

Selective Service Registration -- Released - Proven Counterfeit

Occidental College records -- Not released

Passport (Pakistan) -- Not released

Columbia College records -- Not released

Columbia thesis -- Not released

Harvard College records -- Not released

Harvard Law Review articles -- None (maybe 1, Not Signed)

Baptism certificate -- None

Medical records -- Not released

Illinois State Senate records -- None (Locked up to prohibit public view

Illinois State Senate schedule -- Lost (All other Illinois state senators' records are intact)

Law practice client list -- Not released

University of Chicago scholarly articles -- None

WHY DON'T WE SEE ONE WORD OF THIS IN ANY OF THE MEDIA?

Love him or hate him, we all remember how the press went to great lengths to find out every move that President Bush made ... finally unable to come up with anything factual, so they created it! When their accusations were proven empty, they refused to retract one word of the fraud they perpetrated on the American people.

Dan Rather lost his job over fraudulent documents, because common people like you & me reached out and ripped CBS to pieces. They couldn't stand the loss of sponsors OR viewers!

The same Media went to great lengths to scandalize & destroy Sarah Palin. She maintains a 91% approval rating among voters from all parties, thanks to the Internet and investigative journalists who don't work for the mainstream media.

NOW ------- The Supreme Court has scheduled a Conference for Dec 5th about Obama's

U. S. Citizenship. STILL, not a word about any of this from the Media. If it were not for the Internet and talk radio, American citizens would become the servants of a dishonest & conspiratorial Media.

THINK ABOUT IT. IT DIDN'T USED TO BE THIS WAY! How much longer are we going to sit on our hands & say not a word?

AND DON'T THINK THE MEDIA SIMPLY DOESN'T KNOW - THEY ARE GETTING POUNDED WITH EMAILS ABOUT IT!!!

Obama could not get a simple security clearance with the information the government has on him ---- NOBODY COULD!

NOW he is privy to every top secret America has!

What is going on??? WHERE ARE THE GOOD PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY - ARE YOU OUT THERE???

Submitted by: James W. von Brunn

The above post was scrubbed from the Free Republic site and then mysteriously reappeared shortly ago.

Facebook and Holocaust Denial.

2009-06-07T20:49:00.010-04:00

Controversy has been reignited after it emerged that the Facebook has refused to close groups that promote Holocaust denial. Although the social networking site's position in this matter is not new, this story has seemingly gained some traction recently in the media.

Perhaps one of the loudest voices opposing the corporate line is Brian Cuban who is leading the charge to get Facebook to remove these groups. After a story from Chris Matyszczyk of CNET covered Cuban on this issue, it drew an official response from Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt:

The bottom line is that, of course, we abhor Nazi ideals and find Holocaust denial repulsive and ignorant. However, we believe people have a right to discuss these ideas and we want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed. Of course, we have some limits.

Then Schnitt in a recent interview with CNN said:

"It's a difficult decision to make. We have a lot of internal debate and we bring in experts to talk about it," Schnitt said. "Just being offensive or objectionable doesn't get it taken off Facebook. We want it [the site] to be a place where people can discuss all kinds of ideas, including controversial ones.

Cuban responded in an open letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg:

The Holocaust Denial movement is nothing more than a pretext to allow the preaching of hatred against Jews and to recruit other like minded individuals to do the same. Allowing these groups to flourish on Facebook under the guise of “open discussion” does nothing more than help spread their message of hate. Is this the kind of open discussion that Facebook wants to encourage? Is this really where you want to draw your line?

It is undisputed that as a collective , Holocaust Deniers are overwhelmingly antisemitic. One cannot be separated from the other. They use a fringe, discredited historical theory as a pretext and rallying point to perpetrate and promote their message of hate using Facebook as recruiting ground. By allowing these groups whether they number 1 or 1000, Facebook is not promoting open discussion of a controversial issue. It is promoting and encouraging hatred towards ethnic and religious groups, nothing more.

By claiming open discussion as the rationale for allowing these groups to exist, Facebook is playing games with semantics. Facebook is taking form over substance to protect their imaginary subjective corporate line in the sand they have drawn.

Some have also argued that Facebook picks and chooses which groups are being removed 'setting a subjective standard' and that "there is no First Amendment right to free speech in the private realm." They note that Facebook bans pictures of breastfeeding mothers because of nudity, yet isn't prepared to stand against closing groups that are illegal in at least 13 countries. It is also interesting to note that while it was reported that Facebook took down the group HoloHoax, that appears to be inaccurate.

The Guardian breaks it down:

But perhaps the argument is really about where Facebook puts it priorities. Given that the company runs a 150-strong team of so-called "porn cops" to patrol for risque images - profiled at length recently in Newsweek - why does it feel that hate speech isn't worth the same amount of trouble?

The battle for corporate interests versus social responsibility has begun.

How did 100,000,000 women go missing?

2009-06-06T12:49:00.006-04:00

(cross-posted at kickin it with cg)

Obama's speech in Cairo this week was brilliant and the warmth with which he was received was a wonder to behold. However some were disappointed with the length and breadth in which the President touched on human rights and specifically women's rights. Responding to Obama's reference to the hijab in his speech, Peter Doau asks:

Is that a joke?

With women being stoned, raped, abused, battered, mutilated, and slaughtered on a daily basis across the globe, violence that is so often perpetrated in the name of religion, the most our president can speak about is protecting their right to wear the hijab? I would have been much more heartened if the preponderance of the speech had been about how in the 21st century, we CANNOT tolerate the pervasive abuse of our mothers and sisters and daughters.

To be fair, later in the speech Obama did delve further into this:

The sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights.

I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.

Now let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.

Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity - men and women - to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that people live their dreams.

Which brings us to a sad and startling picture of gender discrimination in the developing world. Researchers Siwan Anderson (University of Britsh Columbia) and Debraj Ray (New York University) recently co-authored a paper titled, Missing Women: Age and Disease. In it, they postulate that the ratio of women to men in developing regions and in some cultures is suspiciously below the global average.

The term "missing women" was coined in 1990, by Indian economist Amartya Sen, in the The New York Review of Books where he calculated that in parts of Asia and Africa 100 million women who should be alive are not because of unequal access to medical care, food and social services. Sen postulated that these with these excess deaths: women were "missing" above and beyond natural mortality rates, compared to their male counterparts.

The fate of women is quite different in most of Asia and North Africa. In these places the failure to give women medical care similar to what men get and to provide them with comparable food and social services results in fewer women surviving than would be the case if they had equal care. In India, for example, except in the period immediately following birth, the death rate is higher for women than for men fairly consistently in all age groups until the late thirties. This relates to higher rates of disease from which women suffer, and ultimately to the relative neglect of females, especially in health care and medical attention.[2] Similar neglect of women vis-à-vis men can be seen also in many other parts of the world. The result is a lower proportion of women than would be the case if they had equal care--in most of Asia and North Africa, and to a lesser extent Latin America.

Sen went on to explain that in the world boys outnumber girls at birth, but in countries where women and men receive equal care, women have proved hardier and more resistant to disease, and thus live longer. In most of Asia and North Africa, however, he found that women die with startlingly higher frequency than in other parts of the world. Sen's research caused a sensation in academic circles when it was originally published in 1990.
Building on this data and focusing on figures from China, India and sub-Saharan Africa for the year 2000, what Anderson and Ray found out flew in the face of existing literature and commonly held beliefs about the missing women phenomenon.

"Previously, people had thought that they (the missing women) were all at the very early stages of life, prenatal or just after, so before four years old," Anderson says. "But what we found is that the majority are actually later." Female infanticide has been endemic in India and China for some time, which she says led researchers to assume that it was the source of all the missing women. But the truth is much more complicated.
Once the researchers broke down the numbers by age group, they found that the majority of excess female deaths came later in life: 66% in India, 55% in China and 83% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Using data gathered primarily from the World Bank, the United Nations and the World Health Organization, the researchers admits that getting the figures can be a huge challenge. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, many deaths go undocumented, and in India, it is virtually impossible to know how many "unintentional" deaths are actually dowry killings, because they are not accurately reported to the authorities.
One of their colleagues in the economics department at the University of British Columbia says this finding is striking, and points the way for future research and advocacy.
"Why would there be excess mortality of, let's say, 45-year-old women versus 45-year-old men?" asks economics professor Kevin Milligan. "And what they find is ... they have the same set of diseases, they just seem to die more frequently. The explanation that seems most consistent with that is differential access to health care. And so that's a really striking finding."

While they believe that lack of health care is likely a big part of the problem, there also believe that there numerous cultural and social factors that play a factor and can be difficult to narrow down. In their "elementary accounting exercise", Anderson and Ray began to plot the causes of excess death in 2000 by age group, and produced some striking numbers.

- 600,000 missing women each year from HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa.

- In China, suicide explains well over 100,000 missing women each year..

- In India ﬁre-related death is a leading cause of missing women due to injuries (over 100,000 each year).

Dowry prices have not dropped off with improvements in education in India either. Instead, they have gotten worse, with educated brides and their families willing to pay even more for high-quality grooms. These dowry payments can be six times a family's annual wealth - an excruciating price, especially for poor villagers. The implications of this hefty sum trickle down to the first moments of a child's life. While conducting recent field work in India, villagers were asked about selective abortions and found them open about the fact that they use ultrasound to determine the baby's gender and help them decide whether or not to keep it.

"They see no other options, they really cannot afford to have a daughter."

Future research will delve deeper, seeking answers to questions such as: How often are men given mosquito nets to protect themselves from malaria, but not women? How many women die because they are not taken to the hospital when they are sick?

Most wouldn't argue that there is far more to gender equality than merely promoting education - inheritance rights, fair divorce settlements, freedom from family-imposed marriage, from culturally approved violence, from deeply held traditions of female subservience.

While Obama's speech was a start, clearly there is much work to do.

What Planet Is He On?

2009-06-03T19:59:00.004-04:00

On the way to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia the New York Times is reporting that President Obama told Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, that the "United States also could be considered as 'one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.'"

This comment, predictably, has set off some controversy. Case in point is Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch, who asks "what planet is he on?" Answers Mark Leon Goldberg,

I'm guessing "earth." Because according to the Pew Research Center, there are an estimated 2.35 million Muslims in Amerca. This means that if the United States were a member of the 57 nation Organization of the Islamic Conferences it would rank, in terms of Muslim population, above Albania, Kuwait, Brunei, Benin, Togo, Djbouti, Suriname, Gabon, Gambia, Guyana, Guinea-Bissau, Comoros, Qatar, Lebanon, and the Maldives.

Obama went on to say:

“What I want to do is to create a better dialogue so that the Muslim world understands more effectively how the United States, but also how the West thinks about many of these difficult issues like terrorism, like democracy, to discuss the framework for what’s happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and our outreach to Iran, and also how we view the prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians,”

snip

“I think the most important thing I want to tell young people is that, regardless of your faith, those who build as opposed to those who destroy I think leave a lasting legacy, not only for themselves but also for their nations. And the impulse towards destruction as opposed to how can we study science and mathematics and restore the incredible scientific and knowledge — the output that came about during centuries of Islamic culture.

After 8 years of clumsy buffoonery - I guess this is what real diplomatic efforts look like.

Nowhere To Turn.

2009-06-01T14:16:00.005-04:00

Physicians for Human Rights, in partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, has published a report documenting the scope and long-term impact of rape and other sexual violence experienced by women who fled attacks on their villages in Darfur and are now refugees in neighboring Chad.

The report -- titled "Nowhere To Turn: Failure To Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women" corroborates women’s accounts of rape and other crimes against humanity that they have experienced in Darfur, as well as rape and deprivations of basic needs in refugee camps in Chad. Based on interviews with female refugees living in Chad's Farchana refugee camp, the report calls for "vigorous prosecution of rape as a war crime."

"Many Darfuri women refugees live in a nightmare of memories of past trauma compounded by the constant threat of sexual violence around the camps now," said said Susannah Sirkin,, the physician group's deputy director.

"Women who report being raped are stigmatized, and remain trapped in places of perpetual insecurity. There's no one to stop the rapes, no one to turn to for justice for past or ongoing crimes, and little psycho-social support to address their prolonged and unimaginable traumas."

Dr. Sondra Crosby, a Physicians for Human Rights consultant and expert in refugee trauma, said "the atmosphere of intimidation was palpable as we listened to women describing their profound suffering and fear, and their yearning to return safely and with dignity to their former lives."

Of those refugees interviewed, "32 reported instances of confirmed or highly probable rape" -- 17 in Darfur and 15 in Chad, the group said. "Among the instances of rape reported in Chad, the vast majority (10 of 11 confirmed reports) occurred when women left the camps to gather firewood." And just over half of the 88 women interviewed -- 46 of them -- live in fear of sexual assaults around the refugee camp.

The group supports the issuing of International Criminal Court warrants against the Sudanese perpetrators, calls for "legal reforms in Chad to end impunity for sexual violence," and for "effective psychosocial support to survivors." Further it said increased protections are needed by police and peacekeepers, including "effective firewood patrols."

See the photos included in the report.

Who Listens to this Dumb-F**k?

2009-05-27T11:53:00.003-04:00

In his usual brilliance, Rush Limbaugh said yesterday that he hopes Sonia Sotomayor fails.

In case you missed it - Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge who was first appointed to the bench by Republican George H. W. Bush, is President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. Her nomination was announced at a press conference yesterday morning. Hours later, Limbaugh was lashing out on his radio show:

Do I want her to fail? Yeah. Do I want her to fail to get on the court? Yes. She'd be a disaster on the Court.

Do I still want to Obama to fail as President? Yeah, -- AP, you getting this?

He's gonna fail anyway, but the sooner the better here so that as little damage can be done to the country.

A true patriot.

The Limits of Incentive-Based Diplomacy.

2009-05-26T14:28:00.003-04:00

Once again, Kim Jong-il is testing the resolve of the international community. The latest North Korean nuclear provocation - an underground detonation yesterday - is the biggest trial of the Obama administration's foreign policy and of China's newfound global status to date.

The stakes are high not only because Pyongyang's provocations undermine security in northeast Asia, but also because a critical issue facing the US is nuclear proliferation to Iran. Should North Korea acquire the status of a nuclear-weapons state, any effort to prevent the nuclearization of Iran would lose validity. Additionally the prospect of a nuclear Iran could unravel U.S. Middle East policy, threatening the survival of Israel as well as the security of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf oil-exporting states. For China, the stakes in North Korea are no less important. It has banked its credibility on restraining Pyongyang through the diplomatic process of the six-party talks on Kim’s nuclear program.

The Kim family dynasty's determination to secure its survival through the acquisition of nuclear weapons not only threatens South Korea, but also may provoke Japan (the only country that suffered an atomic bombing) to weaponize its advanced nuclear technology. Yet Kim has success doing what he has been doing in the past – winning foreign aid to stave off his people's hunger and provoking diplomatic apoplexy to feed his megalomania.

A unscrupulous dictator, Kim bankrolls his state by counterfeiting U.S. currency and the export of narcotics. He has no fuel for his factories and no foodstuff to feed his people yet finds the time to kidnap teenagers from the beaches of Japan. He goes through the motions of building nuclear reactors, then wins subsidized oil shipments from the outside world in return for suspending construction. With thousands of land-based missiles pointed at South Korea and 1.2 million soldiers under arms, Kim has long had the West over a barrel.

The response to the removal of North Korea from the U.S. list of countries supporting terrorism has been for Kim to renew his campaign of nuclear blackmail. He has no fear of the UN Security Council, whose resolutions he has defied on multiple occasions in the past five years.

With yesterday’s events broadcast through the global airways, North Korea created critical mass. No doubt a nuclear arms race in northeast Asia would undermine the U.S.-Japan security treaty and inflame a fear of Japanese militarism in the rest of Asia, especially in China, where bitter memories of Japan's aggression simmer just below the surface. It’s pretty safe to say that a scramble to acquire a nuclear stockpile in any region of the world is not what the international community is hoping for.

The only way to restrain Kim from his course is the joint and explicit cooperation of the rest of the participants in the six-party talks, led by China and the United States and supported by Russia, Japan and South Korea. China's swift condemnation of this week's nuclear test by North Korea signals that its patience is at an end.

In the coming days, we will see whether the international community can rise to the challenge. The limits of incentive-based diplomacy have been reached. The world must now tolerate imposing painful sanctions on Pyongyang. The price of inaction is too high. The risk of a war that would once again devastate the Korean Peninsula has deterred any military option. So it would seem that only close co-ordination between China and the United States to devise sanctions (such as a total energy embargo on a state that has no domestic source of oil) might constrain the continued operation of the North Korean regime without firing a shot. However it could also provoke a suicidal attack on South Korea or Japan from a power-crazed and desperate neighbour.

Kim threatens the world with the push of a button out of weakness, not strength. The world may ultimately be forced into an uncomfortable and uncharacteristic game of brinkmanship, because clearly it seems the international community is running out of options.

World's Oldest Blogger Passes.

2009-05-25T23:50:00.005-04:00

A 97 year-old blogger, Maria Amalia López from Spain passed away Wednesday in the northern province of La Coruna.

With hits from around the world, Lopez started blogging in December of 2006 at amis95.blogspot.com

Charming readers with a homely mix of memories and chat, one of her entries reads "My grandson gave me this blog when I was 95 on December 23 2006 and my life changed, since that day I've had 1,570,784 visits from bloggers from 5 continents who have cheered up my old age."

Writing about everything from her first-hand experiences on historic events during the Spanish Civil War, years of dictatorship under General Francisco Franco to her opinions about current Spanish politics - people described her funny and accessible. Lopez, who dictated her entries to her grandson Daniel because she suffered from cataracts, became a nationally loved figure in Spain. As her fame spread, Lopez became an unlikely campaigner for digital rights for older people, and even took tea with the Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister.

In one of her last posts, in February this year, she wrote: "When I'm on the internet, I forget about my illness. The distraction is good for you – being able to communicate with people. It wakes up the brain, and gives you great strength." Lopez became the world's oldest blogger on the death of 108-year-old Australian Oliver Riley in June 2008. Twitter's oldest microblogger is the 104-year-old Briton Ivy Bean, who keeps her 14,600 followers entertained at twitter.com/ivybean104.

A banner on Lopez's site read "Rest in Peace," with nearly 500 messages mourning her death and includes the following message from her family:

María Amelia López Soliño passed away last Wednesday May 20th at 6 a.m.

María Amelia rest in peace where she always wanted to, in Pedra de Abalar, in her town of Muxia (Galicia) where she was born and where she spent the best moments of her youth.

Her family, our family, we want to thank all of you those 880 blog's days that became very successful, and all these sanples of love and support that made her happy and were vital support to enjoy more than ever her last years.

The truth is that this is the most difficult post that I have ever written. I already knew that I should write it one day and here I am.

I'm not sad at all. I do not know why, but I'm not. Life does not last 150 years, and grandmother gave us many health scare. But life is for living and she always lived with intensity. And when somebody dies at 97 years old having lived its live with intensity from the beginning to the end we should not be sad.

I could start and nonstop because he the occasion worth it the chance, but I have thousands of things on the top of my head ... and I'm not able to sort them. So I prefer you to speak, hers "blogueriños” (as she used to call her bloggers friends).

Wherever grandmother could be, she will read all the comments, she won’t leave one without read, that's for sure! Some will makes her laugh, others learn new, and she will get mad with the "bad language" ... but happy reading all of them.

This blog is just finishing here but it will in another format wherever she is. It will be a different format, which still we cannot read. But make clear that sooner or later all of you end up reading.

Enjoy life and grandparents

A kiss and a big hug from
Mary Amelia and Family

We love you Grandma!!!

En paz descanse blogueriños.

Sexist Asses on Michelle Obama.

2009-05-22T22:27:00.006-04:00

I'm pissed. And for that reason I cannot really formulate a coherent response to this pile of fail:

[partial transcript starting about 1:45] Mohr: I'd like to talk about the basketball playoffs, I'd like to talk about "King" [LeBron] James, this guy could actually be greater than Michael Jordan. I'd like to talk about Kevin Garnett. This guy's the Michelle Obama of the Celtics: he doesn't really do anything, but damn, he looks good, doesn't he, Jim? Michelle Obama—that is a big dude. When Barack plays pick-up games at the White House, you know he picks Michelle as at least his forward, maybe his [center], depending on who's in Congress that day. That has to be like being married to Elton Brand. She is a big. dude. I like when she put her arm around the Queen of England and she put her in a headlock and told her, "I've been waiting 200 years to put my arms around you, lady!" I love that. I like how she shaved off all her eyebrows, and then drew them back way too high into an arch and then straight back down, so she always looks super surprised. She kinda—Michelle Obama kinda looks like the Count on Sesame Street, that's great. [mimicking the Count] "One, ah, ah, ah. One black President, ah, ah, ah."

Luckily though, there are a couple of people that have an appropriate reaction.

Holly over at Feminste writes:

Real classy way to treat the First Lady — but if you ask me, Jay Mohr has always been about as funny as a week-old sack of dead rats. He’s clearly whipping out his most tired material for Rome’s sports-radio army of clones, too. Scott Madin noted over at Shakesville that there are even more racist, transphobic jokes (somehow related to steroids and gynecomastia, I guess?) later on in the clip, at about 3:30.

Over at Shakesville Madin handily notes:

Rome's website is here, and it looks like at least one of his features is sponsored by Chevy. According to Wikipedia, he's syndicated by "Premiere Radio Networks, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications," and also hosts a show on ESPN. Judging from the clip, I'm guessing writing to Rome's show will not be productive, but contacting Clear Channel, ESPN, and/or advertisers (in a quick search I wasn't able to find out anything about other advertisers, but Chevy's contact page is here) might be more effective.

Nothing funnier than a dash of transphobic misogyny?

The Rich Are Different.

2009-05-19T20:45:00.003-04:00

There is nothing new about it - but here's more proof - that the poor are the most generous givers.

America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.

"The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity," said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major nonprofit agencies. "The next two-fifths give at capacity, and those above that are capable of giving two or three times more than they give."

Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest survey of consumer expenditure found that the poorest fifth of America's households contributed an average of 4.3 percent of their incomes to charitable organizations in 2007. The richest fifth gave at less than half that rate, 2.1 percent.

In terms of income, the poorest fifth seem unlikely benefactors. Their pretax household incomes averaged $10,531 in 2007, according to the BLS survey, compared with $158,388 for the top fifth.

In addition, its members are the least educated fifth of the U.S. population, the oldest, the most religious and the likeliest to rent their homes, according to demographers. They're also the most likely fifth to be on welfare, to drive used cars or rely on public transportation, to be students, minorities, women and recent immigrants.

However, many of these characteristics predict generosity. Women are more generous than men, studies have shown. Older people give more than younger donors with equal incomes. The working poor, disproportionate numbers of which are recent immigrants, are America's most generous group, according to Arthur Brooks, the author of the book "Who Really Cares," an analysis of U.S. generosity.

What makes poor people's generosity even more impressive is that their giving generally isn't tax-deductible, because they don't earn enough to justify itemizing their charitable tax deductions. In effect, giving a dollar to charity costs poor people a dollar while it costs deduction itemizers 65 cents.

Which leads to the natural question some might be asking themselves- why are generous people poorer than stingy ones?

Pig Panic!

2009-04-28T20:18:00.005-04:00

For the last few days I have been glued to my TV, washing my hands compulsively and been trying to stand a safe distance away from people. Not that its helped much since, in my city there are 4 confirmed cases of swine flu today.

At the same time as the Toronto cases were confirmed, Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, was busy suggesting that President Obama was to blame for the swine flu crisis. Bachmann implied that swine flu epidemics are a Democratic phenomenon that date back to President Carter.

"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."

Sadly Bachmann's facts are not quite right. As Republican President Gerald Ford, not Carter, was in office during the last outbreak of the virus.

In the meantime, before you get back to stockpiling water, vaccinations and food, you may want to take a look at this.

A Gay Rain Army.

2009-04-22T09:27:00.002-04:00

There is a storm being caused by gay marriage and we are all in serious trouble.

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

Better get under the umbrella.

Mea Culpa on Palin: She Sucks.

2009-04-14T21:29:00.007-04:00

(cross posted at kickin it with cg)

Matt - one of the reasons I started my site is because I know so many on the so-called left who secretly admire Sarah Palin for various reasons but can't reconcile it politically or acknowledge it publicly.

There are a LOT of us.

I think there is a way to do both - critique her whackadoodle aspects and enjoy other things about her, the diva/pretty tomboy notwithstanding.

She is something totally new down here. I'd rather deal with it than try and repress it away, because we know where repression lands us.

Plus, she's just flat out totally sexy. Just because I say so doesn't mean I'm ever going to vote for her lol

Well - that pretty much sums up how I felt about Sarah Palin up until about 5 minutes ago. True that I often cringed with the winking, Clinton references and the strange phrasings - but usually it was with a smile. I despised the sexism Palin was a subject to and was saddened to see my fellow progressives go so far astray from their values when it came to 'Bible Spice' and 'Caribou Barbie.'

But it would appear that I was dead wrong about this horrible person.

Wayne Anthony Ross, her choice for attorney general, has an alleged fondness for rape jokes and doesn’t like homosexuals.

Ross, who once described gay people as “immoral degenerates,” was quizzed this week about how he would view cases involving homosexuality as the state’s top legislator.

“Let me give you an analogy — I hate lima beans,” Ross told a legislative hearing into his nomination.

“I’ve never liked lima beans. But if I was hired to represent the United Vegetable Growers, would you ask me if I liked lima beans? No. If I disliked lima beans? No. Because my job is to represent the United Vegetable Growers.”

A letter from Leah Burton, a lobbyist on children’s issues and domestic violence, has caused an uproar, hogging headlines and infuriating some of Alaska’s most outspoken bloggers, who play a critical role in reporting politics in the remote and far-flung state.

Burton alleges that in 1991, she heard Ross say at public meeting that domestic violence “wouldn’t be an issue if women would learn to keep their mouth shut.”

At the hearing, Ross denied making that statement, and also denied making the suggestion in the same conversation that it was acceptable for a man to rape his wife.

For the sake of Alaskans i only hope that she is out of office soon enough. To my fellow progressives - I apologize for the folly of my ways.

Rush Limbaugh: Ignore the Attention Whore.

2009-04-13T01:26:00.003-04:00

Everywhere I turn it seems Rush Limbaugh is. Much as I try and avoid the inanity, he is everywhere. Say for instance even today, I was reading an article about Michael J. Fox and Parkinsons's disease, and wouldn't you know it...

Fox writes in Always Looking Up of getting painted with the crude brush of U.S. political discourse. In the summer of 2006, he was appalled to see George W. Bush exercise the first veto of his presidency to kill a bill that would have permitted funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

Vowing it wouldn't happen again, Fox turned his office into the headquarters of a co-ordinated effort that promised to throw its weight behind any candidate in that fall's midterm elections - Democrat or Republican, House member or Senate hopeful - who supported the research. He appeared at rallies, raised funds and filmed commercials for candidates. And then, in mid-October, Rush Limbaugh attacked Fox for an ad made on behalf of a Democratic candidate in which the right-wing radio host said Fox was "exaggerating the effects of the disease." For good measure, Limbaugh even imitated Fox's dyskinisias, rolling from side to side and waving his arms in the air, and added, "It's purely an act."

In short order, Limbaugh had his ass handed to him on a plate, as experts and Parkinson's patients scolded him for his ignorance. And Fox was given the platform of a lengthy interview with Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News in which he kept to the high road, helping to move attention from Limbaugh and himself to open up a broader debate about stem-cell research.

"It almost in a way lightened the moment for me, because I kind of went: 'Oh, is it this predictable, is it this cartoonish, that you have to dehumanize the messenger?' " Fox recalls with a kind of glee. "And then it became this wonderful thing, because there was something karmic about the fact that the conversation got hijacked, and they spent the last two weeks [of the campaign] talking about.

Who would have expected Rush Limbaugh to become a national figure and the “official opposition” to the Obama administration? Garnering more attention than the Republican party’s actual leadership? As Rush himself says on his website:

"There is a 'consensus' among the American people, who have made this the most listened to program, that it is also the most accurate, most right, and most correct. People who disagree with this are Rush Deniers."

Really? What's interesting is that Limbaugh's 'dirty little secret' is becoming public, namely that he is not quite as 'in demand' as many would have you believe.

That's obviously not it. OK, so why IS his show so "popular?" Why do hundreds of stations around the country carry his show, the most widely syndicated talkfest in the country?

Glad you asked.

The real story is not generally well-known. The only reason I know is through my covering the business of radio for years for several major daily newspapers and also, for industry trade magazines like Radio World.

It's because -- ready for this? -- Rush's show was, and presumably still is, given away for free to many local radio stations.

This shocker is because of a little-known practice in broadcast syndication called a "barter deal." (Barter deals were briefly mentioned in Michael Wolff's first-rate recent piece on Rush in Vanity Fair).

Here's how a barter deal works: To launch the show, Limbaugh's syndicator, Premiere Radio Networks -- the same folks who syndicate wingnut du jour Glen Beck -- gave Limbaugh's three hours away -- that's right, no cash -- to local radio stations, mostly in medium and smaller markets, back in the early 1990's.

So, a local talk station got Rush's show for zilch. In exchange, Premiere took for itself much of the local station's available advertising time (roughly 15 minutes an hour) and packed the show with national ads it had already pre-sold.

Well, well, well - that explains a lot. And of course - Rush is on one side of the Republican civil war brewing...

But I guess this begs the question, are we making Rush relevant by paying him attention like others publicitiy whores in his brethren?

I think so.

Cosmic Cowboys and Mashed Potatoes with No Gravy.

2009-04-10T21:17:00.007-04:00

Billy Bob Thornton, in perhaps one of the most entertaining moments in recent memory has become a viral hit. The interview took place on Wednesday in Toronto on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation's radio show "Q."

In other news, the don’t-call-me-actor and his band the Boxmasters were loudly booed on Thursday at Toronto’s Massey Hall while opening for Willie Nelson. “Boo all you want, but I want to say something…. We’re really happy to be here, but I need to say something. I talked to this asshole yesterday,” Thornton told the crowd according to the Toronto Star.

NY Attack - Taliban Connection?

2009-04-04T17:40:00.001-04:00

A gunman, reportedly an immigrant from Vietnam, took hostages and opened fire in a U.S. immigration center in New York yesterday. 13 people were killed. The man later killed himself.

After the incident, Pakistani Taliban militant leader Baituallah Mehsud claimed credit for the attack. Reuters reports:

"Pakistani Taliban militant leader Baituallah Mehsud claimed on Saturday responsibility for an attack on a U.S. immigration center in New York state in which 13 people were killed.

"'I accept responsibility. They were my men. I gave them orders in reaction to U.S. drone attacks,' Mehsud told by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Reports claim the FBI have ruled out the Taliban's responsibility in the attack and a Fox Pakistani security analyst "dismissed Mehsud's claim as a publicity stunt."

What do you think?

CEOfail: Frank Stronach.

2009-04-01T20:53:00.007-04:00

“This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed, a lot of these people should be fired, not awarded a bonus. This is horrible. It's outrageous." President Obama

Amidst a global economic meltdown in which millions have lost their, homes and hope - corporate greed continues.

Even though I believe in capitalism its crystal clear that the guys and gals that got us into this mess still don't have a clue. That right - I'm talking about executives who do not care/understand the implications of taking large bonuses without regard to what it will do to the economy as a whole and are certainly a major factor in getting the world into this mess.

As many Canadians nurse their post-New Year's Eve hangovers and ponder what further economic storms await, Canada's top corporate executives can take some comfort in knowing they have already earned as much as the average worker will earn in all of 2009.

A new analysis by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives concludes the country's richest corporate executives will have pocketed an average of $40,237 by (January 1, 2009) 9:04 a.m. Friday morning.

"By the time your computer has finished booting up on your first day back after the New Year's holiday, the average CEO would have already banked what took the average Canadian worker an entire year's worth of work to earn," the report states.

"Many of the top 100 include Canada's big bank CEOs, who recently received billions in federal government bailout money to purchase mortgage loans."

Prepared by economist Hugh Mackenzie, the report finds the top 100 CEOs of publicly traded corporations averaged more than $10 million in pay apiece in 2007, the last full year for which figures are available.

That kind of money would buy 44 high-end Porsches or five $2-million condos.

The collective billion-dollar bonanza -- a 22 per cent increase over the year before -- set a record and followed a decade of unprecedented pay increases, the analysis finds.

Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management, said the gap between low-end and highest-end earners began growing in earnest in the 1980s and accelerated in the 1990s, something Martin attributed essentially to greed.

The question for CEOs changed from how much they felt they needed to earn to how much could they could "possibly extract" from their companies, an attitude detrimental to the company and their employees.

"Rank-and-file employees will increasingly feel like, `Wow, I'm working hard to make that guy really, really rich. Do I like that?"' Martin said.

The report is based on disclosures made by companies trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The compensation includes salaries, bonuses, proceeds from stock options and other payouts.

That's it - I've had enough.

Most of the population kind of has a feeling about the shadiness of these ~~crooks~~ executives - but they are sketchy on the details. So here is my challenge to my fellow citizens/bloggers.

Let's expose them.

Let's get the word out *on each and every one* of these people who's greed helped to bring down the economy on our backs while they lined their pockets. A sort of pay-it-forward to reveal and ridicule the arrogance of those executives that are damaging us all with their greed run amok.

I will start it off below on one of the biggest offenders - but to ensure that we get the message out and get no duplication - I ask that if you decide to help - please follow this format:

1) Keep the titling. Eg. CEOfail: [CEO of choice]

2) Leave me your email address/link to your post at my blog - http://kickinitwithcg.blogspot.com/ so that I can compile them all.

3) Make it good.

*CEOfail: Frank Stronach.*

Frank Stronach is an Austrian-Canadian businessman. He is the founder of Magna International, an international automotive parts company based in Aurora, Ontario, Canada, and Magna Entertainment Corp., which specializes in horse-racing entertainment.

Magna is Canada's largest automobile parts manufacturer, and one of the country's largest companies. It also owns the successful Magna Steyr automobile production company of Austria. Founded in 1957 by Stronach as Multimatic, the company merged with Magna Electronics in 1969, and the combined company became Magna International in 1973.

Magna manufactures auto parts that are primarily supplied to General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler LLC. In addition to the Big 3 automakers, Magna's major customers include Volkswagen, BMW and Toyota. In Europe, Magna Steyr holds contracts for the assembly of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Chrysler Voyager minivan and BMW X3 SUV. Magna has a relatively minimal presence in Asia with just 3 manufacturing centres in South Korea, 1 in Kunshan,China and 2 engineering centres in South Korea and China.

On Feb. 27, 2009 - Magna International Inc. announced a controversial decision to cut its dividend in half. The move angered some shareholders, but the Canadian parts maker said the cut was prudent given the tough times in the auto industry.

That explanation fails to account for one thing: Over the nine months prior, Magna bought two golf courses from an entertainment company run by Chairman Frank Stronach, spending $84 million on the purchases. That surpasses what was saved by the dividend cut. "That's our Frank," says Claude Lamoreaux, chief executive of the Toronto Teachers Pension Fund, which now has less than 1% of Magna stock after dumping a chunk of it last year. "He's a successful entrepreneur, but then you have these transactions that many people find questionable." Outside investors weren't the only ones anxious about the business practices of Stronach, whose company has emerged in the winter as a leading candidate to buy Chrysler Group. In May, four longtime board members (out of 12) will be resigning.

A close look at Magna reveals a complex and interesting company. True, Stronach is a brilliant entrepreneur who delivers results. The company made $528 million last year on revenues of $25 billion, even as many parts makers succumbed to bankruptcy.

But there's another side to Magna's indomitable chairman, a side some investors don't like. Although Stronach owns just 5% of the common stock, he controls the business outright, with 67% of the Class B voting stock. Critics complain he is overpaid and uses his power to approve rental agreements and other real estate deals between Magna and companies he controls. Board members say they've had to wrestle with Stronach to keep Magna from diversifying away from the parts business and into riskier ventures such as Stronach's passion, Thoroughbred racing. "It wasn't just one thing," says the departing Richardson. "You're constantly in a position of having to look out for the shareholders. They don't have a loud voice."

While he is respected in the auto industry, Stronach has few fans in the corporate governance movement. He started Magna in a garage 50 years ago and has been known to take a cavalier attitude toward complaints. When shareholders challenged his salary in 2004, he told Toronto's Globe and Mail: "It's a free country. If they don't like it, they should sell their shares."

Ah - the salaries.... Considering he's a Canadian titan and the founder of the largest auto-parts manufacturer in the world, Frank Stronach makes a surprisingly modest salary as the chair of Magna International. In 2007, for example, he pulled down a base of $215,000.

But wait.

Since 2002, including bonuses and payouts - Stronach has paid himself $168 million, for an average of nearly $34 million a year, according to the company's annual reports. His pay amounts to 3% of profits in a typical year. In 2007, Stronach took home $40.6 million for business development, consulting and other services, according to a company information circular released. That's $40 million in consulting fees to one man in one year, or about $800,000 per week. But that's not all. Stronach also exercised $27.3 million in stock rights and was paid $2.47 million in "other" consulting fees, bringing his total compensation package to $70.6 million in 2007 alone. That's set a new Canadian record, eclipsing the previous mark of $58.1 million held by none other than Frank Stronach. Magna’s stock value shrank by 15.45 percent over the same period.

In the circular, the company's corporate governance and compensation committee said Stronach deserved the money. Even though he's a part-timer now, Stronach continues to play a pivotal role in all aspects of the company, including international expansion, product innovation and relationships with unions.

"The committee continued to recognize that Mr. Stronach continued to have business activities unrelated to Magna, but that this does not detract from the quality and value of his ongoing contribution to Magna," said the report.
An odd comment, given that Stronach is under fire precisely because his other business activities are, at least to some shareholders, too related to Magna.

For years, Stronach has been using the profits from MI Developments, Magna's real-estate arm, to prop up his money losing racetrack business, Magna Entertainment. Stronach is also chairman of both those companies.
Stronach came forward with a proposal this week to spin off Magna Entertainment. It's a complicated three-way transaction, a few components of which have met with opposition from some shareholders.

Under Stronach's plan, Magna would guarantee a $1-billion loan to a new company that would replace MI Developments as the landlord for many of Magna's factories. Some analysts say that's not a good use of Magna's balance sheet.

And one MI Developments shareholder says the deal would effectively result in Stronach getting a $300-million payout.
"We do not understand how this deal can be justified," said David Green of Hotchkis and Wiley in a statement. "The transfer of approximately $300 million, greater than 20 per cent of the stock's current market cap, to Frank Stronach in order for him to now support the deal is appalling. We strongly object to this transaction in its current form and intend to vote our shares against it.

But here is where it gets even more appalling... A few days ago:

Magna is asking employees who are not already doing part-time work to take voluntary pay-cuts based on the size of their salaries in an effort to cope with the recession.

Magna is asking all European employees who are not in part-time work to do so, but the request affects 3,500 of them in Styria. Some 4,000 Magna employees at Graz and Albersdorf are doing part-time work that has effectively lowered their incomes by 10 per cent and will not be asked to take voluntary pay-cuts.

This is just one in a series of Magna plant shut downs or job losses across the world. And last week - it was reported today that Magna International had “taken an axe to executive pay.” It didn’t.

In 2009, company officials will not take home as much as they have in other years, but not because of any cuts agreed to by management. In fact, if truth be told, the Magna gang will get more than can be justified by the Magna constitution, which has been used so well to justify past compensation levels.

Magna has long justified its huge executive paycheques, not to mention the mountain of cash it hands out to part-time chairman and controlling shareholder Frank Stronach, by noting executive compensation is tied to a fixed percentage of pretax profits by the so-called Magna Carta. Nobody has cut that percentage. What has happened is that Magna’s pre-tax profits have been hit hard by economic turmoil and exposure to the fate of Detroit’s Big Three.

During tough times, Magna executives are supposed to live off their salaries, which are still a significant six figures. The salaries have not been cut, either. Instead, the company is topping them up because performance pay has tanked with profits and Magna now insists that its officials, including Stronach’s daughter Belinda, should not be forced to live up to the spirit of the constitution.

Stronach loves to boast about being different. He has repeatedly insisted that the big payouts only happen at Magna when there are plenty of pre-tax earnings to distribute to executives, workers, investors and society. But under the direction of lead director Mike Harris, who took home more than $600,000 last year for being a self-proclaimed slave to the Magna constitution, the rules have been changed to ensure Magna executives don’t have to survive on less than seven figures. That’s despite all the money they accepted under constitutional rules in the past.

Stronach himself isn’t getting a top-up, which he would not deserve. After all, his real role at Magna is to make sure that the executives and directors he put in place live by the constitution that justifies his dual-share powers and multi-million-dollar consulting fees.

If an executive can rake-in millions of dollars in compensation regardless of performance, what’s his personal incentive to make his company profitable? We see athletes whose performance languishes after signing guaranteed contracts. If pay, pensions and perks are equally guaranteed, should we be surprised to see CEO’s doing the same?

Canadian Disgrace: Migrant Nannies & Caregivers.

2009-03-30T22:17:00.008-04:00

Migrant nannies and caregivers in Canada are falling through the cracks of numerous federal and provincial government departments. In a recent series of stories the Toronto Star exposes unscrupulous and unregulated recruiters who exploit nannies and other domestic caregivers by luring them to Canada with false promises of nonexistent jobs, charging extortionary fees and confiscating their passports.

A recent editorial asks:

You have to wonder: If there were fly-by-night recruiters scamming prospective construction workers or oil rig roughnecks from overseas, would the government be ignoring these rogue agencies while merely punishing the illegal labourers?

I'd bet no.

But what if those foreign workers were women, whether from the West Indies or the Philippines, who disappear into middle-to- upper class homes for minimum wages and maximum hours as nannies and domestic workers?

Today, according to documents obtained by Brazao and Cribb, Canada Border Services Agency officials actually acknowledge that there is "ongoing fraud and misrepresentation," but the federal government is doing nothing.

Nothing.

So vulnerable women, isolated and frightened, are forced to give up their passports and their pitiful wages to some 20 Toronto-area agencies and individuals suspected of abuse and fraud until those illegal fees are paid off.

Meanwhile, their families back home starve.

That's if the victims aren't deported, burdened by crushing debt.

And yet the practice continues, right under our noses.

Is this the government's solution to the daycare crisis in this country?

To date, most of the foreign caregivers in Canada are from the Philippines. While the Filipino consulates try to help abused workers, they are powerless to enforce Canadian labour laws and standards.

Tears flowed down her cheeks, but Maribel Beato didn't let go of the microphone. "My employer cared more about the dog than me," said Beato, a nanny who had a horrific experience with a North York family last year.

The family dog bit her three times but she wasn't allowed to seek medical help, she said.

When she decided to quit eight months later, the employer wanted her to sign a paper that said the family wasn't responsible for the dog attacks. "I was told I won't get the record of employment or T4 if I didn't."

She didn't get the papers.

Ontario's lack of regulation of nanny recruiters contrasts dramatically with Manitoba's tough stance against fraudulent agencies. Legislation set to take effect April 1 in Manitoba bans agencies from charging placement fees to foreign nannies, beefs up enforcement and requires every agency to be licensed by the province.

Further, the Manitoba legislation portends that nanny recruiters must be members in good standing of a Canadian law society, the Chambre des notaires du Québec or the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants. Names of all licensed recruiters and agencies will be posted on a provincial website so families can be sure they're dealing with a legitimate operator.

Provincial Labour Minister Peter Fonseca has repeatedly avoided this issue however. Confronted by opposition MPPs in the Legislature, he passed the buck onto the federal government. When reminded by reporters that other provinces have begun to ban recruitment fees for foreign workers, Fonseca grudgingly agreed to contact Manitoba's labour ministry to learn more about its planned April 1 crackdown.

A member of Fonesca's own Liberal caucus, Mike Colle, has upstaged him by introducing a private member's bill that, like Manitoba, bans fees paid by workers (which are also illegal in the Philippines).

"The exploitation of vulnerable foreign workers by unscrupulous recruiters cries out for government intervention," said Colle when introducing the bill this week. It's a cry that Fonseca and his labour ministry, set up 90 years ago to protect workers, have shut out for too long.

Meanwhile Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney recently acknowledged the problem and is looking to "blacklist" unscrupulous nanny recruitment agencies that exploit foreign caregivers in an attempt to put them out of business. Kenney added that the move is among a series of reforms he is considering to the federal Live-in Caregiver program.

It is an outrage that these injustices continue to take place and that both the federal and provincial governments have turned a blind eye to exploitation and abuse.

Arab Summit: Mass Murderers Shouldn't Be Celebrated.

2009-03-29T16:16:00.005-04:00

The Arab League Summit planned for Qatar this weekend seems fated to go down in the history books, but for the worst possible reason. Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, embraced Sudan's resident Omar al-Bashir as an honoured guest today as he arrived to attend the Summit in a brazen act of defiance against an international arrest warrant on charges of war crimes in Darfur.

On March 4, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for al-Bashir's arrest on for "directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians and pillaging their property."

Given a red-carpet welcome:

Wearing a traditional Sudanese robe and white turban, a smiling al-Bashir was greeted at the airport with an embrace and kiss by Qatar's emir. They later had coffee with the head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa.

It was a low-risk trip for al-Bashir with high symbolic value for his Arab backers, who argue that carrying out the ICC's arrest would further destabilize Sudan as the Darfur conflict between the Arab-led government and ethnic African rebels enters its seventh year.

Only Jordan and two other tiny Arab League members, the Comoros and Djibouti, are party to the ICC charter, but can take no action on Qatari soil. Arab foreign ministers have endorsed a draft resolution for the summit rejecting the ICC's arrest warrant.

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has said that al-Bashir should be arrested once he leaves Sudanese airspace, but it was unclear whether any military forces were monitoring his flight. The United States does not recognize the ICC's jurisdiction, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons. But President Barack Obama earlier this month denounced the "genocide" in Darfur.

The Sudanese government's battle against rebels in the western Darfur region has killed up to 300,000 people and driven 2.7 million from their homes since 2003, according to the United Nations.

Clearly, no Arab leader is keen to accept the precedent the ICC set when it issued its warrant. But even a club of kings, strongmen and despots shames itself by breaking bread with a man accused of murder, transfer, torture and rape.

Al-Bashir has no business being in Qatar, especially considering that planned peace talks with Khalil Ibrahim, the head of Darfur's strongest rebel group, have fallen through. Ibrahim cancelled on Friday after al-Bashir expelled aid groups such as Oxfam, Save the Children, CARE and Médecins Sans Frontières that care for people in Darfur, where 4.7 million rely on aid for food, shelter, water and protection.

Expelling these aid groups marks a new low in the war al-Bashir's Arab-led regime in Khartoum has been waging against ethnic African insurgents since 2003. As many as 300,000 people have been killed and nearly 3 million have been driven from their homes.

These dismal developments should galvanize U.S. President Barack Obama to step up pressure on the Khartoum regime, even though George Bush's, Obama's predecessor refused to back the ICC.

Al-Bashir should be arrested when he ventured outside the Arab League zone. China, his powerful patron, should withdraw its support. The United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan should be reinforced with troops and equipment, so that it can protect civilians. Sanctions should be tightened on al-Bashir and his cronies. Donors should carefully re-evaluate the $1 billion aid operation in Darfur, as relief agencies are expelled. The arms embargo on Sudan should be expanded. And the U.S. and its allies should impose a no-fly zone in Darfur, to prevent al-Bashir's air force from bombing civilians.

Al-Bashir said contemptuously that the ICC "can eat" its warrant. For Darfur's sake, he must be made to swallow those words.

Who did Israel(?)/US(?) attack? Sudan(?)/Iran(?)/Hamas(?)

2009-03-26T13:51:00.004-04:00

Several outlets are reporting that Sudanese officials said foreign warplanes launched two separate airstrikes in January on Sudan near its border with Egypt, targeting convoys packed with light weapons and African migrants trying to sneak across the frontier. However who was behind the strikes remains a mystery, since conflicting reports are suggesting that it was both Israel and the US.

Mubarak Mabrook Saleem, Sudan's State Minister for Transportation, said he believed American planes were behind the bombings about a week apart in early February and claimed hundreds were killed. A Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed his account but said there were discrepancies on casualties. The U.S. denied any airstrike on Sudan.

But even stranger following the highways minister's statements, even further conflicting reports have emerged from within Sudan. Namely, according to Al Jazeera English, the Sudanese foreign minister Deng Alor said Wednesday, "we have no information about such an attack."

Moreoever, the Al Jazeera report mentions claims of two bombings -- the original January incident plus one in February as well. From Al Jazeera English:

Mabrouk Mubarak Salim, the state minister for highways, said on Thursday that Sudanese, Somalis, Ethiopians, and Eritreans were killed in the attacks in January and February.
...

CBS said that the jets were targeting weapons convoys heading through Sudan on their way to Egypt, where they would have been taken across the Sinai into the Gaza Strip.

"Sudan used to provide Hamas with weapons but that is not the case any more," Alor said.

Salim said that the air raids hit human traffickers travelling through the desert area and the only weapons in the convoys were small arms being carried by guards.

But it gets even more bizarre - who was the intended target of the air strikes?

As CBS reports:

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin has been told that Israeli aircraft carried out the attack. Israeli intelligence is said to have discovered that weapons were being trucked through Sudan, heading north toward Egypt, whereupon they would cross the Sinai Desert and be smuggled into Hamas-held territory in Gaza.

In January, the U.S. signed an agreement with Israel that calls for an international effort to stop arms smuggling into Gaza. Hamas was showering rockets on Israeli towns, and Israel had responded by invading Gaza. More than 1,000 Palestinians were reportedly killed in the December-January war, and 13 Israelis lost their lives.

Sudan is known to be a way station for weapons smuggled into Gaza via a vast network of tunnels under the strip's border with Egypt. The route begins in Iran, which supports the Hamas in Gaza. It is said to pass through Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Egypt - going from the Persian Gulf around the Arabian Peninsula to the city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea, some 400 kilometres south of Egypt.

So he intended target was Hamas right? Not so fast.

However, the involvement of Sudan in the Iranian-Hamas war effort would fit with the larger pattern of Sudan's regional alliances and activity. The close connections between Teheran, Khartoum and Hamas are a matter of public record.

The regime of Brigadier Omar al-Bashir in Sudan is, with the exception of the Hamas enclave in Gaza, the only overtly Islamist and pro-Iranian government in the Arabic-speaking world. Sudan is an acknowledged member of the Iran-led regional alliance, which includes Syria, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Sudan has maintained close relations with Iran since the 1989 coup which brought Omar al-Bashir to power. Bashir's coup was carried out in co-operation with the Islamist National Islamic Front. Members of the front went on to hold key positions in the new regime. Iranian supplies of weapons and oil began soon after. Hassan al-Turabi, a Muslim Brotherhood associated Sudanese Islamist activist, was the key figure in building the Iran-Sudan link in the early days of the regime.

The last time Israel took responsibility for carrying out a secret activity on Sudanese soil was when it airlifted Ethiopian Jews from Sudan in Operations Moses and Joshua in 1984 and 1985.

With such a completely convoluted and confusing geopolitical saga - is it any wonder that there is so much difficulty starting something as simple as peace talks?

Global Banking - Regulator Envy.

2009-03-25T20:52:00.009-04:00

Amid a global economic meltdown - Canada - with its highly regulated banking system has become the envy of the world. In a survey by the World Economic Forum in October, with the financial crisis and bank failures that have shaken world markets - Canada was voted to have to world's soundest banking system followed by Sweden, Luxembourg and Australia.

Britain, which once ranked in the top five, has slipped to 44th place behind El Salvador and Peru, after a 50 billion pound ($86.5 billion) pledge this week by the government to bolster bank balance sheets. The United States, where some of Wall Street's biggest financial names have collapsed in the fall, rated only 40, just behind Germany at 39, and smaller states such as Barbados, Estonia and even Namibia, in southern Africa.

The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report based its findings on opinions of executives, and handed banks a score between 1.0 (insolvent and possibly requiring a government bailout) and 7.0 (healthy, with sound balance sheets). Canadian banks received 6.8, just ahead of Sweden (6.7), Luxembourg (6.7), Australia (6.7) and Denmark (6.7). UK banks collectively scored 6.0, narrowly behind the United States, Germany and Botswana, all with 6.1. France, in 19th place, scored 6.5 for soundness, while Switzerland's banking system scored the same in 16th place, as did Singapore (13th).

The Globe and Mail's Report on Business created a neat little chart that summarizes how some banks around the world are doing:

Canada
Ranked tops in the world by the World Economic Forum for soundness of banks. Canada’s big five lenders all reported healthy profits in their most recent quarter, generally beating analysts’ expectations. Tightly regulated, with cash-spewing retail banks that can offset losses in other areas of the business.

United States
There are 252 problem banks being tracked by the government’s bank insurance program. In 2008, 25 banks failed, including household names like Washington Mutual. The government has rolled out numerous programs and spent at least $1-trillion (U.S.) in a bid to prop up the financial system, but there are no sure signs that the bailouts are working. The Federal Deposit Insurance Co. is now on track to seize 100 failed banks in 2009.

Brazil
The big economies in South America have had little trouble with bank failures resulting from stumbles on risky assets such as subprime mortgages. Still, they won’t be immune to rising defaults from slowing economies, which will be a test of how far financial regulation and bank management have come in recent years.

Iceland
The banking system of this tiny island nation -- which boasts a population half the size of Winnipeg -- represents probably the most spectacular rise and fall of the global financial meltdown. In 2003, Iceland’s three main banks had just a few billion dollars of assets, but by 2006 this hit $140-billion (U.S.). Today, all three have failed and been nationalized in a bailout that’s cost about $330,000 per citizen, leading to the collapse of the country’s currency and economy.

Sweden
Sweden faced a banking crisis in the 1990s, and was forced to remake its financial sector. This time around, while one bank has failed because of toxic assets, the country has mostly dodged the problems and Sweden’s banking sector was ranked second only to Canada’s for stability by the World Economic Forum. Exposure at some big banks to Eastern Europe could lead to loan losses.

Britain
The British government has been forced to bail out big lenders such as Lloyds Banking Group, Northern Rock Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland, which have been crippled by forays into risky mortgage products before the property market in the UK and in the U.S. fell apart.

Switzerland
The country’s reputation as the home of the quiet, prudent banker is in shambles after gambles by Swiss giants UBS AG and Credit Suisse led to massive losses totalling more than $65-billion (U.S.). The government is now looking to write new rules to keep the financial sector out of trouble.

Austria
Austria has historically been the bridge between Western Europe and Eastern Europe. In recent years some of its largest lenders focused on expansion in such countries as Czech Republic, Romania and the Ukraine. Lending to the Central and Eastern European region amounts to almost 70 per cent of Austria’s gross domestic product, according to Moody’s. That was great when those countries were booming, but Eastern Europe is hurting badly and now many loans are likely to go bad.

Spain
Spain’s banking system has held up better than most with banks reporting gains in profit in large part because of strict regulatation when it comes to high risk assets, a legacy of a banking crisis in the 1970s. As a result, big Spanish banks like Banco Santander focus mostly on low-risk retail banking. Still, there are signs it may not last. The country’s swooning property market could lead to loan defaults, and the government and some bank executives warn that the domestic banking sector may have to be restructured should the global financial crisis deepen.

Namibia
Namibia has the highest-ranked banking system in Africa for stability, well ahead of Spain, the U.S. and Britain. According to the International Monetary Fund, the country’s banks entered the financial crisis very profitable and well capitalized. And while the country is being buffeted by the global troubles, the resource-based economy is still expected to grow 1 per cent this year, according to Namibia’s central bank.

Russia
The Russian government has already invested about $11-billion to try to aid banks, and is looking at another $55-billion stimulus package to restart the economy and support the country’s ailing banking system. Lenders are suffering from a fast downturn in the oil-powered economy of Russia.

China
China’s big banks have avoided troubles with subprime and other toxic assets, and may benefit as the government unveils a big stimulus package designed to keep the country’s economy growing quickly. If that doesn’t work, though, expect the banks to face bigger loan losses.

Japan
Japan’s response to the banking bust of the 1990s was a ‘What not to do’ lesson. The country put off dealing with bad loans and propped up bad banks for too long. Just as the country finally started to take big steps to fix the problem, this financial crisis cropped up. So far, Japanese banks have avoided the worst of it, signalling perhaps they’ve learned from experience.

Australia
Ranked fourth by the World Economic Forum for soundness of banks, Australia’s system shares many attributes with Canada’s. It’s centralized, with a few big players that are making money. The big problem for Australia is an economic one: its banks may not be big enough to take up the slack as global lenders cut back on lending, leaving the country’s borrowers in the lurch.

Maybe government regulation is the way to go - don't you think?

Is Canada's Minister of Science and Technology a Creationist?

2009-03-22T20:04:00.006-04:00

In a newspaper article published on Tuesday day, Canadian Conservative MP and Federal Minister of Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear refused to say whether he believes in the evolution, adding that he was a Christian and questions about his religion were inappropriate.

But, when pressed on the question during an interview on CTV's Power Play late that afternoon, he responded: "Well, of course, I do, but it's an irrelevant question … We are evolving every year, every decade." Goodyear went on to give some examples from his experience as a chiropractor.

"That's a fact, whether it's to the intensity of the sun, whether it's to … walking on cement versus anything else, whether it's running shoes or high heels, of course we are evolving to our environment, but that's not relevant and that's why I refused to answer the question."

On Wednesday, following a speech at the Economic Club of Toronto outlining the government's incentives and funding for science and technology, Goodyear refused to clarify further, insisting his personal views aren't important. When asked whether there was a conflict with someone with his portfolio being a creationist, he responded: "Absolutely not. How ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. That's why I didn't answer the question — because it has no relevance."

Canadian scientists say they are somewhat comforted that Goodyear clarified that he believes in evolution, but his recent comments still raised some concerns and questions.

Steven Carr, a biologist at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, said Goodyear's approach the question has bigger implications. "If the minister were asked if he accepts the theory of global warming — an evolutionary phenomenon that will have massive impact on plant and animal species in the coming decades — I hope he would not say that environmental change is irrelevant to his portfolio," Carr remarked in an email.

Elizabeth Elle, a biology professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., said it's good to hear the minister accepts the theory of evolution, but she was concerned about the example he provided.

"I think it demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how evolution by natural selection works," she added.

The fundamental premise is that genetic variation among organisms results in differences in their "fitness" — a biological term referring to the number of offspring they have. That ultimately leads certain characteristics to become prevalent among their descendents. However, the types of characteristics that result in more offspring change over time as the environment changes. Elle acknowledged that humans are evolving every day, being naturally selected for characteristics such as resistance to certain diseases, but not likely for the type of footwear they use.

Carr said Goodyear is confusing evolution with ordinary, day-to-day change. "A suntan is not evolution, tired feet at the end of the day are not evolution," he said, adding that the misunderstanding suggests that scientists need to do a better job of communicating the importance of biological evolution. Elle said if Goodyear really doesn't understand evolution, that's a problem because the concept underpins scientists' understanding of biology, from wildlife conservation to medicine. "To the extent that his portfolio includes anything biological, he should understand it," Elle said.

Which begs the question, how will Goodyear cast his vote in Parliament on issues such as stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, gun control, capital punishment, climate change, etc.? Will he consider the empirical evidence, or will he simply vote according to his faith?

Fox News Belittles and Mocks the Canadian Military.

2009-03-20T22:05:00.006-04:00

Sure some US TV shows make fun of Canada sometimes, but it’s usually in a fun lighthearted manner. This segment by Fox News however was not even close to being funny, and lacks any respect for the Canadian Military and Canadians in general.

This utter and complete failure came on the heels of a report that 4 Canadian soldiers died today in Afghanistan.

By a high proportion, Canada has suffered more in losses in Afghanistan than any NATO ally. (The US population, at nearly 300 million, is ten times larger than Canada; the UK population is double the size).

Coalition deaths in Afghanistan by country
USA: 594
UK: 152
Canada: 116
Germany: 31
France: 27
Spain: 25
Denmark: 23
Netherlands: 18
Italy: 13
Australia: 10
Poland: 9
Romania: 9
Czech Republic: 3
Estonia: 3
Norway: 3
Hungary: 2
Portugal: 2
South Korea: 2
Sweden: 2
Finland: 1
Latvia: 1
Lithuania: 1
TOTAL: 1,045

I honestly cannot believe that people watch this network and think that it is good. The segment above is part of the Fox News Red Eye Report and they can be reached at redeye@foxnews.com.

Scary Times for Bloggers in Iran.

2009-03-20T16:39:00.006-04:00

Bloggers encompass a wide spectrum of views and perspectives, and they play a vital role in open discussions of social, cultural and political affairs. But in recent months, bloggers in Iran have been 'detained' and perhaps more frightening, several media outlets are reporting that, Omidreza Mirsayafi, who had been sentenced to two years in prison for insulting the country's leaders, died in Tehran's Evin Prison this week.

According to Radio Farda, a Farsi-language station that is part of the American-government-financed network of radio stations Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Mirsayaf's family is not certain that authorities told them the truth about how the blogger died:

Prison authorities have notified Mirsayafi's family that he committed suicide on March 18 by overdosing on sedative tablets. But while Mirsayafi was known to have taken such medication to treat depression, his sister says he would not have possessed enough to kill himself.

Radio Farda adds that Mirsayafi's lawyer, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah;claims that a doctor imprisoned at Evin named Hesem Firozi told him the death could be attributed entirely to the prison's failure to provide Mirsayafi with proper medical assistance. Dadkhah told the radio station that the imprisoned doctor told him that Mirsayafi, 29, had an irregular heartbeat, possibly as the result of taking an overdose, but that his life could been saved if the prison hospital had responded appropriately. According to Dadkhah's account:

The doctor told them how to treat him, asked them to send him to a city hospital. But they ignored the doctor and said [Mirsayafi] was faking his illness. The doctor said, his heartbeat is 40 per minute, you can't fake that. But they sent the doctor out of the room.

According to Paris-based Reporters Without Borders Most of the articles on Mirsayafi’s blog were about traditional Persian music and about culture. The rights group, explained that Mirsayafi was sentenced last month to two years in prison for insulting the Islamic Republic’s leaders and six months in prison for publicity criticizing the government.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports that:

In a December interview, Mirsayafi said his blog was completely private and was read only by a few of his friends. He also said that expert testimony by an Intelligence Ministry official during his trial emphasized this point and that he should not receive such a heavy sentence.

After Mirsayafi was convicted he told Reporters Without Borders: I am a cultural and not a political blogger. Of all the articles I have posted online, only two or three were satirical. I did not mean to insult anyone. The rights group adds that it recently received an e-mail from Mr. Mirsayafi in which he wrote:

I am worried. The problem is not my sentence of two years in prison. But I am a sensitive person. I will not have the energy to live in prison. I want everything to be like it was before. I want to resume my normal life and continue my studies.

In November Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian-Canadian blogger known as Hoder was arrested in Tehran on charges of spying for Israel and could face the death penalty. Derakhshan known as the 'Iranian Blogfather' is believed to be still detained at an unknown location.

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression have published a letter of support, sent to Iran's Embassy and the Canadian government.

Earlier this week, the father of the Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, told Lindsey Hilsum of Britain's Channel 4 News that he had spoken to his daughter, who is still being held in Evin Prison. He added that waiting for her release is a nightmare. Hilsum reported on Channel 4's World News blog that Reza Saberi said his daughter didn’t sound terribly good, when he spoke to her on a telephone in Evin Prison on Monday. She said life in prison is psychologically challenging. That is, as Hilsium says, obviously an understatement. Saberi added: We told her to hang on, and not give in. The whole world is with her.

Two weeks ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. State Department had been working through intermediaries to win Saberi's release, and an Iranian official said that Ms. Saberi would be released within days. Her father told Hilsum that if his daughter was not released by the start of the Iranian New Year celebrations this Friday evening, she is unlikely to leave Evin Prison before the end of the two-week holiday.

Greening the Olympics.

2009-03-13T23:06:00.007-04:00

The greatest living Canadian, David Suzuki was asked by the Vancouver Olympic Committee to estimate the impact of the upcoming 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. The answer: about 328,000 tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions, or the equivalent of 65,600 cars on the road for one year will be emitted during the 16-day event. The world's biggest winter event will run from Feb. 12 through Feb. 28, and the huge carbon footprint created will largely be produced by energy use at venues, snow and ice-making, the torch relay, and the air travel of thousands of people.

Recently though more than 70 of Canada's top athletes have written to the organizers of the 2010 Olympics, through the David Suzuki Foundation asking them to make the Games carbon neutral.

Canadian snowboarder Justin Lamoureux is doing what he can to save winter.

The 32-year-old from Squamish, B.C., sold his gas-guzzling truck to buy a small car. He bought $400 worth of carbon offsets last year to compensate for the carbon-producing flights he took competing around the world.

Written on the nose of his snowboard are the words "Ride Carbon Neutral."

And Mr. Lamoureux was one of 74 Canadian athletes who co-signed a letter yesterday to the 2010 Olympic Games organizing committee in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., urging chief executive officer John Furlong to do more to make the Winter Games green.

"Being in the mountains most days of my life and seeing glaciers retreat over the years and things like that, I want it to stop," Mr. Lamoureux said in Calgary yesterday. "I want future generations to be able to play in the snow."

The athletes are asking the public to endorse their letter via the David Suzuki Foundation.

One of Mr. Furlong's stated goals is to stage a carbon-neutral Games, which means zero net greenhouse-gas emissions.

Carbon neutrality is achieved by reducing emissions and buying carbon offsets to compensate for emissions that can't be avoided. Carbon offsets are projects such as wind farms or solar-panel installations.

When the Vancouver Olympic Committee asked the David Suzuki Foundation to estimate the impact of the 2010 Olympics, which run from Feb. 12 through Feb. 28, the answer was about 328,000 tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions, or the equivalent of 65,600 cars on the road for one year.

Mr. Lamoureux, cross-country skiers Chandra Crawford and Sara Renner, Boston Bruins defenceman Andrew Ference, speedskater Kristina Groves, Paralympian Chantal Petitclerc and kayaker Adam van Koeverden are among the athletes who asked Mr. Furlong to adhere to his commitment of a carbon-neutral Games.

While VANOC has reduced its carbon footprint by making venues energy efficient, the athletes want to know how the organizing committee will address energy use at venues, local transportation and travel to the Olympics by athletes, officials and spectators.

"VANOC is on the right track in terms of its vision with respect to a carbon neutral goal," said Deborah Carlson, a climate-change specialist with the David Suzuki Foundation. "We need more specific, concrete action."

The athletes find the biggest part of their carbon footprint comes from air travel and the Olympic Games are no different.

The foundation estimates 69 per cent of the 2010 Olympics' carbon footprint will come from air travel by participants, officials, sponsors, employees, media and spectators. The foundation says VANOC could buy carbon credits for less than $5-million to compensate for those flights.

By taking responsibility for its carbon footprint, the 2010 Olympics can demonstrate that there are solutions to climate change, and inspire millions of people in Canada and around the world to take action.

But so far, despite public commitments to make the Games carbon neutral, Olympic organizers haven't provided concrete plans.

Join leading Canadian athletes, and sign this petition urging Olympic CEO John Furlong to ensure that the Winter Olympics clean up their climate impact. Your voice will make a difference!

A Walking Stereotype Of Self-Indulgence.

2009-03-11T20:39:00.003-04:00

If you are a Republican its been a busy week. First, David Frum weighed in on everyone's favourite political analyst Rush Limbaugh and basically... tore him a new one...

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Oh snap.

Some conservatives felt Frum's piece didn't go far enough.

"He plays an important role in our coalition, and of course he and his supporters have to be treated with respect. But he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise..."

Respect your closet cases, if you want to. As long as you need the yahoos, you won't be able to hide them.

David, you are capable of better political strategy than this. How about open disavowal of the yahoos and an attempt to make the GOP into something relevant to America's future, rather than a refuge for plutocrats and snake-handling fundamentalists.

The GOP, like the Liberals, have tarnished their brand for at least a decade. You need to write off the true believers who think you lost because you were betrayed, or that the last election was a vast con job, and try to reestablish contact with the American people.

Heh.

Then if that weren't enough RNC Chairman Michael Steele declared that abortion is an "individual choice."

L: How much of your pro-life stance, for you, is informed not just by your catholic faith, but by the fact that you were adopted?

M: Oh, a lot. Absolutely. I see the power of life in that. I mean, and the power of choice! The thing to keep in mind about it, uh, you know, I think as a country we get off on these misguided conversations that throw around terms that really misrepresent truth.

L: Explain that.

M: The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.

L: Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?

M: Yeah. I mean, again, I think that's an individual choice.

L: You do?

M: Yeah. Absolutely.

L: Are you saying you don't want to overturn Roe v. Wade?

M: I think Roe v. Wade--as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was a wrongly decided matter.

L: Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?

M: The states should make that choice: that's what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.

Wow.

If you missed SNL this past weekend - here's a bit of awesomeness that you should be sure to check out (not sure if the clip works - damn Canadian IP)

Science is Back!

2009-03-08T22:09:00.008-04:00

President Obama plans to sign an executive order on Monday overturning the Bush administration restrictions on federal funding for stem-cell research. The White House sent out an e-mail yesterday saying it was planning a ceremony "on stem cells and restoring scientific integrity to the government process. At the event the president will sign an executive order related to stem cells."

The move will spark delight among scientists who have long campaigned for the Bush policy to be overturned, but will likely be condemned by conservative right-to-life groups. Obama spelled out his campaign policy on stem-cell research last August in a list of answers to the Science Debate 2008 scientific lobby group.

"I strongly support expanding research on stem cells," Obama wrote. "I believe that the restrictions that president Bush has placed on funding of human embryonic stem-cell research have handcuffed our scientists and hindered our ability to compete with other nations."

Reports about Obama's plans were immediately condemned by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "Today's news that President Obama will open the door to direct taxpayer funds for embryonic stem-cell research that encourages the destruction of human embryos is a slap in the face to Americans who believe in the dignity of all human life," Perkins said.

Bush barred federal funding from supporting work on new lines of stem cells derived from human embryos in 2001, allowing research only on a small number of embryonic stem-cell lines which existed at that time. He also several times vetoed legislation passed by Congress backing the research, which advocates say could help find a cure to diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes and Parkinson's. Bush argued that using human embryos for scientific research-- which often involves their destruction -- crossed a moral barrier and urged scientists to consider other alternatives. Embryonic stem cells are primitive cells from early-stage embryos capable of developing into almost every tissue of the body.

Yesterday, the Health and Human Services Department moved to rescind a controversial rule, made final just before Obama took office, that would allow health care workers to invoke their consciences in refusing to provide health services or information to patients. This was strongly opposed by abortion rights activists. Critics and HHS staff have said the wording of the Bush "conscience" rule was vague enough to let health professionals invoke the conscience clause to deny patients contraceptives, family planning advice, and even vaccines and blood transfusions.

The Right is always citing the decline of American society as it pushes for backward-thinking legislation like that which Obama is now undoing. But history shows that wars against science and reason are symptomatic of societies in decline, not remedies against societies ills.

All I have to say... Hallelujah- science is back!

Woman Arrested in Saudi Arabia for... Driving.

2009-03-07T21:56:00.004-05:00

A woman has been arrested in Mecca in Saudi Arabia for driving a car.

Arab News reported that the woman was arrested after her four-wheel-drive Lexus crashed into another vehicle. Investigators are looking into the incident, and the woman has been handed over to the Prosecution and Investigation Commission.

Women are prohibited from driving on all public roads in Saudi Arabia, a ban that has triggered several high-profile protests by women's rights activists.

CNN notes that more than 125 women last year signed a petition sent to Saudi Interior Minister Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, asking that the ban be overturned. That ban has even, in some cases, been extended to golf carts — a vehicle some women used to get around their transportation limitations.

Back in late January, it was reported that Saudi Arabia was to lift its ban on women drivers later this year - however apparently this has not come into affect yet.

The woman's name and nationality have not been announced.

'Back Off and Stay Out Of Our Airspace.'

2009-03-01T13:54:00.000-05:00

Four Canadian and U.S. fighter jets were scrambled to meet two Russian bomber planes found flying on the edge of Canada's Arctic airspace hours before President Barack Obama arrived in Ottawa for his first foreign visit, Canada's Defence Minister, Peter MacKay said yesterday.

The incident occurred Feb. 18, about 24 hours before Obama travelled to Canada for his first foreign visit. Canadian CF-18 fighter jets were scrambled from Cold Lake, Alta., to intercept the long-range Tupolev TU-95s and signal them to back off, MacKay told reporters in Ottawa. While he noted that the Russian flight took place when Canada's security focus was on Ottawa, in preparation for the Obama visit. "I am not going to stand here and accuse the Russians of having deliberately done this during the presidential visit, but it was a strong coincidence which we met with the presence ... of F-18 fighter planes and world-class pilots that know their business and send a strong signal that they should back off and stay out of our airspace," he told reporters.

In Moscow, an unnamed government official called MacKay's statement a "farce" and said the Russian government was reacting to Canada's objections with "astonishment," news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that the incident was a real cause for concern that will not intimidate Canada. "This government has responded every time the Russians have done that. We will continue to respond. We will defend our airspace." The Russian planes broke no international laws when they encroached on the 200-mile (320-kilometre) Canadian perimeter, 190 kilometres northeast of Tuktoyaktuk, but experts say it is a clear attempt to test defence systems in the disputed Arctic territories.

NORAD spokesperson Michael Kucharek said Canadian and U.S. fighter jets have been scrambled more than 20 times since early 2007 to perform visual identification of Russian bombers and to direct them away from North American airspace. "Russia has become more active than in the past," said Ray Henault, formerly Canada's chief of defence staff. Henault, who served as chair of NATO's military council until last year, said the bomber flights are a "legitimate activity" that have nonetheless complicated relations with other Arctic nations in recent years.

It's not clear why Canada chose yesterday to draw attention to what is a fairly common occurrence. In addition, it's a diplomatic rebuff to Russian officials who have complained in the last week about nations "militarizing" the Arctic to bolster claims to valuable energy and mineral resources beneath the thawing tundra and the seabed.

"We know that the waters are opening up, we know that other countries have expressed interest in the Arctic and that we intend to have a very real and current activity and presence in the Arctic," MacKay said yesterday. The Defence Minister added that he has asked Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Russia's ambassador to Canada to give Ottawa notice when such flights are planned.

"To date, we have not received this type of notice," he said.

Renuart has also asked Russian officials to file formal international notice of the flights, but to no avail, said Kucharek. The RIA-Novosti agency quoted Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky, a defence ministry spokesperson, saying that neighbouring states had been previously notified of the bomber flight.

Opposition parties accused the Tories of using tough talk on Russia to shift the political debate away from mounting deficits and economic woes. "Everything the government does in these circumstances is an effort to change the channel," Liberal MP Bob Rae said.

U.S. General Gene Renuart, commander of North American Aerospace Defence Command, said Canadian and U.S. jets have visually identified more than 20 Russian aircraft in recent years that were conducting exercises near North American airspace.

Mr. MacKay said the Russians have turned a deaf ear to his request for advance notice of such near incursions.

"It's not a game at all ... I have personally asked both the Russian ambassador and my counterpart [in Russia] that we are given a heads up when this type of air traffic is to occur, and to date we have not received that kind of notice."

The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989 crippled Russia's economy and brought such long-range flights, a staple of the Cold War, to an end. But the flights have resumed in recent years.

O' Canada.

2009-02-19T16:14:00.006-05:00

For all of us political junkies, a foreign leaders trip to Ottawa is like Diplomacy 101. Given the geography of North America, this is not surprising. Canada and the United States are neighbours living in close quarters along a relatively porous border and share about $1.5 billion worth of trade daily making the two countries the largest trade partners in the world.

Almost a tradition of sorts that a newly elected president comes to Ottawa for their first foreign trip. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton made Canada their first stop, but recently wasn't this way. George W. Bush, journeyed south to Mexico for his first venture beyond his country's borders and waited nearly four years before being met in Canada's capital by hordes of angry protesters.

Air Force One landed at the Ottawa airport at approximately 10:24 am in steady snow and was greeted by Governor General Michaelle Jean, heading Obama into a day of meetings on touchy topics with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Under a cheering crowd of more than 1,000 people greeted Obama as his motorcade pulled up to Parliament Hill. One person carried a sign that read "Yes we CANada!"

Obama came bearing a pro-trade message to assuage Canadian concerns over protectionism; a promise of a new strategy in Afghanistan as Canada moves to pull out all its troops there by 2011; and talk of clean-energy cooperation as controversy hangs over Canada's oil-rich sands.

Harper and Obama met privately for 33 minutes, a session originally slated to last only 10 minutes. They then moved on to a meeting and working lunch with their staff. After a few hours, Obama said at a Parliament Hill press conference. "I love this country. We could not have a better friend and ally."

Both leaders welcomed efforts to strengthen both countries economies and said the two neighbours would work to strengthen the auto industry."The work that's being done by this government to stimulate the economy on this side of the border is welcomed, I’ve provided Prime Minister Harper with an assurance that I want to grow trade and not contract it," he said.

"We concur on the need for immediate, concerted action to restore economic growth and to protect workers and families hit hardest by the recession through lowering taxes, ensuring access to credit, and unleashing spending that sustains and stimulates economic activity," Harper said.

The news conference was short on detail, especially since Obama has caused some nervousness in Canada by promising during the presidential campaign to renegotiate NAFTA, the trade agreement linking the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

And the "Buy American" provision in the $787 billion US economic recovery plan requires that only U.S.-made iron, steel and manufactured goods be used for public works projects receiving money from the package. However, Obama has acknowledged previously that any purchases must be in line with international trade treaties, such as NAFTA. Harper said NAFTA gives both countries some leeway in domestic buying but both leaders said as economies around the world face challenges, it's important for the US and others to resist calls for protectionism.

Harper had said Obama's presidency is ushering in a new era of North American co-operation against climate change after George W. Bush's inaction held back Canada's ability to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions. In an interview with CNN yesterday, Harper insisted that Canada's climate-change policy has been hamstrung by the inaction of its largest trading partner. “In Canada, we've been wrestling for the last decade or so with our desire to try to have a regime, a regulatory regime, that would diminish our own carbon emissions. But we've been trying to do so in an integrated economy when the United States has not been willing to do so,” in an interview to be broadcast in two parts yesterday and today.

The issue has become a hot-button backdrop for the visit, as environmentalists campaign against what they call Alberta's “dirty oil,” fearing Harper is seeking to shelter the oil sands from emissions regulation.

Obama closed the press conference by thanking Canadians who helped in his presidential election campaign last year and joking about Ottawa's cold and snowy February weather. “I want to thank some of the Canadians who came over the border to campaign for me during the election. It was much appreciated. And I am looking forward to coming back to Canada as soon as it warms up.”

Upon leaving Parliament Hill, Obama made a quick unscheduled stop in Ottawa's Byward Market, near the US Embassy. Obama was served a "beavertail", a treat that consists of a deep-fried flatbread covered with cinnamon and sugar. Obama also bought souvenir snow globes for his two daughters. Asked if he ate the 'beavertail', Obama said, "I ate a little of it. It's very large!"

Jessica Millien, 17, an employee at the Beaver Tail Hut, said she screamed for five minutes with excitement after meeting Obama in person. Asked by security to bring one outside to Obama who was standing across the street with secret service guards around him. "I gave him his tail and shook his hand and had a conversation with him," she said. "I almost fainted. He just asked me about my day and what the tails consisted of. He's a really down-to-earth guy."

Obama did not address Parliament during his six-hour visit, but met with Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff at the airport before he was set to depart for Washington. All in all it was a productive trip and it would seem that Obama has left his 80% favourability with Canadians intact.

Political Maturity Spreads North.

2009-01-31T12:04:00.005-05:00

Back in early December, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper suspended the country’s legislature for more than 7 weeks in a bid to stave off a challenge from opposition parties seeking to bring down his government. This week however, with a new budget unveiled on Tuesday by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty it would appear that with new Liberal leadership, political maturity is back in the great white north.

The Conservative budget includes $85 billion in projected red ink, new regional-development programs, industry-specific bailouts and a scattershot of government funding for everything from cultural festivals to community newspapers, the profoundly 'liberal' 2009-10 budget drew both outrage and deep introspection from conservatives from sea to shining sea.

The newly minted Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff made the correct decision on Wednesday in announcing that the Liberals will support the budget delivered this week. Flawed though it may be, it mostly embraces the approach the Liberals advocated – and its defeat would force the country into another prolonged period of political uncertainty that it can ill afford. Even to play a tactical game of chicken by demanding major amendments in return for the budget's passage could have forced the Liberals into a corner, creating a stand-off that Ignatieff was smart to avoid.

And most importantly Ignatieff has helped end one of the ugliest political chapters in Canada's recent history, and may well have contributed to a greater maturity in addressing the country's enormous economic challenges.

For the Liberals, at least, the threat of a coalition served its purpose. It humbled Harper, and forced the Conservatives – after holding on to government only by prolonging Parliament – to embrace many of the opposition's budgetary demands. And inadvertently, it forced the Liberals to address their own leadership issues, accelerating the replacement of Stéphane Dion by a leader with the apparent ability to seriously challenge Harper.

In the long run, however, the coalition was untenable. Forming a three-headed monster of a government, beholden to staunch leftists and sovereigntists, would have destroyed the Liberals' identity and credibility. More important, for Canada's immediate interests, it would have resulted in a fragile and unwieldy government at a time when strong and steady leadership is required.

Education, Bravery and the Hideousness of Fanaticism.

2009-01-26T23:47:00.004-05:00

Several news outlets are revisiting the heinous acts that occurred back in November when 15 Afghani schoolgirls and their female teachers were viciously attacked by men on motorcycles in Kandahar.

One morning two months ago, Shamsia Husseini and her sister were walking through the muddy streets to the local girls school when a man pulled alongside them on a motorcycle and posed what seemed like an ordinary question.

"Are you going to school?"

The men squirted the acid from water bottles onto three groups of females and was meant to terrorize them into staying home. An attempt to expunge any element of free will in their minds, to literally burn or sear obedience into them. These despicable acts are an apt expression of the medieval thinking that characterized the rule of the Taliban from 1996 to 2001 in Afghanistan and in which times girls were banned from schools.

For a few days after the attacks, parents kept their children away from the 5 year old Mirwais School for Girls built by the Japanese government. Then the headmaster, Mahmood Qadari - a man - reached out to the parents, and promised them greater police protection. "If you don't send your daughters to school, then the enemy wins," Qadari told the New York Times. "I told them not to give in to darkness. Education is the way to improve our society."

And then an amazing thing happened, they began to come back. Today most of the school's 1,300 girls, including nearly all of the wounded ones, have refused to be cowed. "My parents told me to keep coming to school even if I am killed," Shamsia, 17, told The Times. "The people who did this to me don't want women to be educated. They want us to be stupid things." The girls' have learned to be brave -- and are providing an inspirational lesson in defiance.

Eduction is integral to any constructive future Afghanistan might have. Of the 5.7 million students enrolled last year, according to Afghan government data, 35% are girls. About 800,000 of the total were new students, and 40% of them are girls. The high schools graduated 69,000 students, of whom 25% are girls.

During Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing last Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer, of California, said "no woman or girl should have to grow up and face persecution for having being born female", and referred to acid attacks common against women in Pakistan. Clinton said the issue is "central to our foreign policy."

"It is heartbreaking beyond words that, you know, young girls are attacked on their way to school by Taliban sympathizers and members who do not want young women to be educated." Clinton responded, "This is not culture. This is not custom. This is criminal. And it will be my hope to persuade more government ... that we cannot have a free, prosperous, peaceful, progressive world if women are treated in such a discriminatory and violent way."

Some people disfigure little girls because of religious fanaticism. Some people deny Israel the right to exist because of religious fanaticism. Some people deny Palestinians the right to sovereignty because of religious fanaticism. Some people deny women the right to abortions because of religious fanaticism. Some people deny gay people the right to marry because of religious fanaticism.

In my humble opinion, the world could do without religious fanatics.

Loco Dudes and Diluting Your Brand.

2009-01-24T22:47:00.002-05:00

(cross posted at kickin it with cg)

Much has been debated as to whether the United Nations is an effective organization or is losing relevancy. But this diary isn't about that, rather that I came across a stunning bit of information about one of its representatives and thought it was extremely telling in why the UN is viewed by some as a wavering.

Ever heard of Richard Falk? In his Nation magazine biography, he is described as:

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law and practice at Princeton University, is the United Nations Human Rights Rapporteur in the Occupied Territories and a member of the Nation editorial board. He is the author of many books, including The Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order After Iraq.

Falk made some headlines for being deported from Israel in December and recently made the claim that:

Hamas, he pointed out, consistently urged the continuation of its July 2008 Egypt-sponsored ceasefire with Israel and even its extension for up to 10 years. According to the respected British newsweekly, The Economist, Falk noted, Hamas proposed an extension of up to 20 years. “What is so revealing is the Israeli refusal to even acknowledge that this was a diplomatic initiative that would have probably ended any violence.”

Clearly this is false. But that is neither here nor there. What I found extremely shocking was when I looked a bit further in Falk's more interesting views and history.

1. Falk supported the Iranian revolution and attacked Jimmy Carter for labeling the Ayatollah Khomeini a religious fanatic.

2. Falk is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.

3. Falk argues that Vietnam war protesters were entitled to bomb facilities in the US as a form of protest.

4. Compares Israel to Nazi Germany.

So yeah - Mr Falk is clearly a mixed bag and not shall we say a huge champion of human rights in the total sense of supporting the rights of all humans And more importantly - *he is representing the Palestinians people in this regard for the United Nations*. Maybe this needs to be rethought.

January 21 & The Crisis of Expectation.

2009-01-21T22:00:00.003-05:00

On the day after the inauguration of Barack Obama, many spent the week eagerly offering up their hopes and high expectations. While some might think that Obama is being deluged by grassroots tidings, advice and admonitions. From reversing Bush’s “anti-terror’’ traumas to rescuing the economy from possible depression, everyone has a wish list for the Prez. Here are some excerpts from Obama’s expectant constituents.

“Letter to Obama: scale out arms dealing and make it illegal by the year 2020; write into every defense contract a requirement for a peacetime project; convert military bases to housing for the poor; require military personnel to devote part of their time to rebuilding infrastructure; fund social services and take the balance out of defense and homeland security budgets.”
DEEPAK CHOPRA

“My advice to the Obama team is to scrap the business tax cuts, and, more important, to deal with the threat of doing too little by doing more. The way to do more is to look more broadly at the possibilities for government investment to provide further relief to Americans in distress – enhanced unemployment benefits, expanded Medicaid and more.”
PAUL KRUGMAN

“Remember his 2007 words about Palestinian suffering and his campaign pledge to talk unconditionally with adversaries. The silence on Gaza, Obama must know, is extremely costly. The bright promise of moral leadership is sullied and squandered, along with the potential of America’s ability to be an even-handed mediator.”
TOM HAYDEN, peace activist

“For all Richard Nixon’s faults, his trip to China is remembered as a courageous, far-sighted initiative that opened a new era in Sino-American relations. A trip to Cuba by President Barack Obama would be no less historic.”
WILLIAM M. LEOGRAND and PETER KORNBLUH, LA Times

“Make a clean break from the George W. Bush regime’s law of rule to our declared commitment to the rule of law. Bush-Cheney’s stream of criminal and unconstitutional actions are on auto-pilot. Break these daily patterns as soon as you ascend to the presidency or be held increasingly responsible for them.”
RALPH NADER

“Speak not so much to him as to America. After Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election in 1932, FDR met with Sidney Hillman and other labor leaders. Hillman and his allies arrived with plans they wanted the new president to implement. Roosevelt told them: ‘I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.’”
JOHN NICHOLS, The Progressive

“We have to stop looking at him and start looking to ourselves, the people who knocked on doors, reached out independently of the campaign, signed petitions, registered voters around the clock and organized the most amazing campaign in American history to see who has the leverage to defeat the lobbyists, special interests and Republican operatives who will do everything to derail change.”
DANNY SCHECHTER, mediachannel.org

“A shift from green jobs to a broader focus on green technology. This would require federal investments on the scale of $500 billion over the next decade.”
TERYN NORRIS and JESSE JENKINS, Huffington Post

“It’s troubling that Obama ramped up his rhetoric about exiting Iraq to focus on what he calls the ‘central front in the war on terror,’ Afghanistan. An escalation would drain resources vital to his goals for an economic recovery, health care and social justice at home. Too few people in the mainstream media are asking tough questions.”
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, The Nation

"Now that you're president you have lots of responsibilities. As an American citizen I know some tips the people want you to take care of. My first concern is having you focus on finding Osama Bin Laden, and taking the troops to where he is instead of having them in Iraq, dying and losing family and friends, fighting for nothing. Osama is a huge threat to our country. Another tip is to try and solve if not all, but most of, poverty in Africa. Little children are dying, babies don't live to enjoy our world. Kids left orphans. Older brothers, only 12-years-old, take care of their 6-year-old sisters, no parents just them. Cardboard boxes are being used as beds. This is a problem you can't ignore. This problem is my number one concern. Please fix it. Global warming is yet another problem. It is so expensive to fix but important to fix. Go solar power, stop cutting down trees, recycle. The world should have generations of people to come. But in all the trouble of the world stop being Superman for us, be Superman for yourself and your family. The White House is full of rooms to enjoy. Take your family out to ice cream. Don't let your daughters feel like you don't care about them. Also, trust your daughters. When they go out don't send your entire pack of security, just two. Also spend time by yourself. In the newspaper I saw a before and after picture of the past presidents. They aged so much. So take time for yourself and relax. A spa, yoga, fun activities and sports, all these will help. But if you still age use Neutrogena deep wrinkle. I may be a kid but I watch the news, read the newspaper and listen to my parents' conversations. I know a lot about what is going on. Take these tips and make your job easier. Congratulations on becoming president."
YEHYA SESAY, 6th Grader, MA

"You know, if you're the president you only have two jobs: peace and money. That's it."
CHRIS ROCK

And of course here's my advice to Obama, "listen, measure and act." Yep - should be easy as pie making everyone happy.

Reminder: A Corrupt Media.

2009-01-19T22:16:00.001-05:00

In recognition of the last hours of a disastrous 8 years and for some in the media the continual excusing of Bush and his 'legacy', I thought that I would pull out an old diary, dust it off and hopefully we can all be reminded about the total failure on the past of the media in its appeasement of Georgie.

Originally posted on 6/18/08

As some will note I have written several diaries now on the failure of the fourth estate during this primary season. The reactions to these pieces were mixed from agreement, indifference and denial of any bias in the coverage. But with the recent feeding frenzy of the press in response to former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book - nothing could be clearer: A CORRUPT MEDIA HAS FAILED.

Amongst other things, McClellan's asserts that the media's failings are primarily responsible for the rush to war in Iraq and complicit in enabling the Bush administration.

And through it all, the media would serve as complicit enablers. Their primary focus would be on covering the campaign to sell the war, rather than aggressively questioning the rationale for war or pursuing the truth behind it... the media would neglect their watchdog role, focusing less on truth and accuracy and more on whether the campaign was succeeding. Was the president winning or losing the argument? How were Democrats responding? What were the electoral implications? What did the polls say? And the truth--about the actual nature of the threat posed by Saddam, the right way to confront it, and the possible risks of military conflict--would get largely left behind...

If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should have never come as such a surprise. The public should have been made much more aware, before the fact, of the uncertainties, doubts, and caveats that underlay the intelligence about the regime of Saddam Hussein. The administration did little to convey those nuances to the people, the press should have picked up the slack but largely failed to do so because their focus was elsewhere--on covering the march to war, instead of the necessity of war.

He goes on to blame a liberal media bias, but that's a whole other story. PBS's Bill Moyers devoted an entire show in April 2007, entitled Buying the War to answering the questions of a complicit media.

How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President -- no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored. How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?

But what's more interesting about the fallout of this book is the sudden Mea Culpa by some members of the press.

Katie Couric:

"... I'll start by saying I think he's fairly accurate. Matt, I know when we were covering it--and granted, the spirit of 9/11, people were unified and upset and angry and frustrated. But I do think we were remiss in not asking some of the right questions. There was a lot pressure from the Bush White House. I remember doing an interview and the press secretary called our executive producer and said, `We didn't like the tone of that interview.' And we said, `Well, tough. We had to ask some of these questions.' They said, `Well, if you keep it up, we're going to block access to you during the war.' I mean, those kind of strong-arm tactics were really...

CNN's Jessica Yellin on 360:

Yellin: I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings.

And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives -- and I was not at this network at the time -- but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president. I think, over time --
Cooper: You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?
Yellin: Not in that exact -- they wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive, yes. That was my experience.

Washington Post's Dana Milbank::

Of course he's right. We didn't do as much as we could have and the fact of the matter is we did raise these questions. And I mean I guess what Scott`s just saying in a backwards way there is they were just doing a particularly good job of keeping the facts out of the public domain.

What's worse is as Eric Boehlert points out, the warning signs were provided by Senator Edward Kennedy, who largely was ignored by the press.

Specifically, back in September 2002, with the Bush administration and much of the Beltway media rushing to embrace war with Iraq, Kennedy delivered a passionate, provocative, and newsworthy speech raising all sorts of doubts about a possible invasion. Unlike today, the political press wasn't very interested in Kennedy or what he had to say about the most pressing issue facing the nation. Back in that media environment, being the voice of American liberals didn't mean much.

So what is the moral of the story?

Boehlert puts it best "let's not forget that it wasn't that long ago that the media did their best to ignore what Kennedy had to say. And when it ignored Kennedy, and when it ignored the voice of liberals, the press -- and the country -- paid a dear price."

What is Going on in Turkey?

2009-01-15T21:53:00.005-05:00

In recent years, Turkey has been regarded as being a moderate nation in the Middle East with regard to both Israel and the West. Israel and Turkey's 'special' relationship has gone even further with both countries forging close security ties and Turkey even seeking to develop a role as a mediator between Israel and its enemies.

But now it would appear that an outpouring of grassroots anger over Israel's Gaza operation has rocked that special relationship and there are some alarming signs in its wake.

For context, Turkey abolished Islamic Law some 80 years ago, and has been proud of its secular tradition, but now, a large and growing group is calling for its return. Anti-Semitic sentiment was recently fueled when its 'moderate' Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared: "Allah's punishment for Israel's inhumane actions will lead to its destruction."

The week-end before, some people wrote, “We will kill you” on the door of one of the biggest synagogues in Izmir resulted in the closing down of synagogues. Near Istanbul University, a group put a huge poster on the door of a shop owned by a Jew: “Do not buy from here, since this shop is owned by a Jew.” A group put posters on his wall saying that: “Jews and Armenians are not allowed but dogs are allowed.” Some young people are even threatening others with violence if they are seen as pro-Israel in social networking websites such as Facebook and Hi5.

As of late, Turkish society has exploded with an influx of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric, this included billboards being posted with anti-Israel and anti-Jewish expressions. Private firms are also posting anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish statements on their Websites. Bardak, a Turkish company which manufactures custom coffee mugs for Toshiba, HSBC, Cargill, Acer and Canon, has a phrase across its front page: "JEWS YOU ARE GOING TO PAY EVERYTHING THAT YOU ARE COMMITTING."

Some Turkish commentators have said Erdogan's rhetoric smacked of anti-Semitism, but the prime minister rejected the accusation.

"Neither myself, nor my government, nor anyone from my party has ever given any premium to anti-Semitism," he said. "I am a leader who has said anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity."

Whatever Erdogan's intentions are or your opinion is on the conflict in the Middle East - those signs have to give you the chills, chills, chills.

Movement?

2009-01-14T23:04:00.001-05:00

Today has been an optimistic day with regard to furthering peace in the Middle East. First, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called for a week-long ceasefire in Gaza to allow humanitarian assistance into the strip.

This did not go over well. Officials close to the outgoing Olmert blasted Barak. "The remarks constitute a lack of national responsibility," the officials said. "Ministers speaking to the media about the conduct of the war touching on cease-fire initiatives are very grave."

Reports emerged that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was avoiding a meeting with his two key ministers in order to allow the military operation to continue. Olmert was not planning to convene the war cabinet overnight so as to again avoid confronting the issue with the ministers, both of whom support a ceasefire.

Then later Hamas has agreed in principle to the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire but is still demanding clarifications on a number of issues.

An Israeli envoy will meet Egyptian mediators in Cairo tomorrow after a Hamas delegation concludes talks on an Egyptian truce proposal.

Olmert told Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos that he wanted to bring the operation in the Gaza Strip to an end if Hamas agreed to the Egyptian proposal.

At the crux of the cooperation agreement between Israel and the U.S. is supervision to halt the smuggling of arms from Iran, through the Persian Gulf to Sudan and other countries, and finally to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The director general of the Foreign Ministry, Aharon Abramowitz, will meet with State Department officials Jeffrey Feltman and Daniel Hale in Washington today, as well as officials from the White House, Defense Department and U.S. intelligence agencies, in an effort to reach a written guarantee that the United States will act more extensively against the smuggling.

If an agreement is formulated, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will travel to Washington to sign the agreement.

These seem like positive signs to me, although it seems that majority of both the Israeli and US public do support the Israeli military operation in Gaza. Maybe this will change with an end of the hostilities.

Let's all hope for a end on the attacks in the coming days and for an Obama administration to bring on an era of peace in the Middle East.

Broken Telephone in the Hyper Media-Age.

2009-01-05T23:42:00.003-05:00

Throughout the day today I was reminded of my junior kindergarten days. Namely of playing broken telephone. Remember the game? Well basically - the first player whispers a phrase or sentence to the next player. Each player successively whispers what that player believes he or she heard to the next. The last player announces the statement to the entire group. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly, and often amusingly from the one uttered by the first.

Which brings us back to today, first people around the internet, and specifically in the blogosphere were shrieking from the rafters that Israel was using Depleted Uranium in Gaza then later this became accusations of Phosphorus Gas. So I decided to investigate this further. Here is what I found:

The source of the story of Israelis using Depleted Uranium in Gaza comes from Press TV:

Medics tell Press TV they have found traces of depleted uranium in some Gaza residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive on the strip.

Norwegian medics told Press TV correspondent Akram al-Sattari that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on December 27 have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.

The report comes after Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground operation after eight days of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces on the impoverished region.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Sunday that the wide-ranging ground offensive in the Gaza Strip would be "full of surprises."

A ground offensive in the densely-populated Gaza is expected to drastically increase the death toll of the civilian population.

But who is Press TV really?

Press TV is an English language international television news channel which is funded by the Iranian government, based in Tehran and broadcasts in English on a round-the-clock schedule. With 26 international correspondents and more than 400 staff around the world, its stated mission is to offer a different view of the world events.

Then about the Phosphorus Gas... Well this stems from a 'credible' news source, although the reporting is well - libelous at best.

Israeli artillery shells explode with a chemical agent designed to create smokescreen for ground forces.

Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.

As the Israeli army stormed to the edges of Gaza City and the Palestinian death toll topped 500, the tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles of thick white smoke to cover the troops’ advance. “These explosions are fantastic looking, and produce a great deal of smoke that blinds the enemy so that our forces can move in,” said one Israeli security expert. Burning blobs of phosphorus would cause severe injuries to anyone caught beneath them and force would-be snipers or operators of remote-controlled booby traps to take cover. Israel admitted using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with Lebanon.

The use of the weapon in the Gaza Strip, one of the world’s mostly densely population areas, is likely to ignite yet more controversy over Israel’s offensive, in which more than 2,300 Palestinians have been wounded.

Which leads most logical people to ask? Why is Israel 'believed' to be using this? Photos of course. I have attached one for reference.

Seems concrete to me. Let's run with the story.

In the meantime, Israel is denying this.

Israeli military spokesmen deny that their forces have used phosphorus in Gaza, despite photographs and film of munitions showing similar characteristics to the potentially lethal shells.

The Israelis have not said what kind of munitions they have been using, other than saying that their use is permitted under international law.

Phosphorous shells are not illegal if they are used to create a smokescreen or to illuminate targets, rather than as a weapon against people, military experts and human rights campaigners said yesterday.

Mark Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, said it seemed from news films that Israel had used "artillery-delivered obscurants" which were not illegal.

So now that this is all cleared up, some can run off and start quoting this as fact ;)

"And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

2009-01-03T16:43:00.008-05:00

When President-Elect Obama visited the southern Israeli city of Sderot in July, he was visibly shaken by what he saw: "The Qassam rockets fired by Hamas deliberately and indiscriminately target civilians," Obama said. "This terror is intolerable. Israelis should not have to live in terror in their own homes and schools."

After visiting the hospital bed of two brothers injured by such an attack — one of whom an 8-year-old, who lost his leg as a result — Obama added: "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do anything to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

Obama is absolutely correct. Israel has the right and the duty, to put a stop to the threat posed by Hamas — an Iranian-backed Jihadist militia — to its citizens. A just and proportionate Israeli response is one that strives to eliminate Hamas' ability to carry out attacks against Israel. No more, but also no less.

Israel is portrayed as the big bully using an inappropriate level of force against a vastly inferior foe. This is how it is reported and is therefore the way that it is perceived. Little coverage goes to the 10 or 15 missiles or more a day fired at Israel, only the response. But since April 2001, Israelis have been the target of *nearly 8,000 rockets and mortar shells*.

Usually people living within a 15-mile radius of Gaza have under 20 seconds to find shelter once a "code red" alarm is sounded. Sometimes a missile slips through Israel's warning system, depriving civilians of the opportunity to scramble for safety. The latest missiles launched into Israel have a range of around 25 miles and have been used to attack Beersheba. It should be noted that over half a million Israelis (10% of its population) live within range of these new, more powerful BM-21 Grad missiles.

Which brings us to today:

A Timeline of the Current Crisis-War as per Reuters.

June 19 - A truce begins between Hamas and Israel. It calls for Hamas to stop cross-border rocket fire and for Israel to gradually ease its embargo on Gaza.

Aug 2 - Factional fighting kills three Hamas policemen and six pro-Fatah gunmen in the Gaza Strip in the worst fighting since June 2007.

Nov. 5 - Hamas fires dozens of rockets at Israel after Israeli forces kill six Palestinian militants in an eruption of violence that has disrupted the four-month-old truce.

Dec. 14 - Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is quoted as saying the group will not renew the six-month-old truce with Israel.

December 18 - Hamas Islamists declare the end of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel which expires the next day with a surge of cross-border fighting.

December 24 - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip ratchet up rocket fire toward Israel.

December 27 - Israel launches air strikes on Gaza in response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire that intensified after Hamas ended the six-month ceasefire.

December 28 - Hamas says an Israeli air strike destroys a laboratory building at the Islamic University, a significant cultural symbol of Hamas.

-- Israeli aircraft bomb some 40 smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip that provide a lifeline to the outside world.

December 29 - Israel steps up its air strikes and bombs the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, the first air strike targeting a government building in the offensive.

-- Israel declares areas around the Gaza Strip a "closed military zone."

-- Palestinian militants fire rockets deeper into southern Israel.

December 30 - Israeli warplanes press on for the fourth day with attacks on Hamas targets.

-- Palestinian casualties since December 27 are 348 dead and more than 800 wounded. A U.N. agency says at least 62 of the dead are civilians.

-- Three Israeli civilians and a soldier have been killed by Palestinian rockets since the air strikes began.

-- Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum urges Palestinian groups to respond using "all available means" against Israel.

-- Israel says its attacks herald "long weeks of military action."

December 31 - Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh tells Palestinians that "victory is near."

-- Emergency session of U.N. Security Council to consider resolution drafted by Arab countries calling for immediate cease-fire adjourns without a vote.

January 1 - Israel kills Nizar Rayyan, a hardline Hamas leader, in an air attack on his Gaza Strip home.

-- Palestinian casualties since December 27 are 412 dead and about 1,850 wounded. A U.N. agency says about a quarter of the dead are civilians.

-- Three Israeli civilians and a soldier have been killed by Palestinian rockets since the air strikes began.

January 2 - No sign of a cease-fire on the seventh day of the conflict, with at least 429 Palestinians killed and 2,000 wounded, but a Palestinian official says that Egypt had begun exploratory talks with Hamas to halt the bloodshed.

January 3 - An air strike on a mosque kills 11 Palestinian civilians and wounds dozens, as Israeli tanks and troops wait on the border for a possible ground offensive. Palestinian death toll rises to at least 446.

Israel evacuated Gaza in 2005, removing not only its soldiers but all Israeli settlements, despite bitter resistance from the settlers and their political allies. At great political, financial and security cost to itself, Israel removed every soldier and every single civilian from Gaza, hoping that disengagement would reduce friction, spur economic development and provide a model for peace that could be extended to the West Bank. Israel was not alone in this hope. The United States, United Nations, European Union, World Bank, the Arab League and a thousand nongovernmental organizations were poised to help Gazans build prosperity, freedom and peace. What was the response? Delivering a Hamas victory in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections. Hamas - the organization that is listed as a terrorist organization by Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, the United States and is banned in Jordan, Australia and the United Kingdom.

If Hamas, with total power in Gaza, had been willing to concentrate its energies on the economic development of the region and cease cross-border attacks, the Israeli government and public would have been much more willing to make a similar withdrawal from the West Bank where the majority of Palestinians live. We could have been seeing, by now, the birth of a new Palestinian state. But I digress...

Despite the tragic deaths of civilians, Israeli’s airstrikes have been precisely aimed at Hamas fighters, installations and rocket launchers. Inevitably, the use of force causes injury and death to innocents, but from initial figures announced by U.N. personnel, it appears that more than 80% of those killed were Hamas security personnel or other militants — a ratio that might compare favourably with the use of force by NATO troops in Afghanistan. Israel has chosen its targets carefully, pursuing terrorist training camps and rocket storage facilities, and has used precision missiles to minimize civilian casualties.

Hamas has even admitted, most of the dead are terrorists.

This stands in stark contrast to Hamas' own conduct. By using heavily populated Gaza as a launching pad for its attacks and deliberately placed weapons factories and training centers in and around such civilian areas, Hamas is guilty of a double war crime. Not only does it target Israeli schools and hospitals, it also uses Palestinian women and children as human shields.

The cumulative effect on those who have had to endure such assaults is devastating, but seldom reported in the American — let alone Arab — press. Unlike Al-Jazeera, Israeli media shy away from inflammatory journalism, and the Israeli public tends to deal with the consequences of Hamas' attacks with introverted dignity, not photogenic rage. Israel is unfairly condemned for defending itself because the court of public opinion tends to be presented only with evidence of Israel's retaliation, not with its cause — Hamas' aggression.

As well - it must be understood that the timing of this conflict is fundamentally linked to three elections. Israel faces a general election in February; Iran will choose its next president in June; and Obama becomes president in about two weeks. As has been noted:

But the Israeli government's objectives are not just to influence Hamas. They are equally anxious to influence Israeli public opinion. Israel is a genuine democracy. It is due to have a general election on February 10. If that election results in Tzipi Livni as prime minister with Ehud Barak, the Labour leader and former prime minister, as her deputy, the peace process has a serious prospect of getting somewhere. *The attacks on Hamas are already helping Livni and Barak in the opinion polls*. The international community might not approve, but if we wish to see a Palestinian state in the foreseeable future this is likely to be the best route.

An Israeli government re-elected just 21 days after President Obama takes office would create an unprecedented opportunity to relaunch the peace process. George W. Bush only seriously engaged in the issue in his last year in the presidency, when his authority was disintegrating. Obama is likely to have eight years of power ahead of him and will carry more weight with both Israelis and Arabs than any previous president for many years.

Having Hilary Clinton as his Secretary of State is an additional asset. She is a powerful figure in her own right, well thought of in Jerusalem, and respected by the Palestinians. If the new US administration is willing to engage and help guarantee any successful negotiations, the Middle East could at last turn a vital corner.

Finally, there is the Iranian dimension. Iran may not be a proper democracy but no one can predict whether Ahmadinejad will get a second term in June or be ousted by a moderate opponent. If he goes, much of his rhetoric on liquidating Israel will go with him. A peaceful resolution of Iran's nuclear aspirations would also be more likely, especially as Obama has promised a serious dialogue with Iran to try to meet its security concerns. If the United States, under Bush, has been able to do a deal with Gadaffi's Libya then a new relationship with Iran, brokered by Obama, is not inconceivable.

So the stakes are high. An Israeli-Palestinian peace will not ensure, as is sometimes asserted, that Iran will become peace-loving, that al-Qaeda will disband or that terrorism will be a thing of the past. But no one can doubt that Israel-Palestine, Iran and terrorism are linked both in the political psychology of the Middle East and in the strategy of many Western governments.

Stopping Hamas launching missiles at Israeli civilian communities will not ensure peace nor an independent Palestine. But Israel will never concede a Palestinian state unless the Palestinians provide an absolute guarantee of an end to hostilities by all Palestinian parties.

As for the rest of us who watch by the sidelines, we can only hope for peace, understanding and that people don't play hard and loose with the facts.

Doing Well By Doing Good.

2008-12-21T00:33:00.008-05:00

Global stocks fell sharply last week on news of increasing inflation which will limit the Federal Reserves ability to continue cutting interest rates. On Tuesday the Dow Jones Industrials tumbled 294 points following the Fed's announcement of a quarter point cut to the Fed Funds rate. The financial industry is going through a major retrenchment, losing more than 25% in aggregate capitalization since July. The real estate market is collapsing. You get the picture.

Take the case of Citigroup - a once- great bank brought near to ruin by a grossly negligent board of directors. The cost? A mere $351 billion - that is, only $1,000 for every man, woman and child in America. Blame abounds, but most of it must can be directed to the Citigroup directors - the men and women paid well to make corporate policy, and to oversee its proper execution. But that got me thinking about blame...

Let's look at former Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States Alan Greenspan.

In his trademark opaque language; Greenspan tiptoes through the well-documented facts of his tenure as Fed chief to absolve himself of any personal responsibility for the ensuing disaster. Greenspan's apologia is a masterpiece of circuitous logic, deliberate evasion and utter denial of reality. He says: I do not doubt that a low U.S. federal-funds rate in response to the dot-com crash, and especially the 1 per cent rate set in mid-2003 to counter potential deflation, lowered interest rates on adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) and may have contributed to the rise in U.S. home prices. In my judgment, however, the impact on demand for homes financed with ARMs was not major. "Not major"? 3.5 million potential foreclosures, 11-month inventory backlog, plummeting home prices, an entire industry in terminal distress pulling down the global economy is not major? But Greenspan is partially correct. The troubles in housing cannot be entirely attributed to the Fed's "cheap credit" monetary policies. They were also nursed along by a Doctrine of Deregulation which has permeated US capital markets since the Reagan era. Greenspan's views on how markets should function were -to great extent -- shaped by this non-interventionist/non-supervisory ideology which has created enormous equity bubbles and imbalances. The former-Fed chief's support for adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) and subprime lending shows that Greenspan thought of himself as more as a cheerleader for the big market-players than an impartial referee whose job was to monitor reckless or unethical behavior...

Sheesh - shady crooks, ethical lapses that cost people there retirements and homes - its enough to get you all warm and cozy in time to enjoy the holidays. Right?

Well... Instead let's look at Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

Yunus founded the Grameen Bank in 1983 in Bangladesh on the theory that giving no-collateral loans to the poor would help them out of poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves. Because hardly any women in Bangladesh could qualify for a loan 32 years ago, Yunus saw to it that 50% of Grameen's borrowers were women.

Once he realized women were investing more of their loans into improving the lives of their families, the bank started lending to them almost exclusively. Of Grameen's 7.5 million borrowers, 97% are women. The bank lends about $1 billion a year, lending out individual amounts averaging less than $200. At first, the typical loan is for about $30.

Yunus' personal loan of small amounts of money to destitute basketweavers in Bangladesh in the mid-70s, the Grameen Bank has advanced to the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward eradicating poverty through microlending.

"The majority of people on this planet do not have the opportunity to do banking at conventional banks," Yunus said. "They say all the time that the poor are not creditworthy. And we showed how creditworthy they are."

The bank has provided $4.7 billion dollars to 4.4 million families in rural Bangladesh. With 1,417 branches, Grameen provides services in 51,000 villages, covering three quarters of all the villages in Bangladesh. Yet its system is largely based on mutual trust and the enterprise and accountability of millions of women villagers.

Today, more than 250 institutions in nearly 100 countries operate micro-credit programs based on the Grameen Bank model, while thousands of other micro-credit programs have emulated, adapted or been inspired by the Grameen Bank. According to one expert in innovative government, the program established by Yunus at the Grameen Bank "is the single most important development in the third world in the last 100 years, and I don't think any two people will disagree."

So if you believe in Santa -- or if you just believe we all need to spread kindness around a bit -- consider the Yunis' in the world whilst remembering the Greenspan's.

Then go. Do something good. And make this a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Festive Kwanzaa and Killer New Year.

The Follies of Ourselves.

2008-12-13T21:55:00.004-05:00

Open a newspaper, turn on the computer and the brutal economic news comes at you like an asteroid storm. Now no doubt some of it is true. But am I the only who feels the fear-mongering coming on a bit too strong?

Instilling fear has so far been working with company after company laying off workers, even when its absolutely not necessary. Hey why not lay people off when we can get the others to work twice as hard? Yet we read and hear more and more of these stories, and shake our heads in disgust...

Perhaps what pisses me off the most though is that we continue to let it happen. Case in point is everyone's favourite CEO Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers who now can proudly claim to be the poster boy for the global economic meltdown.

Sure, he’s at least nominally responsible for the biggest bankruptcy scandal in banking history. He feasted on the subprime market until it folded in on itself and ripped the economy a new bottom line. He set the tone for a Wall Street culture that rewarded ruthlessness and bullish behaviour with a lifestyle of tawdry wealth and taste. He set new standards in ethics-lite investment practice and paid himself over $480 million in his seven years as CEO of Lehman Brothers. And when the company tanked, he washed his hands.

But perhaps, we the people are as much to blame as the Dick Fuld's of the world. After all - we enable and give a mandate for corporate greed to flourish don't we?

In Fuld's case, he was given a mandate to screw the market for every penny he could get. Dylan Young:

For six and half years that’s exactly what he did. And he was loved for it—by the market, the hedge funds, the executives, the pension plans, the shareholders, and the press. But these aren’t the fairest of fairweather friends. The instant Lehman Bros. started to go south, Fuld had to know he was going to wind up taking it in the neck.

In early 2008, he forwarded a proposal that might have kept Lehman Bros. out of the shithole but the investors ﬂinched and the blitzkrieg raged—bankruptcy, bailout, ﬁre sale, you name it. Fuld had killed the very company where he had risen from an intern 42 years earlier to a corporate general’s rank. And CNN, which had lauded him as the top CEO of 2006, put a warrant on his head as one of their 10 Most Wanted: Culprits of the Collapse.

But this is not really about the Dick's of the world is it? Rather isn't it about us? As long as the money keeps rolling in no one cares whether its done by 'unscrupulous opportunists or high-minded philanthropists.'

As we ask ourselves who helped to kill the economy, maybe its time for us to look in the mirror.

Iranian Blogfather Arrested.

2008-12-09T20:18:00.005-05:00

Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian-Canadian blogger known as Hoder was arrested in Tehran on charges of spying for Israel and could face the death penalty, according to a number of media reports.

Derakhshan, lived in Toronto for seven years and moved to the U.K. in 2007. Widely considered the most prominent Iranian blogger, Derakhshan has been writing on his blog since 2001 and it has been censored numerous times by Iranian authorities. His pioneering work has earned him the nickname of "Godfather of the Iranian Blogosphere." Hoder is also considered a controversial figure for his support of the Iranian regime.

In 2006, he visited Israel and at the time was quoted as saying that this could make returning to his birth country difficult.

"This might mean that I won’t be able to go back to Iran for a long time, since Iran doesn't recognize Israel, has no diplomatic relations with it, and apparently considers traveling there illegal. Too bad, but I don't care. Fortunately, I'm a citizen of Canada and I have the right to visit any country I want."

The reason for his visit to Iran is unknown.

It has been speculated that Derakhshan was likely arrested sometime in the last two weeks. A number of journalism activist groups have begun campaigns calling for his release.

Hoder's had his writing published in the Washington Post, the Guardianand other publications.

Canada is Burning.

2008-12-04T16:10:00.004-05:00

Well at least until Jan. 26 that is.

For those of you not in the loop, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper suspended the country’s legislature for more than 7 weeks in a bid to stave off a challenge from opposition parties seeking to bring down his government.

Harper, re-elected in October to a minority government, said Governor General Michaelle Jean, who acts as the country’s head of state, agreed to his request to close Parliament until Jan. 26. The government’s first order of business will be a budget scheduled for Jan. 27, Harper said, calling on the opposition to work with his administration on a “stimulus” package for the ailing economy.

The political crisis was sparked Nov. 27 when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty presented a fiscal update that included cuts to funding for political parties, limited civil servants’ right to strike and failed to offer a stimulus package to spur economic growth. The three opposition parties said they would oppose the plan and banded together.

The main opposition Liberals agreed to Dec. 1 was to form a coalition with the New Democratic Party and the Parti Quebecois in a bid to accelerate a stimulus package for the economy and oust the Harper government. The turmoil centers on how to manage Canada’s response to the global economic crisis.

So in a bid to buy time, Harper refused to grant the opposition a vote in Parliament that would have brought down his government, instead asking Jean to let him suspend the legislature. The three opposition blocs combined hold a majority of seats in the House of Commons, Parliament’s lower house.

Harper admitted no errors in judgment today. Nor did he seek absolution during a nationally televised address on Wednesday.

The procedural move is unprecedented, marking the first time a prime minister has requested the suspension of the legislature to avoid a so-called confidence vote. Parliament’s suspension comes less than three weeks after the session began.

“For the first time in the history of Canada, the prime minister of Canada is running away from the Parliament of Canada,” Stephane Dion, the Liberal leader who would head the coalition government, adding he will “respect” the governor general’s decision.

Harper’s Conservatives went into the Oct. 14 election with 127 seats in Parliament and increased their total to 143, still short of the 155 needed to control the legislative agenda. The government needs support of at least one other party to pass legislation.

Harper, prime minister for almost three years, has since backtracked on the political funding and labor rights. He and Jean met for about two hours this morning. Jean didn’t speak to reporters after the meeting. The role of Jean, Queen Elizabeth II’s representative in Canada, is mostly ceremonial.

In the Commons yesterday, Liberal MP Ken Dryden (my MP!) said the Prime Minister broke faith with Parliament in the economic update. "How do we repair the irreparable?" Mr. Dryden asked. "To the Prime Minister to help him with his answer: Sorry, it is over; we cannot trust him any more. We need a new prime minister."

Liberal MP Derrick Lee, meanwhile, compared Harper's move to suspend Parliament to the burning of the Reichstag in Germany by the Nazis. Hyperbole much? But kinda true too.

Are Lawyers The Best Way To Save The Earth?

2008-11-30T23:12:00.001-05:00

Back in August Stephen Hockman QC proposed an interesting idea. Namely proposing that a body similar to the International Court of Justice in The Hague be the supreme legal authority on issues regarding the environment. Hockman argues that for the lack of solutions at hand for addressing climate change, "only an impartial adjudicating body is capable of providing the catalyst for a global consensus as to the fairest way to distribute the burdens that accompany solutions to the climate change problem."

The understandable reluctance of developing countries to sign up to carbon commitments - unless the developed world is prepared to make an equitable contribution - calls for more radical options. Those options must be realised at state, regional and international levels, and they will require political, economic and legal solutions.

In this mix, international legal instruments are crucial. The existing tools lack the necessary jurisdiction, clout and transparency. The time is ripe for a serious consideration of an international court for the environment. Such a court was mooted in Washington in 1999, but sank without trace. Today, however, we cannot afford to drop the ball.

Hockman, who is also a trustee of Client Earth, a nonprofit environmental law group, argued that such an institution would also offer a centralized system, "an enhanced body of law regarding environmental issues, and consistency in the resolution of environmental disputes". He wrote that such a court should be compulsory and have its own scientific body to assess technical issues.

However some are skeptical as to whether this concept would work, as Environmental Capital notes:

But what about the two giants in that global economy? The U.S. and China together account for about half the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions. Any meaningful climate-change pact begins and ends with what Washington and Beijing decide. And while both presidential candidates are less hostile to the ICC, ceding control to supra-national jurisdictions generally gives the U.S. pause. Chinese leaders, meanwhile, have not traditionally embraced global law or institutions with open arms.

Concluded Environmental Capital: "Are lawyers really the best way to save the earth?"

Seeking Parity.

2008-11-24T22:35:00.002-05:00

Well elections have come and gone both in Canada and the US, but some are asking -- but what of the goal of advancing women in political leadership?

How long will it take us? We already are well into the fourth decade since the contemporary women's movement of the 1970s spawned a generation that sought to claim an equal place in the halls of power.

Women make up 52% of Canada’s population, yet we represent roughly 20% of elected politicians on municipal, provincial and federal levels. Currently Canada sits in 44th place in the world on the Inter-Parlimentary Unions ranking of countries by representation of women in government. The breakdown is as follows:

Canada
Seats in the House of Commons - 308
Number of Seats held by Women: 65
Percentage - 21.1%

Seats in the Senate - 105 (90 currently sitting)
Number of Seats held by Women - 32
Percentage - 35.6%

Total - 24.4%

In Still Counting, authors Linda Trimble and Jane Arscott argue that:

an “electoral glass ceiling” is keeping women at or below the 25 per cent mark, restricting women to less than half of the seats that would be theirs in a democracy committed to balanced, equitable and fair representation. Moreover, little is being done to address this ongoing democratic deficit. Despite drawbacks, such as the “revolving door” for female party leaders and continued sexism in legislatures, women can, and do, make a difference in politics. That’s why it’s important to elect many more, and more diverse, women to Canada’s parliament and legislatures.

In our most recent election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper increased the amount of women his cabinet up from seven in the last session. Women now make up 29% of the cabinet, comparable to the ratio from Paul Martin's Liberal cabinet in 2003-04 (30%) and up from 22% in the last cabinet.

In the US, prior to 2008, the only female candidate to ever to run for national office on a major-party ticket, and was selected, not elected, as a vice presidential candidate was 1984 Geraldine Ferraro 24 years ago.

Both in the primary and the general election much has been debated about both the progress and regression this election cycle has created for women. But even as the highest glass ceiling in American politics came the closest it ever has to being shattered, in Congress it was business as usual: Women made a net gain of one seat in the Senate, bringing the total to 17 out of 100, and three seats in the House, moving up from 71 to 74 out of 435 seats, or 17%.

Not everyone thinks this is good enough news though:

But what this means is that as the class of 2008 enters the Capitol's marble halls, it will include less than half the number of women who first won office in 1992 -- the so-called "year of the woman."

Currently the US sits in 71st place in the world with the follow breakdown:

United States
Seats in the House of Representatives - 435
Number of Seats held by women - 74
Percentage - 16.8%

Seats in the Senate - 100
Number of Seats held by women - 17
Percentage - 17%

Total - 16.9%

While these numbers are disappointing, there is some progress being made:

At the state level, the pipeline into federal office, there were some bright spots in 2008: A record number of women, 2,328, ran for state legislatures in a presidential election year, surpassing the previous presidential-year record of 2,302 set in 1992. (The overall record was set in 2006, when 2,429 women ran. More state legislative seats are up for election in non-presidential election years.)

“So 2008 was a record, and it managed to get us from 23.7 percent of women serving in state legislatures to 24.2 percent,” says Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Another bright spot emerged in New Hampshire, where women now hold a majority in the state Senate, 13 out of 24 seats – the first state legislative body in US history to be majority female. New Hampshire, and New England in general, has a history of electing women to office, owing to a tradition of citizen part-time legislators. In New Hampshire, the annual pay for legislators is $100, plus travel reimbursement.

Overall, when the totals of each state’s legislative bodies are combined, Colorado ranks No. 1 for female representation, with 38 percent. Vermont has 37.8 percent, and New Hampshire, 37.7 percent.

“Once we drop the decimal points, we know that women will have arrived,” writes former Vermont Gov. Madeleine Kunin in a blog. In an interview, she notes that the citizen-legislator model of her state is what allowed her to get into politics when her four children were young.

In contrast, South Carolina now has no women in its state senate.

On the higher end of the Inter-Parlimentary Unions list, Germany sits at 32% and Sweden at 47% - however no country in the world represents the female populace at 52% where it sits around the globe. So where does that leave us?

In Canada, we set a record of success this election. And the US? According to Marie Wilson, president of the White House Project, an organization working to advance women in leadership.

“At this rate, it will take us till 2063 to reach parity. I mean, come on! We have to speed things up.”

For more information on the advancement of women in politics, please visit Equal Voice and The Center for American Women in Politics

Netroots: Do they Matter?

2008-11-23T20:46:00.007-05:00

As a marketer I have noticed some interesting trends in recent months. Namely that traditional media (print, radio, TV) has started to decline in both consumption and advertising revenue. Here in Canada, budgets are being slashed by international accounts and belts are being tightened.

What is interesting is that not 5 years ago, media outlets were 'throwing in' internet advertising as a bonus with a traditional media buy. Well those days are long over. As a medium, the internet has exploded bringing with it much good and bad - especially in the political scene.

Which naturally leads us to the effect of the Netroots, which is described as follows:

Netroots is a recent term coined to describe political activism organized through blogs and other online media, including wikis and social network services. The word is a portmanteau of Internet and grassroots, reflecting the technological innovations that set netroots techniques apart from other forms of political participation. In the United States, the term is used mainly in left-leaning circles.

Further - the origin of the term is suggested to be traced to:

In a December 2005 interview with Newsweek magazine [4], Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of Daily Kos, described the netroots as "the crazy political junkies that hang out in blogs." He is also the co-author (with Jerome Armstrong) of the book Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots and the Rise of People-Powered Politics (ISBN 1-931498-99-7).

William Safire explained the term's origin in the New York Times Magazine on November 19, 2006:
“ ... the Nation's Web site [5] cited the unabashedly liberal Jerome Armstrong's praise of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee "for reading blogs and being ready to work with the netroots." From these citations and a few of the million and a half others in a Google search, the word netroots has a left-of-center connotation. The earliest use I can find is in a Jan. 15, 1993, message on an e-mail list of the Electronic Frontier Foundation from an "rmcdon[ell]" at the University of California at San Diego, apparently complaining about an internal shake-up: "Too bad there's no netroots organization that can demand more than keyboard accountability from those who claim to be acting on behalf of the 'greater good.'" ... Popularizer of the term — unaware of the obscure, earlier citation when he used it — was the aforementioned (great old word) Armstrong on his blog, MyDD, on Dec. 18, 2002, as he went to work on the presidential campaign of Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont.... headlined his entry “Netroots for Dean in 2004” and told Internet readers where to get the first inkling of a groundswell: “O.K., so Dean is still polling 1 to 4 percent nationally, so what. Look at the netroots.”[1]

Whatever its origin, the Netroots most certainly has had an effect on the media.

Clearly, bloggers aren’t a monolithic group. But it’s fair to say that liberal bloggers — and the more activist-oriented members of the Netroots within that group — have been calling out the media’s campaign coverage with far more regularity than just four years ago. And it’s not simply because there are more activists who know how Moveable Type works.

Pushback against the media has been aided by the growth of more sophisticated liberal news sites, such as Talking Points Memo and The Huffington Post. In 2004, TPM founder Josh Marshall didn’t have any paid staffers; this year he has nine. And Arianna Huffington’s arsenal of nearly 2,000 bloggers didn’t exist until President Bush was already six months into his second term. Not to mention, liberal watchdog group Media Matters — which provides ammo to many bloggers — has grown in that time from about 20 staffers to near 100, according to a source familiar with the organization.

This effect can be seen in driving MSM stories. Be that as it may, a particularly inflammatory article by James Kirchick entitled Barack Obama doesn't fear the enraged, impotent Netroots contends that:

Indeed, the only people who seemed to give a fig about Lieberman were the "Netroots." Along with abandoning Iraq to Iran and Al Qaeda, punishing the "traitor" Joe Lieberman was their paramount concern (know that in the minds of Netroots, Lieberman hasn't only committed treason against the Democratic Party; a quick perusal of the more popular liberal blogs will also find the words "Zionist" and "Likudnik" attached to his name). Most Americans probably recognize Lieberman as the guy who ran with Al Gore in 2000. But to the Netroots, Lieberman is an obsession, an individual who inspires mania. He is the worst thing possible: not only someone who disagrees with them about foreign policy, but a liberal who disagrees with them on foreign policy.

"No matter what Joe Lieberman does," wrote Jane Hamsher, proprietor of the popular liberal blog Firedoglake, "the people who are protecting him hate you much more than they hate him." The Netroots are all about hate; its denizens are incapable of seeing shades of gray. (And Ms. Hamsher knows a thing or two about hate, having doctored a photo of Joe Lieberman in blackface during his primary battle against Netroots favorite Ned Lamont two years ago.)

Good for the Democrats for ignoring these people. Allowed to exercise more influence over the party than they already do, the Netroots would have the same disastrous effect that the presidential nomination of George McGovern did in 1972.

While the article reeks of disdain for 'liberal bloggers' Kirchick does raise a point worth examining...

The Netroots: Do they Matter?

The Underwritten story of the Campaign.

2008-11-21T22:11:00.006-05:00

On C-Span 2’s post election Presidential Election Analysis Panel by the Smithsonian Associates. That's how Howard Dean put it. See below.

Some key quotes from the video:

“Washington doesn’t get it. They always get it last. This is the most underwritten story of this campaign… by the press… by the media.”

“Women my age, in my generation felt this really acutely. Because they were the ones that suffered all of the indignities that you suffer when you fight to win the battle for equality. As they did.”

“Nobody understood the agony that women, particularly of my generation, were undergoing about this…issue…and to this day, it has been swept under the rug and been forgotten because she didn’t win.”

"We thought we were past all this stuff and we weren’t. We weren’t surprised about the degree of racism or lack of it or whatever, that was endlessly examined. We did not examine the fact that we didn’t get, we haven’t gotten nearly as far ahead as we thought we were about equality between the sexes. And that ought to be revisited as a result of what happened.”

"and it happened to Sarah Palin too. All the stuff that happened to Sarah Palin, and I know God knows I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her political points of view, but a lot of the stuff that happened to her, as she pointed out, would not have happened had she been a man.”

Do you think an honest discussion of this topic is possible yet?

The Wingnut Strikes Back.

2008-11-20T22:03:00.005-05:00

Back in July, it was more than confirmed what a wacko Michael Savage really is when he decided to direct his angry rants at autistic children. Well in case you were hoping that he went back under the big dark rock from where he came, sorry to disappoint - he’s at it again.

During the November 18 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage said:

"You haven't seen any of what's coming in this country. You are going to see the wholesale replacement of competent white men, and I'm targeting exactly the group that's gonna be thrown out of jobs in the government. And I'll say it, and I'll be the first to say it, and I may be not the only -- the last to say it. I am telling you that there's gonna be a wholesale firing of competent white men in the United States government up and down the line, in police departments, in fire departments. Everywhere in America, you're going to see an exchange that you've never seen in history, and it's not gonna be necessarily for the betterment of this country."

Here’s a listen if you feel like barfing a little.

Earlier in the segment, Savage said of President-elect Barack Obama:

"[W]hen you're socially promoted, you wind up as president of the United States. If you're socially promoted your whole life and nobody challenges you because you're of the proper constitution and composition and you look exactly right and no one's -- everyone's afraid to say a word to you, why, you then go to Harvard, you then go to the law review, you then get elected, you then get elected to the next level. This is what happens in a country that's intimidated by its own policies and its own fears."

During the presidential campaign, Savage repeatedly described Obama as an "affirmative action" candidate. And on his October 27 broadcast, Savage said that Obama "benefited from affirmative action, stepping over more qualified white men, I actually lost as a result of affirmative action, many times in my life. ... [W]e have America's first affirmative action candidate about to become president." and in February, Savage claimed that the Democratic presidential primary contest "is, or can be seen as, the first affirmative action election in American history." He added, "We have a woman and a multi-ethnic man running for office on the Democrat side. Is this not akin to an affirmative action election? Isn't that why the libs are hysterical, tripping over themselves to say amen and yes to this affirmative election vote?"

Media Matters also noted that Savage called "civil rights" a "con" and claimed that affirmative action stole his "birthright," and his "manhood."

There's only one way to describe this man's soul: UGLY

Ignoramus: Gay Marriage will....

2008-11-16T21:14:00.008-05:00

In case anyone was jonesing for a some homophobia and well, douchiness in general should be sure to check out last Thursday's O’Reilly Factor. In it, O'Reilly does a segment on the protests in California over Prop. 8 and really does not disappoint in reaffirming that he is a number one ignoramus.

O’REILLY: So you can see the debate over gay marriage is now a full fledge national battle. As talking points said last night the election of Barack Obama has emboldened secular progressives who feel it is their time. Gay marriage just the beginning. Other cultural war issues will also be in display very shortly. These include limiting gun possession, legalizing narcotics, unrestricted abortion and the revocation of the Patriot Act.

All The Things That Women Are Interested In.

2008-11-15T00:32:00.004-05:00

Back in June, I observed that political machinations reverted into the oldest stereotypes - namely that women should ONLY be depicted as wives or mothers. Unfortunately now that the transition is in place it would appear that we are headed back in that direction with Michelle Obama's recent visit to the White House with Laura Bush.

In an interview with CNN's WH Correspondent Elaine Quijano, Bush describes the meeting:

QUIJANO: The role of the First Lady is certainly something that I'm sure you discussed with Mrs. Obama earlier this week. How did that visit go? And could you tell us any anecdotes?

BUSH: Well it went great. It was very private, really. It was really much more, I think, two mothers talking about home more in this visit, because of course I showed her the rooms that are our girls' rooms now that I think are the perfect rooms for her girls when they move there.

We talked more about really making the White House a home for a family. And what I know from having lived here and from visiting my mother-in-law when she made this family a home and from reading about all the other families that have lived here is this house really can be a home. And I know that they'll make it that way for their little girls.

QUIJANO: Certainly, there must be some increased pressure, a lot of scrutiny, of course, living in the White House. I was wondering, did you share any advice with her as a mother who has been through it, having had two daughters spending some formative years?

BUSH: Not really. I think I showed her the closets, I showed her all the things that women are interested in. But I didn't try to give her a lot of advice. I know she knows that she can make it home.

And that's what she wants to do.

QUIJANO: Last question then. Your husband, the day after the election, talked about it being a stirring sight to see the Obamas because of the historic nature of having the nation's first African-American president. I wonder if you could share your thoughts on that, as well?

BUSH: Well I also think it's very, very important. I think it's important for American history. I think it's a message to everybody in the United States of what's possible. But it's also a message around the world because I know, because I heard from them, that there were leaders in the -- around the world who didn't think the United States would elect an African-American man. And so, I think it's a really important message about our own democracy to people around the world.

QUIJANO: Mrs. Bush, thank you so much.

BUSH: Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot.

Watch:

And because its Friday and I cannot think of something positive to say about the meeting, or how pathetic this sounds in the year 2008, I'd like to think that the end of the meeting went something like this:

Maybe her and Michelle burned one in the Rose Garden and then Laura showed her where she grows her own.

Laura: The Secret Service NEVER comes in here. I tell George it’s where the government keeps Noriega and only Cheney is allowed in there. He just nods and pretends he knows it. HEY! Why don’t I just leave the equipment and sh*t for you?

Michelle: Girl, SOLID!

(fist bump between the two)

350

2008-10-25T00:42:00.004-04:00

Bill McKibben, whose 1989 book "The End of Nature" was one of the first to warn of the threats of climate change, has helped launch a 90-second clip that puts the spotlight on global warming and where we need to be if human civilization is going to survive. The clip does not have words and it is assumed that this is because, global warming is a problem transcends language, culture and country.

Once upon a time, long ago, before industrialization, before coal-fired power plants spewed carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that's precipitated climate change, there was a number. That number, 275, was the parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

Flash forward more than 150 years later, that number has risen. The earth is hotter and we are in serious trouble. We're up to about 387 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Based on the most up-to-date science, the goal to avoid any kind of global catastrophe and to get our carbon dioxide number down to 350 parts per million.

“We now in the last year have that number,” McKibben says, “and it's probably the most important number in the world.”

If you feel like taking action and inviting the next US President to attend the UN Climate Meetings this December in Poland and rejoin the world's fight against the climate crisis, then please go here or visit www.350.org

Tomboy Fatwa.

2008-10-24T09:54:00.006-04:00

The AP is reporting that Malaysia's main body of Islamic clerics has issued an edict today banning tomboys in the Muslim-majority country, ruling that girls who act like boys violate the tenets of Islam.

The National Fatwa Council forbade the practice of girls behaving or dressing like boys during a meeting Thursday in northern Malaysia, said Harussani Idris Zakaria, the mufti of northern Perak state, who attended the gathering. Harussani said an increasing number of Malaysian girls behave like tomboys, and that some of them engage in homosexuality. Homosexuality is not explicitly banned in Malaysia, but it is effectively illegal under a law that prohibits sex acts "against the order of nature." Harussani said the council's ruling was not legally binding because it has not been passed into law, but that tomboys should be banned because their actions are immoral.

"It doesn't matter if it's a law or not. When it's wrong, it's wrong. It is a sin," Harussani told The Associated Press. "Tomboy (behavior) is forbidden in Islam." Under the edict, girls are forbidden to sport short hair and dress, walk and act like boys, Harussani said. Boys should also not act like girls, he said. "They must respect God. God created them as boys, they must behave like boys. God created them as girls, they must act like girls," he said.

Council chairman Abdul Shukor Husin said the ruling was prompted by recent cases of young women behaving like men and indulging in homosexuality, according to the national news agency Bernama. He did not elaborate. Malaysian media have reported on recent incidents of school bullying among girls, which have been caught on film and circulated on the Internet. In one film, some girls are seen beating up another girl in a bathroom. A well-known Malaysian Muslim actress caused an uproar last year when she shaved her head bald for a film. Harussani and other muftis urged Muslims not to watch the movie, arguing that the actress had violated Islam by making herself look like a man.

Muslims make up some 60% of Malaysia's 27 million people, and are subject to Islamic laws and the council's edicts, even if the rulings have not been enshrined in national or Shariah law. As was noted, it was not immediately clear what kind of punishment awaited those who violate the tomboy edict.

Spaceships for Obama.

2008-10-22T15:24:00.004-04:00

These “superhuman black men” will be coming on October 31st to support Barack Obama, according to Prophet Yahweh, Seer of Yahweh, Master UFO Caller.

He claims that these space beings are the Angels of Yahweh, the Creator of all things. And, they are talking to him, on a daily basis, via a sophisticated form of telepathic, non-verbal, none-talk, brain-to-brain communication. Most of the time, when they contact him, he is asleep.

Further, he notes that: 'Unless I am misinterpreting my visions, it’s very likely that Yahweh’s angels are going to descend down from space, in one of their spaceships, on two different occasions, in a different, single ship, each time, and hover over my school, in Las Vegas, NV for three days so the media can film them.'

When asked why the spaceships will appear, Prophet boldly says that:

One of the many reasons why they will do this is to show support for Presidential candidate Barack Obama. This will be done so people will know that Obama is the best choice to lead America through the troublesome times to come.

However, he admits he might off about the date and the details. But really, they’re going to help Obama save the USA from Iran and Russia. Video of Prophet Yaweh below:

You can't make this stuff up.

I ♥ Digby.

2008-10-21T22:48:00.003-04:00

Video from the Gala Dinner at Take Back America 2007 in Washington, DC - June 19, 2007

That is all.

"Come back to work — and life."

2008-10-20T20:37:00.007-04:00

Today the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz is reporting that Fox News has hired former New York Times reporter Judith Miller as an on-air analyst and to write stories for Fox’s website.

Miller, one of many of the sales team for the Iraq war, was a key player in pushing false intelligence that led the public into the Iraq war and was central to the Valerie Plame leak scandal.

As Think Progress notes:

On Sept. 7, 2002, she and fellow New York Times reporter Michael Gordon reported that Iraq had “stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb.” As proof, she cited unnamed “American intelligence experts” and unnamed “Bush administration officials.” Subsequently, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld all pointed to Miller’s story as justification for war. On April 22, 2003, she told PBS’s Newshour that WMD had already been found in Iraq: “Well, I think they found something more than a ’smoking gun.’”

In 2005, Miller went to jail for refusing to testify in the Valerie Plame scandal and reveal her conversations with Scooter Libby. Miller was often criticized for becoming too close with her Bush administration sources. While she was in jail, for example, Libby wrote to her about how much he admired her and urged her to “Come back to work — and life."

Yep - Miller is nothing if not controversial.

Order of Canada...

2008-10-10T22:08:00.004-04:00

After the culmination of months of heated debate, today in Quebec City, Dr. Henry Morgentaler received the Order of Canada. The Order of Canada, the highest civilian honour in the country, recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement and dedication to community.

In a statement released Thursday, Governor General Michaëlle Jean said that Morgentaler has had "a major impact" on Canadian public policy. "A Holocaust survivor, he has not hesitated to put himself at risk in his determined drive to increase health-care options for Canadian women," the statement reads.

"He has been a catalyst for change and important debate, influencing public policy nationwide. He has heightened awareness of women's reproductive health issues among medical professionals and the Canadian public."

After it was announced in July that it would bestow the award on Morgentaler, some past recipients, angry at the decision, gave back their medals in protest. ‘If the majority have decided this is OK and a good thing, the minority has to accept it and understand that not all laws and rights will agree with our own personal beliefs.’ Jean said. Among those who returned their medals were Montreal Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, former New Brunswick lieutenant-governor Gilbert Finn and B.C. priest Lucien Larré.

Born in Poland in 1923, Morgentaler and is a Holocaust survivor that lived in the Łódź ghetto until 1944, after which he was detained and sent to Auschwitz. Morgentaler immigrated to Canada from Poland after the Second World War and opened a clinic in Montreal in 1969, where he performed thousands of what were then illegal abortions.

Morgentaler gave up his family practice and began openly performing illegal abortions in his private clinic in 1968. At the time abortion was illegal except for cases in which continuing a pregnancy threatened the life of the pregnant woman. On August 26, 1969, an amendment to the Criminal Code legalized abortion in Canada if performed in a hospital after approval of a Therapeutic Abortion Committee which was a three-doctor hospital abortion committee. Morgentaler's abortions remained illegal under that new law; they became legal in January 1988 as section 251 of the Criminal Code (now known as section 287) was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada.

A family physician, Morgentaler argued that access to abortion was a basic human right and that women should not have to risk death in order to end their pregnancies. Morgentaler's clinics were often raided by police, and one in Toronto was firebombed.

Morgentaler was arrested several times and spent months in jail as he fought his case at all court levels in Canada.

"Canada is one of the few places in the world where freedom of speech and choice prevail in a truly democratic fashion," he said, reading from a statement. I'm proud to have been given this opportunity coming from a war-torn Europe to realize my potential and my dream - that is to create a better and more humane society."

Feh. UPDATED

2008-10-07T23:17:00.004-04:00

Last week the government owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) pulled the column "A Mighty Wind Blows Through the Republican Convention" by writer Heather Mallick. Written on September 5, the article in question goes after Sarah Palin and crosses a line that does way beyond political analysis and refers to Palin's supporters as "white trash".

Some of Mallick's more incendiary comments include:

“It’s possible that Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are, really believe that women will vote for a woman just because she’s a woman.”

“Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade’s woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression. Bristol has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the “pramface.” Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting. What normal father would want Levi “I'm a fuckin’ redneck” Johnson prodding his daughter?"

“I know that I have an attachment to children that verges on the irrational, but why don't the Palins? I’m not the one preaching homespun values but I’d destroy that ratboy before I’d let him get within scenting range of my daughter again, and so would you. Palin’s e-mails about the brother-in-law she tried to get fired as a state trooper are fizzing with rage and revenge. Turn your guns on Levi, ma’am.”

On September 28, CBC publisher John Cruickshank issued an apology stating "we erred in our judgment".

More than 300 people have taken the trouble this month to complain to the CBC ombudsman about a column we ran on CBCNews.ca about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Sept. 5.

The column, by award-winning freelance writer Heather Mallick, was also pilloried by The National Post in Canada and by Fox News in the U.S. Despite its age — it is three weeks old, several lifetimes in web years — this posting remains a subject of fascination in the blogosphere.

Vince Carlin, the CBC ombudsman, has now issued his assessment of the Mallick column. He doesn't fault her for riling readers by either the caustic nature of her tone or the polarizing nature of her opinion.

But he objects that many of her most savage assertions lack a basis in fact. And he is certainly correct.

Mallick's column is a classic piece of political invective. It is viciously personal, grossly hyperbolic and intensely partisan.

And because it is all those things, this column should not have appeared on the CBCNews.ca site.

After Mallick's column began to garner attention both online and on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren, the host of “On the Record,” condemned the column as “beyond vicious” and during the segment repeatedly referred to Mallick as “a pig."

I guess hate begets hate... On a brighter note, CBC included a journalistic pledge in its report that is promising.

We failed you in this case. And as a result we have put new editing procedures in place to insure that in the future, work that is not appropriate for our platforms, will not appear. We are open to contentious reasoned argument but not to partisan attack. It's a fine line. Ombudsman Carlin makes another significant observation in his response to complainants: when it does choose to print opinion, CBCNews.ca displays a very narrow range on its pages.

In this, Carlin is also correct. This, too, is being immediately addressed. CBCNews.ca will soon expand the diversity of voices and opinions and be home to a diverse group of writers with many perspectives. In this, we will better reflect the depth and texture of this country. We erred in our editorial judgment. You told us in no uncertain terms. And we have learned from it.

No wonder I have been spending less time online.

UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that Mallick's piece is online at her blog HERE.

Arnold Vetoes Bill Honouring LGBT Icon.

2008-10-01T21:19:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that “would have made the birthday of LGBT political icon Harvey Milk a statewide ‘day of significance.’” Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated in 1978.

Schwarzenegger, who opposes efforts to ban same-sex marriage in the state, explained his veto by saying that he believes Milk should “be recognized at the local level.” The AP notes that conservative groups had lobbied the governor to oppose the measure:

In his veto message issued Tuesday, the governor said that while he respected the measure’s intent, he thinks Milk’s “contributions should continue to be recognized at the local level.”

Conservative groups had lobbied Schwarzenegger not to sign the legislation, sponsored by Assemblyman Mark Leno of San Francisco.

Milk, was the first openly gay man to hold a prominent political office in America. In November, Gus Van Sant’s upcoming biopic of of the icon will be released. Click here to watch the trailer.

Compulsory Turnout?

2008-09-27T22:41:00.004-04:00

With the ever increasing partisan divide and voter participation rates steady at about 50% to 60% in presidential contests, the key to winning in general elections is turnout. And the key to success is turning out one’s ideological base. Whichever party does a better job getting its base to the polls reaps the rewards of majority status. And what’s the best way to get the base to show up at the voting booth? Focus on divisive issues that underscore the differences between the parties.

It has been suggested that compulsory voting may influence the focus of a campaign towards swinging voters, with candidates and political parties trying to win the votes of the undecided, rather than motivating their "base" supporters to the polls. Thus it could be argued that politicians might adopt more centrist and less extreme policies in order to appeal to the relatively small group of swinging voters, rather than to their broader base constituencies.

Over twenty countries in the world including Singapore, Cyprus, Greece, Austria and Belgium, have forms of mandatory voting which require their citizens to register to vote and to go to their polling place or vote on election day. However one of the most well-known compulsory voting systems is in Australia.

All eligible Australian citizens over the age of 18 must be registered to vote and show up at the poll on election day. Those who do not vote are subject to fines although those who are incapable of voting on election day can have their fines waived.

Compulsory voting in Australia was adopted in the province of Queensland in 1915 and subsequently adopted nationwide in 1924. With Australia's compulsory voting system, there is additional flexibility built in for the voter - elections are held on Saturdays, absent voters can vote in any state polling place, and voters in remote areas can vote before an election (at pre-polling voting centers) or via mail.

Voter turnout of those registered to vote in Australia was as low as 47% prior to the 1924 compulsory voting law. In the decades since 1924, voter turnout has hovered around 94% to 96%. In 1924, Australian officials felt that compulsory voting would eliminate voter apathy. However, compulsory voting now has its detractors. In their Fact Sheet on Voting, the Australian Electoral Commission provides some arguments in favor and against compulsory voting.

Some arguments in favour of compulsory voting:

-Voting is a civic duty comparable to other duties citizens perform (e.g. taxation, compulsory education, or jury duty).
-Government reflects more accurately the "will of the electorate."
-Governments must consider the total electorate in policy formulation and management.
-Candidates can concentrate their campaigning energies on issues rather than encouraging voters to attend the poll.
-Voter are not actually compelled to vote for anyone because voting is by secret ballot.

Some arguments against compulsory voting:

-It is undemocratic to force people to vote - an infringement of liberty.
-The "ignorant" and those with little interest in politics are forced to the polls.
-It may increase the number of spoiled votes.
-It increases the number of safe, single-member electorates - political parties then concentrate on the more marginal electorates.
-Resources must be allocated to determine whether those who failed to vote have "valid and sufficient" reasons.

Advocates of compulsory voting might argue that such a system has a higher degree of representation, and that low voter participation in a voluntary election is in itself an expression of the citizenry's political will and could indicate satisfaction with the political establishment in an electorate.

Either way, with compulsory voting general political apathy is harder to find and that's always a good thing.

What Makes People Vote Republican?

2008-09-13T20:06:00.005-04:00

Why in particular do working class and rural Americans usually vote for pro-business Republicans when their economic interests would seem better served by Democratic policies? Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor of moral psychology at the University of Virginia, examines why. With the seemingly return of the culture wars and general hate being flung from across both sides of the aisle in recent days, this essay might be intriguing to some.

For my dissertation research, I made up stories about people who did things that were disgusting or disrespectful yet perfectly harmless. For example, what do you think about a woman who can't find any rags in her house so she cuts up an old American flag and uses the pieces to clean her toilet, in private? Or how about a family whose dog is killed by a car, so they dismember the body and cook it for dinner? I read these stories to 180 young adults and 180 eleven-year-old children, half from higher social classes and half from lower, in the USA and in Brazil. I found that most of the people I interviewed said that the actions in these stories were morally wrong, even when nobody was harmed. Only one group—college students at Penn—consistently exemplified Turiel's definition of morality and overrode their own feelings of disgust to say that harmless acts were not wrong. (A few even praised the efficiency of recycling the flag and the dog).

This research led me to two conclusions. First, when gut feelings are present, dispassionate reasoning is rare. In fact, many people struggled to fabricate harmful consequences that could justify their gut-based condemnation. I often had to correct people when they said things like "it's wrong because… um…eating dog meat would make you sick" or "it's wrong to use the flag because… um… the rags might clog the toilet." These obviously post-hoc rationalizations illustrate the philosopher David Hume's dictum that reason is "the slave of the passions, and can pretend to no other office than to serve and obey them." This is the first rule of moral psychology: feelings come first and tilt the mental playing field on which reasons and arguments compete. If people want to reach a conclusion, they can usually find a way to do so. The Democrats have historically failed to grasp this rule, choosing uninspiring and aloof candidates who thought that policy arguments were forms of persuasion.

The second conclusion was that the moral domain varies across cultures. Turiel's description of morality as being about justice, rights, and human welfare worked perfectly for the college students I interviewed at Penn, but it simply did not capture the moral concerns of the less elite groups—the working-class people in both countries who were more likely to justify their judgments with talk about respect, duty, and family roles. ("Your dog is family, and you just don't eat family.") From this study I concluded that the anthropologist Richard Shweder was probably right in a 1987 critique of Turiel in which he claimed that the moral domain (not just specific rules) varies by culture. Drawing on Shweder's ideas, I would say that the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.

When Republicans say that Democrats "just don't get it," this is the "it" to which they refer. Conservative positions on gays, guns, god, and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label "elitist." But how can Democrats learn to see—let alone respect—a moral order they regard as narrow-minded, racist, and dumb?

In today's New York Times, In No Laughing Matter Judith Warner adds:

Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. “Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger,” he told me in a phone interview.

Haidt also explores the meaning of morality and describes his experiences in a Hindu community in the early 90's, in which a he witnessed a hierarchical society with clearly defined gender and class roles. This gave him insight into why some in his own country might be attracted to similarly ordered social structures.

It really is a good read and I think helpful to framing the conversation in the upcoming weeks.

What The Hell Is Going On?

2008-09-12T19:11:00.006-04:00

A new Gallup poll suggests the RNC post-convention bump may now be affecting down ticket congressional races.

Today's released USA Today/Gallup poll posting generic Democratic or Republican candidates, show a Democrats’ double-digit ballot lead shrinking to just 48% to 45%, within the 3% margin of error.

That is a dramatic shift from a consistently shown a strong advantage for Democrats throughout most of the year (actually Democrats have led in the Gallup generic ballot measure since early 2004)

More startling is the Republicans’ new advantage among likely voters. While the Democrats lead by 3 among registered voters, likely voters say they will vote for a generic Republican candidate over a generic Democrat by a 50-45 margin. Prior to the DNC convention, this number favoured the Democrats by a 51-42 margin.

A CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted over the same span also showed a 3% gap, 49-46, while other polls from this week have seen the generic ballot narrowing but still clearly favouring Democrats by 7 or 8...

Now while these results come from a September 5-7 survey conducted immediately after the Republican National Convention - what the hell is going on?

For Shame.

2008-08-29T21:44:00.003-04:00

It's been roughly 10 hours and 30 minutes since John McCain announced his VP pick Sarah Palin. Since that time - I think its safe to say that the American public and particularly the media and blogosphere have been chomping at the bit to get their sexist rocks off.

As shakesville says:

We defend Sarah Palin against misogynist smears not because we endorse her or her politics, but because that's how feminism works. For the record, there is plenty about which to criticize Palin that has absolutely fuck-all to do with her sex. She's anti-choice, against marriage equality, pro-death penalty, pro-guns, and loves Big Business. (In other words, she's a Republican.) There's no goddamned reason to criticize her for anything but her policies.

And as DoctorScience says - The biggest single danger of Palin's candidacy is that it will bring enough foaming misogyny out of the Democratic side to repel some female voters over to McCain.

Let's take a look at a few examples from the last 10 hours, shall we?

A clever blogger started the website VPILF, and I think it speaks for itself.

Progressive sites like KOS, commenters post lovely pictures like this. Or declare Link To Sarah Palin Nude?

Suggestions that Palin is a puppet and her husband is really the Governor of Alaska.

And while the media has too many examples to being up - one comes to mind...

Palin has been the VP pick for all of five minutes, and already one of the (male) reporters on CNN just asked another reporter something along the lines of, “Now, Palin also has a baby with Down’s Syndrome. Those children require an awful lot of care. Do you think she’ll be able to balance taking care of that baby with being Vice President? I mean, having a Down’s Syndrome baby takes up a lot of time and energy.

I guess the lessons from the Democratic primary didn't catch.

Politico: Clinton was never vetted.

2008-08-22T11:58:00.001-04:00

The Politico is reporting Hillary Clinton was never vetted for the role of VP.

Obama has often said, most recently on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on July 27, that Clinton “would be on anybody’s short list.”

But apparently not his.

“She was never vetted,” a Democratic official reported. “She was not asked for a single piece of paper. She and Senator Obama have never had a single conversation about it. How would he know if she’d take it?”

The official also said Clinton never met with Obama’s vetting team of Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy.

And the official said she was never asked for medical records or for any financial 2008 information about her or former President Bill Clinton. The last information the couple has disclosed about taxes and financial holdings was for 2007.

“This would be the biggest leap of faith ever,” the official said. “She’s waiting for the text message like everyone else.”

So I guess we can cross this one off potentials?

How to be a Disgusting Pig 101.

2008-08-21T15:53:00.001-04:00

Politico is reporting that a new conservative group has produced a television ad attacking Barack Obama for his relationship with former Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers.

"How much do your really know about Barack Obama? What does he really believe?" asks the ad, which then cites the failed attack on the Capitol on 9/11, and links it to the Weather Underground attack on the Capitol decades earlier.

The group says it will spend $2.8 million airing the ad in Ohio and Michigan -- which would be the largest single third-party expenditure this cycle.

"Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?" asks the narrator. "Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

The group, the American Issues Project, is part of a group that isn't required to disclose its donors and is a product of a coalition of conservative groups, including Iowans for Tax Relief. Its president is Ed Martin, a Missouri conservative. Another official, Ed Failor, Jr., is a former McCain aide in Iowa who left after the campaign's shakeup last summer.

The use of 9/11 imagery links Ayers, and Obama, to the American conflict Islamic terror, which is the subject of many viral emails attacking Obama. The group's spokesman, Christian Pinkston, called the suggestion that the group is making any link with Islam "unfair."

"The idea here was to talk about the fact that his friends hate America, and that's who he's aligning himself with," he said.

It's spokesman, Christian Pinkston, is a former aide to presidential candidate Jack Kemp, and went on to run the conservative group Empower America. Pinkston says the ad will launch later this afternoon.

Sexism: Olympics style.

2008-08-20T22:49:00.005-04:00

Since we are now full on in the Summer Olympic games in Bejing, now is the perfect time to discuss a hot issue here in Canada. Namely Women's Ski Jumping in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

In November 2006, the International Olympic Committee rejected the inclusion of women's ski jumping for the Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010. IOC President Jacques Rogge stated that only 80 women were competing in the sport and including it in the 2010 Games would dilute the value of medals won in other events.

Nearly all Olympic sports have both a men's and women's event, but the International Olympic Committee always has exempted ski jumping to let it be a male-only competition. The IOC says its decision not to include women's ski jumping at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games is based on technical merit and isn't discriminatory.

However a coalition of international women ski jumpers filed a lawsuit against the Vancouver Organizing Committee in May challenging this decision. They argue that the women have been discriminated against because the Games allow only men's ski jumping. "The failure to include women's ski jumping events in the Games violates every woman's right to equal benefit under the law," according to the lawsuit filed in British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver.

In order to be considered for inclusion in the Olympic Games, a sport must have held at least two world championships. The first women's ski jumping world championships will be held this year in Liberec, Czech Republic.

But some say the IOC is using the technical merit justification as an excuse. Supporters of women's ski jumpers argue there are 135 women ski jumpers in 16 countries. This compares to other sports already in the Games like snowboard cross, which has 34 women from 10 countries, skier cross, which has 30 women from 11 nations, and bobsled, which has 26 women from 13 nations. They also argue that women's marathon was added to the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles after a single world championship in 1983.

Of note, is that the Canadian Government is fully supportive of the lawsuit and "would try to convince the IOC to include women's ski jumping at the Vancouver Games." David Emerson, Canada’s federal minister responsible for the 2010 Games, said it’s “extremely disappointing” women are not being allowed to ski jump at the Olympics.

“Ski jumping is an important sport and we’re investing a lot in jumping and training facilities in Canada and to not have women able to participate on the same basis as men, to me, I just don’t think it’s right.”

Deedee Corradini, who was the mayor of Salt Lake City when that city won the right to host the 2002 Winter Games, noted $580 million of Canadian taxpayers money has helped the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee (VANOC) build Olympic facilities.

“My understanding is it’s against federal and provincial law in Canada to spend government money on facilities that discriminate,” Corradini told a news conference Saturday at the Canadian ski jumping championships.

“To have a men’s only sign on these ski jumps seems to be discriminatory and contrary to Canada’s own human rights act.”

Additionally a group of Canadian women ski jumpers have filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Right Commission, arguing the Olympic movement is discriminating against them.

While Corradini and members of the Canadian ski team are vocal in their dissent, the United States Ski and Snowboard Association is taking a more diplomatic tact.

The association is the governing body for ski sports in the U.S., including jumping. Tom Kelly, vice-president of communication, refused to say if he thought women were being discriminated against.

“We have great respect for the process the IOC has for bringing the sport into the Olympics. We were disappointed when the IOC made it’s decision (on 2010.) We are very optimistic for 2014. The first world championships will be held next year and that is a critical event in the growth of the sport. When we get to the world championships, and the world sees what these women can do, that is a great message to send to the IOC.”

As 16 year-old ski jumper Zora Lynch says "It’s not about the competition between the sports. It’s about gender equality and that kind of stuff."

mediaFail™ - Green and Goldberg Editions.

2008-08-18T23:03:00.002-04:00

In the ongoing series of blogs about the mediaFail™ there are two ripe, juicy examples ready to be plucked.

The first involves Joshua Green, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of the latest hit job on Hillary Clinton. Having worked for some serious publications, like the Washington Monthly and American Prospect, where he perpetuated lies such as: Al Gore is a serial exaggerator who said he invented the internet. Green suggests that his analysis of the Clinton memos is the "empirical truth" and was billed fantastically by fellow Altantic columnist Marc Ambinder as "the story of what really happened."

With clear disdain, Green also refers to Clinton's famed majority female staff as a "bitchy staff" which "proved to be her Achilles’ heel." In spite of Hillary's bitchy staff, the vast majority of Green's piece focuses on the men in her campaign, most especially Mark Penn. Green complains that "the candidate herself evinced a paralyzing schizophrenia -- one day a shots-’n’-beers brawler, the next a Hallmark Channel mom."

Next up is National Review Online editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg. In his August 15 syndicated column, headlined "Nightmare on Dem Street," Goldberg wrote of former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton's appearances at the Democratic National Convention: "Bill and Hillary are back. And forever more, Barack Obama won't be able to take a shower without fear of that curtain snapping back, as a woman -- or is that a man? -- prepares to plunge the knife into his back." Another journalist suggesting that the Clintons would use violence against Obama and other political opponents.

As MediaMatters notes:

Goldberg also compared the Clintons to fictional horror movie characters Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, and Dracula, writing: "Freddy Krueger always comes back. Jason re-emerges from the pond one more time. Dracula had so many comebacks, nobody was surprised to see him hanging with Abbott and Costello." Additionally, Goldberg wrote: "If the monster-movie thing is too offensive for you Clinton voluptuaries out there, think of it like this: They're like Richard Gere in 'An Officer and a Gentleman' (who, coincidentally, is hounded by a charismatic black dude but never gives up)." He added:

They've got no place else to go. And I was right. The Clintons are back. The coffin lid has sprung open, the seal of the crypt has been broken, the mutant virus has escaped the lab. Both Clintons will speak at the Democratic convention, and Hillary will get her I-told-you-so's. In the horror flicks, it's not that the creatures are impervious to damage, it's that no matter how much you hack them up, they seem to come back again. And again. And again. The Clintons have been horribly damaged, but they press on.

Who the hell are these clowns?

VPeed.

2008-08-18T14:53:00.003-04:00

Seems like the chatter on prospective VP candidates has hit a fever pitch. But historically not many cared about the vice president...

An afterthought in the construction of the Constitution, it was on Sept. 6, 1787 that America's powdered-wig wearin' Constitutional Convention approved Alexander Hamilton's proposal to create the office of the vice presidency, declaring that the Veep should be the runner-up in the race to be president.

That's how VPs were picked until the rules were changed to allow presidential nominees to pick their running mates, which has since been used as a way for candidates to garner more votes with a "more balanced" ticket.

All this speculation spent on a job that Former Vice President John Nance Garner once famously remarked was "not worth a bucket of warm piss" and which John Adams once called "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."

A recent CBS News poll on the presidential election states that 67% say their vote will be based mostly on the candidate at the top of the ticket, while 30% said that the choices of their vice presidential running mates will have a great deal of influence on their decision. That's twice the number who said the VP picks would matter in 2000, when George W. Bush and Al Gore were preparing their campaigns.

According to the poll, voters who are still undecided are more apt than those currently favoring Barack Obama or John McCain to say the candidates' choices for vice president will be important to their vote. 48% of those voters say the choices will influence their vote while 47% say they won't. And Independents are more likely than Democrats or Republicans to say the choice of vice presidential nominee will matter.

As interesting as Obama's and McCain's choices will be, the real question is, does it matter? The answer of many voters and political commentators is, more than any other time in American history, yes. But the better question is why?

Convention Coverage brought to you by Big Oil???

2008-08-16T01:31:00.005-04:00

In case anyone missed it, ExxonMobil will be sponsoring the CNN, CBS and the National Journal's coverage of both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

And just in the nick of time, the Exxon Mobile Citizen Action Team (CAT) issued its summer newsletter.

The ExxonMobil program that provides information on public policy issues and encourages employees and retirees in the United States and those citizens living abroad to get involved in issues that affect our business, families and communities. With nearly 100,000 U.S. employees and retirees providing representation in every congressional district, the ExxonMobil family is an important political force and a vehicle for positive change. By harnessing our collective strength, we can make a difference through the elections process, lobbying and grassroots communications.

Isn’t it nice seeing a corporation take an active role in democracy?

Delegate Conundrum.

2008-08-12T21:50:00.003-04:00

I came across a story today about Hillary Clinton delegate Sacha Millstone of Boulder, Colorado. Apparently Millstone has hired an attorney after she received a Democratic Party email that ordered her to come to headquarters to 'explain' disparaging remarks she made about Barack Obama.

Her attorney wrote the DNC asking for the rules that allow the party to threaten a person’s removal from the state delegation. Party officials say the issue has been dropped.

Now I don't know anything about this particular person, nor her motivations. But this raises an interesting conundrum for the Party - should delegates be free to criticize the nominee? And if so - why would they be forced to 'explain themselves' for remarks they make. Thoughts?

Darfur.

2008-08-10T01:24:00.007-04:00

Darfur, which means 'land of the fur' is a region in western Sudan. The region is divided into three states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur. Approximately the size of Spain, the arid and impoverished region has been in a state of humanitarian emergency since February 2003.

The original conflict broke out after a rebel group began attacking government targets, claiming that the region was being neglected by its capital in Khartoum and oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs.

One side of the armed conflict is composed mainly of the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited mostly from the Arab Abbala tribes of the northern Rizeigat, camel-herding nomads. The Janjaweed are accused of the worst atrocities. The other side comprises a variety of rebel groups, notably the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), recruited primarily from the land-tilling non-Arab Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups.

The Sudanese government, while publicly denying that it supports the Janjaweed, has provided money and assistance to the militia and has participated in joint attacks targeting the tribes from which the rebels draw support.

The current lines of conflict are seen to be ethnic and tribal, rather than religious, some attest that the combination of decades of drought, desertification, and overpopulation are among the causes of the conflict, because the Arab nomads searching for water have to take their livestock further south, to land mainly occupied by Black African farming communities. There are now more than a dozen rebel groups - making peace talks extremely difficult.

The Sudanese government, led by President Omar al-Bashir admits mobilizing "self-defence militias" following rebel attacks, however it denies any links or control to the Janjaweed, who are accused of trying to "cleanse" black Africans from large swathes of territory. Refugees say that following air raids by government aircraft, the Janjaweed ride into villages on horses and camels, slaughtering men, raping women and stealing whatever they can find. Many women report being abducted and held as sex slaves for more than a week before being released.

After strong international pressure and the threat of sanctions, the government promised to disarm the Janjaweed. But so far there is little evidence this has happened. Trials have been announced in Khartoum of some members of the security forces suspected of abuses - but this is viewed as part of a campaign against UN-backed attempts to get some 50 key suspects tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Millions of civilians have fled their destroyed villages, with more than two million in camps near Darfur's main towns. The Janjaweed patrol outside the camps and Darfuris say the men are killed and the women raped if they venture too far in search of firewood or water.

As the conflict enters its sixth year, with much of Darfur inaccessible to aid workers and researchers, conditions continue to deteriorate for civilians. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, even by the most conservative estimates. The United Nations puts the death toll at roughly 300,000, while the former U.N. undersecretary-general puts the number at no less than 400,000. Up to 2.5 million have fled their homes and sought safety in camps throughout Darfur, or in refugee camps in neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic. But many of these are camped along the stretch of the borders remain vulnerable to attacks from Sudan. As well Chad's eastern areas have a similar ethnic make-up and the violence has spilled over into the border area. Both capitals have also been attacked this year by rebel groups.

Based on Sudan’s actions over the past five years, it is clear that unless the international community imposes additional political costs for Sudanese President Bashir, his government will continue to buy time by either accepting initiatives only to backtrack later or impose new conditions that render them useless. The Sudanese government stresses that the situation and numbers are being exaggerated.

Humanitarian assistance in Darfur continues to be at risk of collapse, in part because of sustained harassment by the Sudanese government, and in part because of the government’s militia allies and common criminals. In September 2006, the United Nations estimated that such a collapse would cause up to 100,000 civilian deaths every month. Troublesome developments suggest that such a failure is becoming more likely with the World Food Program’s Humanitarian Air Service receiving no funding in the first three months of 2008. Last-minute donations totaling six million dollars funded it through the beginning of May and many aid agencies working in Darfur but they are unable to get access to vast areas because of the fighting.

The Save Darfur Coalition who is raising awareness and demanding an end to the genocide describe the current situation as follows:

In the second half of 2007, the Sudanese government’s divide-and-conquer strategy, described by Human Rights Watch as “chaos by design,” caused an increasingly frenzied free-for-all in Darfur. Rebel groups fragmented further and criminal activity as well as intertribal fighting increased exponentially. Still, the effects of tribal fighting should not be overemphasized. Of the eight largest displacements between January and November 2007, seven resulted from government or Janjaweed attacks. Only one was the result of intertribal fighting. In early 2008, deaths and displacements from military operations by the government, its allied militias and rebels were even more common relative to those caused by tribal conflicts.

Darfur activists and other human rights organizations wrote a letter to both presidential candidates this week outlining resolution SR 632:

Senator John McCain
Senator Barack Obama
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

August 7, 2008

Dear Senators McCain and Obama,

The day before Olympian Joey Cheek, a 2006 Gold Medalist in speed skating, was to travel to Beijing, the government of China revoked his visa. Mr. Cheek is one of the strongest voices in the pursuit of peace in Darfur.

Mr. Cheek and a group of other current and former Olympic athletes had been calling for an Olympic Truce for Darfur – a cessation of hostilities in the Darfur region for a period before, during and after the Games. The Olympic Truce dates from ancient Greece and has been revived as a diplomatic tool over the past several decades.

Earlier this week, Darfur activist leaders and human rights groups from across the country sent an open letter calling upon each of you, as US Senators and presumptive presidential nominees, to promptly announce your intention to co-sponsor a new resolution, SR 632, that urges the Chinese government and the broader international community to use the upcoming Olympic Games as an opportunity to push for peace and security in Darfur. We also asked that you support an Olympic Truce for Darfur in your public statements in the coming week and during the Olympic Games.

Although the Senate is in recess, additional Senate co-sponsors can submit their names now, to the offices of current co-sponsors, and those names will be officially recorded in September when the recess is over. As presumptive presidential nominees, your co-sponsorship will send a clear message to China and the international community that you are committed to help bring an end to the genocide in Darfur.

Your co-sponsorship of the resolution is critical, particularly in light of the significant advertising time your campaigns have purchased to air during the Olympic Games. We believe there is an obligation to balance the purchase of Olympic advertising time with a message about Beijing’s responsibility, as Olympic host and close partner of Sudan, to do more to bring security to Darfur.

Mr. Cheek’s visa revocation and Senate Resolution 632 both present important opportunities for you to act. The White House has already expressed the President’s concern and instructed the US embassy in Beijing to discuss Mr. Cheek’s visa with the Chinese government.

Last month, Mr. Cheek and more than 200 other athletes issued an open letter to world leaders calling for an Olympic Truce for Darfur. The athletes, including more than 70 hopefuls for the 2008 Games, called on world leaders to (1) ask the Government of Sudan to cease hostilities against civilians, at least for the 55-day truce period of the 2008 Beijing Games, (2) use the truce period to allow humanitarian workers to access the civilians in Darfur who have been without food, clean water and medical care for years and (3) make progress on deployment of peacekeepers.

We ask both of you to join these athletes – men and women who represent all that is great about American and Olympic values – and release public statements announcing your co-sponsorship of Senate Resolution 632 and your support for an Olympic Truce for Darfur.

Sincerely,

American Jewish World Service
Ruth Messinger, President
New York, NY

Americans Against the Darfur Genocide
Nikki Serapio, Director
Palo Alto, CA

Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action
Roz Duman, Founder/Coordinator
Denver, CO

Darfur Action Coalition of Wisconsin
Sachin Chheda, Coordinator
Milwaukee, WI

Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy
Mohamed Yahya
Founder/ Executive Director
Washington, DC.

Darfur Metro
Eileen Weiss, Director
New York, NY

Darfur People's Association of New York
Motasim Adam, Director
Brooklyn, NY

Dream for Darfur
Jill Savitt, Executive Director
New York, NY

Essex County Coalition for Darfur
Gloria Crist, Founding Member
Montclair, NJ

Investors Against Genocide
Eric Cohen, Chairperson
Boston, MA

Kentuckian Interfaith Taskforce On Darfur
Bob Brousseau, Chair
Louisville, Kentucky

Louisvillians Helping to Save Darfur
Dave Robinson, Chair
Louisville, KY

Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur
Susan Morgan, Director of Communications
Boston, MA

New York City Coalition for Darfur
Sharon Silber, Director
New York, NY

Physicians for Human Rights
Frank Donaghue, Chief Executive Officer
Cambridge, MA

San Francisco Bay Area Darfur Coalition
Esther Sprague, Executive Committee
San Francisco, CA

Save Darfur Washington State
Deborah Jones, President
Seattle, WA

Team Darfur
Martha Heinemann Bixby
Executive Director
Washington, DC

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
Charlie Clements, President and CEO
Cambridge, MA

Use Your Voice to Save Darfur RI
Sandra Hammel, Director
Providence, RI

In addition to contacting both Senators Obama and McCain (who have both remained silent on this to date) to co-sponsor SR 632 , you can also contact the Save Darfur Coalition.

Platforming It.

2008-08-09T20:45:00.004-04:00

Earlier this week a draft of the 54-page 2008 Democratic National Committee's platform was sent to its committee members. Since the 80's, the real writing of the platform has been done by the campaign of the presumptive nominee. Certainly the document reads more like a stump speech from the Obama campaign than cutting edge reform. This is not surprising.

An Obama aide, Karen Kornbluh, has been designated by the Democratic National Committee as the "Principal Author" of the document. Kornbluh is on leave from Obama's Senate office, where she serves as policy director.

Indeed the platform contains a section on fatherhood, a definition of patriotism, a section detailing Obama's economic stimulus plan, a call for more service, through an expanded AmeriCorps and Peace Corps, and several mentions of hope. The draft's preamble uses the wording "It is time for a change."

The document did however include nods to both Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards.

Edwards:
A pledge to elevate poverty eradication as a policy goal. "Working together," the platform states, "we can cut poverty in half within ten years."

Clinton:
Health care

In return for the guarantee, activists dropped a tougher platform amendment seeking a government-run, single-payer system and another amendment explicitly holding out Clinton's plan as the one to follow.

The party now declares itself "united behind a commitment that every American man, woman and child be guaranteed to have affordable, comprehensive health care."

Under any system in play, most people would still put out money for health insurance as they do now, but they would get help when needed.

Despite loud rumblings to amend, there were no changes made to the caucus system. However an extensive section on women's rights was included that uses highly anticipated language many yearned to hear.

We believe that standing up for our country means standing up against sexism and all intolerance. Demeaning portrayals of women cheapen our debates, dampen the dreams of our daughters and deny us the contributions of too many. Responsibility lies with us all.

The Democratic National Convention will vote on it in Denver later this month.

Karma's a Bitch.

2008-08-07T00:14:00.000-04:00

With last week GM reporting a $15.5 billion loss in the second quarter, it is quite clear that American car manufactures are getting their come-uppance.

Edmunds.com published a list of the top 10 most efficient 2008 sedans available. They ranked the cars based on EPA fuel economy numbers. And sweet moses would you guess that not one from an American manufacturer made the list! Even the Wall Street Journal, not known for its criticism to big business, has sharp words about American car manufacturers.

Now we see the results of the myopia that has afflicted Detroit auto executives. These are the people who staked their companies' futures on gas-guzzling, heavyweight behemoths.

Auto execs claim they were giving Americans the products they wanted. Really? For proof to the contrary, look at their U.S. market shares, which are slumping to historically low levels as Japanese auto makers gain ground.

In lieu of GM's stunning losses, I was reminded of the complete and utter arrogance they displayed when they crushed its fleet of EV-1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert. The EV-1 was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry.

The story of the EV-1 is documented in the amazing film Who Killed the Electric Car? It chronicles the life and mysterious death of the EV-1 and it examines the cultural and economic ripple effects caused by its conception and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business.

A summary:

The film deals with the history of the electric car, its development and commercialization, mostly focusing on the General Motors EV1, which was made available for lease in Southern California, after the California Air Resources Board passed the ZEV mandate in 1990, as well as the implications of the events depicted for air pollution, environmentalism, Middle East politics, and global warming.

The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the mandate after suits from automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, and the George W. Bush administration. It points out that Bush's chief influences, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Andrew Card, are all former executives and board members of oil and auto companies.

A large part of the film accounts for GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that there was no demand for their product, and then to take back every EV1 and dispose of them. A few were disabled and given to museums and universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed; GM never responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value ($1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in Burbank before they were crushed).

Embedded below, the film in its entirety:

If the above does not work, visit this LINK.

However its not all bad news. In the same WSJ piece - it would seem that some have climbed aboard the bus.

In a recent meeting with Ford executives, CEO Alan Mulally dared to challenge the Detroit gospel that you can't make money on small, fuel-efficient cars.

At last Ford appears to be making bold moves to design and sell vehicles that people want. In Paris earlier this summer I spotted an unfamiliar car so attractive that I went over to see what it was. It was a Ford. Presumably this is one of the six European models that, as part of the "Drive One" campaign, Ford will introduce in the U.S. Ford is also boosting production of its fuel-efficient "EcoBoost" and four-cylinder engines, speeding up hybrid introductions and converting three truck plants to small-car production.

Even GM seems to be facing reality. It said it's planning for oil prices in a $120-$150 range for the foreseeable future, boosting light vehicle production, and suspending production at four truck plants. It, too, is accelerating production of efficient four-cylinder engines, and announced a global Chevrolet small-car initiative.

While promising, what pulls my chain about the above is that rather than take responsibility for the planet and in the role these car companies play in emissions, the American car manufacturers are only taking these steps because of the price of gas. Let's hope their successful. However as they say, karma's a bitch.