Where Have All The Soldiers Gone?

O.C. & Stigs, California
33° 42' North; 117° 40' West

In our last post on Jeremy Hinzman, the kid that refused to go to Iraq, we asked the question:

'What if all the kids involved just said no?'

Well, while it is not yet all of them, Kate Storm from over at the AllSpinZone informs us that more than 5,000 smart kids have already deserted.

Which is just fine with us because Nelson B.C. needs them!

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Update: Maybe it's not just the kids, because Michael at Spontaneous Arising has the story of a 70 yr old and 100 sectagenerians that have been re-upped.

Double Update: It's all over Blogistan already, but Blondesense has perhaps the best case of outrage over FOD Rumskull's comments that you have to go war with the forces you have, not the ones you pay Blackwater and KBR for.

From the Mouths of Babes

Toronto, Ontario
43° 30' North; 79° 22' West

American war resister Jeremy Hinzman is pulling out all the stops in his bid to obtain asylum in Canada.

In addition to suggesting that Dubya's War of Naked Aggression is illegal, according to CBC radio, Hinzman has also stated that if he had gone to Iraq he would have very likely been commanded to commit atrocities. As corroborating evidence he indicated that during training his superiors repeatedly barked that he would have to be ready to do anything because all Iraqis were terrorists and savages.

And after reading this recent story in the Boston Globe about 'Citizen Processing Centers', forced labour, retinal scans and DNA fingerprinting for all civilians in Fallujah, those that are still alive that is, it's hard to argue with him.

Which makes one wonder.....what would happen if all the kids involved just said no?

Expediency.gov.bc.ca

Surrey, British Columbia
49° 07' North; 123° 06' West

Remember those Liberal howls of rage about the evils of ethnic block voting after their lifestyle censor, Mary Polack, was pulverized in the Surrey Panorama ridge by-election?

Well now, according to Public Eye, the SS Gordo is trying to desperately trying to change course by forcing Ms. Polak to jump ship in Langley so that they can give her former Surrey Stateroom to Palbinder Shergill.

What's next? A homeless advocate running for the Lieberals in Vancouver Kingsway? Or a traitorous shop-steward in Nanaimo?

Or better yet, how about running out former IWA leader and anti-green slime advocate Jack Munro in North Vancouver?

Oh wait a second, Corus-Crooner Mike Smyth is now suggesting that NVan-Seymour is reserved for hard-right fundie Cindy Silver, who is getting set to challenge back-bencher-with -a-spine, Dan Jarvis. Sean Holman has a bit on that as well, and it's worth reading just for the comments.

You remember Jarvis; he's the guy who had the guts to challenge to BC Ferries Gaulieter Boy George Hahn's decision to screw local shipworkers with half a billion dollars of our own money.

ThreeDotLounging

Vancouver, British Columbia
49°15' North; 123°08' West

Matthew Good has a great take on PBS/CableNews reactionary swingman Tucker Carlson calling him "Bob Novaks's Clyde Tolson". Tolson was J. Edgar Hoover's lifelong Lurch.

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In case anybody really needs more evidence that CBC Vancouver morning man Rick Cluff is a conflagurating buffoon check out his interview with Fisheries officer Neil Jensen (realaudioclip). In it, Jensen explains over and over again that the kids mucking about in the Stoney Creek spawning grounds were being, well kids. Of course, Cluffie the Puffie would have none of it because he wants evil, outrage, and caterwauling calls to his beloved talkback machine.

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Keith Olbermann is still the only bonafide member of the American mainstream punditocracy who is even daring to cover, let alone pass judgement on, emerging US voting irregularities. However, if you have spare tinfoil, check out the latest on the BradBlog. It's actually pretty interesting, and if it can be confirmed could be a smoking gun.

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Three cheers for the Yes Men, who turned the media whirlitzer back on itself and exposed Dow Chemical for the monster that it is because of its continued stonewalling on the Bhopal compensation issue.

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If you are in need of rhetorical ammunition to turn on the philistines in your midst that don't understand why it is so important to commemorate the murder of 14 young women at the University of Montreal's École Polytechnique 15 years ago go read Heather Mallick's column on the matter. Or just go read it regardless because, as usual, it is good.

A Refugee For All of Us

Toronto, Ontario
43° 30' North; 79° 22' West

Good luck to American war resister Jeremy Hinsman who has is Canadian refugee hearing today.

And if things go badly, due to the harmonization of Fortress North America and/or Our Paul's quid pro quo deal with Mr. Bush last week, let's hope Canadians don't take the decision lying down.

Galloway Be Thy Name

Glasgow, Scotland
55° 50 North; 04° 15' West

George Galloway, the former British Labour MP who was mugged by the offshore Re-Thug slime machine, has had his day in court.

As a result, Conrad Black has been whacked up the side of the head - again.

Specifically, Conrad the Marauder's former regime at the London's Daily Telegraph has been held accountable for using forged documents to link Galloway, who took a hard stand against the Iraqi invasion before the fact, to Saddam Hussein by way of a non-existent kickback scheme. Further, the no-longer Canadian (we hope!) Mr. Black then published an editorial accusing Galloway of being 'Saddam's Little Helper'.

And what's worse, the entire excercise served as a prelude to what is being done, more subtly, right now to Kofi Annan, because the linchpin to the lunacy was that nugget of ol' Perleian Wisdom, the treacherous UN and it's 'Food for Oil ' program. Here's the kicker from the pen of Mr. Black's quislings:

"There is a word for taking money from enemy regimes: treason. What makes this allegation especially worrying, however, is that the documents suggest that the money has been coming out of Iraq's oil-for-food programme. In other words, the alleged payments did not come from some personal bank account of Saddam's but out of the revenue intended to pay for food and medicines for Iraqi civilians: the very people whom Mr Galloway has been so fond of invoking."

But now the Terrorgraph has been told by a British judge to shut-up and pay-up a 150, 000 pound libel award and court costs, which are likely to be more than a million pounds because, as a wise sage once said, justice is not done until all the lawyers are paid.

Not-So-Jersey James Walcott has a great take on why holding the slimers accountable is so important:

"The Telegraph's scoop was picked up by pro-war bloggers and waved around like the jawbone of an ass as proof of the slimy corruption of those who opposed George and Tony's Big Adventure."

Absolutely.

And we would like to go one further by suggesting that democracy is doomed unless somebody comes along and makes like a neo-Macluhian version of Teddy Roosevelt and busts-up the media trusts, because it is they that love lubricating those jawbones and inserting them into the orifices of their mouthpieces so very, very much.

Eliminate All The Witnesses

London, England
51° 32' North; 0° 27' West

Real journalists hold people accountable for their statements and their actions.

Which is what Naomi Klein did when she responded to the acting US Ambassador to Britain, David Johnson today in the Guardian.

Johnson, through a quisling (his faux Boswell?), had earlier taken Klein to task for having the temerity to suggest that US Forces and the ING had been eliminating civilians in Fallujah.

Klein came back with this, and more:

"US authorities have denied that hundreds of civilians were killed during last April's siege, and have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For instance, an unnamed "senior American officer", speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around."

Wonder if the good Mr. Johnson even knows that the remains of his former reputation have just been eviscerated.

Blogging The Revolution

Kiev, Ukraine
50° 28' North; 30° 55' East

A first person account of the rising orange tide can be found here.

The following amazing passages are from last Friday when things were still very much in doubt.

"An 18-year-old medical college student from Zhytomyr is running around, distributing medicines and vitamins to the protesters ......

......The boy from Zhytomyr says medics would be the last to leave, and they are prepared to provide first aid in case provocations occur and the riot police are forced to attack the protesters. ......

.....The riot police are based less than 100 meters away, behind two huge trucks ....

..... A group of teenage girls show up with yellow flowers, for the police, and wait for their turn to walk past the trucks: there's a line of ordinary people, the media and even the priests waiting to get close to the police; there shouldn't be too crowded there, though, because it is making the police nervous.....

......When the priests get through the cordon, they stand right by the fence with flowers, icons, orange ribbons and balloons stuck into it, looking right at the police in front of them and chanting for 15 minutes.....

.....It is very, very cold. A girl with a tray walks around, offering hot tea in plastic cups to everyone..... A woman with a plastic bag offers cookies to everyone..... "

And don't miss Veronica's photos; looks like democracy.

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Thanks to FiatLux for the link via kos guestblogger David in NYC, the proprietor of the Swing State Project.

Stockwell's Daze

No Peace in the Arch, Fortress North America
49° 00' North; 122° 46' West

Apparently, it was the Christian thing to do.

"Stockwell Day is pointing to a report that Yasser Arafat may have had AIDS in explaining why he didn't send condolences on the death of the PLO leader."

Shunning on the basis of politics, policy, tactics or corruption is one thing, but doing it because somebody is sick is quite another matter.

But maybe we're being too hard on the aging stockboy. After all, it looks like he may have been targetted for toolness by the Re-Thug slime and defend machine.

The twist in the story this time around is the fact that the slime was first generated by our very own David Frum when he wrote this:

"The world media's astonishing lack of curiosity about the nature of the disease for which he sought treatment in France........These symptoms sound remarkably AIDS-like, don't they?''

All of which suggests that the prince of darkness himself, Richard Perle, is out there somewhere, lurking just behind the American Enterprise Institute curtain scraping the goo off his hands....
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Update: Right on schedule, the defend portion of the strategy has begun.

The Bush Supremacy

Ottawa, Ontario
45° 25' North; 75° 42' West

I wonder.

When George W. Bush takes a break from playing the Marlboro Man, does he like to pretend he's a virile young stud like Matt Damon in one of those blow-'em-up-real-good-until-you're-the-last-man-standing Jason Bourne flicks.

Either way, a generation from now I can see how the 'my head is an empy suitcase' acting style of Mr. Damon would be just about perfect for the lead in a big budget schlockbuster called "The Bush Supremacy".

And the rest of the cast?

Well, a balding, sneering Paul Giamatti would be great as Dick Cheney, if only because we have not yet had a chance to see him play true evil....Faux evil, in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, would be an aging and constantly constipated Mike Myers....Whitney Houston, still crack/stairmaster-addict skinny fitted with ragged dental implants would be a perfect Condi Rice... Arnold Schwarzennegar would play himself, although by then he will have had a total body implant....And the real villain of the piece? Well, that would be Freddy Prinz Jr., who would simultaneously play Alberto Gonzales and his alter ego, Deep Throat II.

Now, this flick could go two very different ways.

If Jerry Bruckheimer makes it Rene Zellweger will be cast as Laura Bush and the entire world will be under the thumb of the morally superior Fourth Reich, a place where media-hypeable scientific breakthroughs of irreproducible insignificance will be made, sans stem cells, by Jenna Bush (Britney Spears) and Paris Hilton (the Olson Twins) after they spend, like, at least half-an-hour in the lab between visits to the Viper Club and abstinence orgies at the Scaife Institute's no host bar.

On the other hand, if the last remaining Weinstein brother gives the reins to Hal Hartley, Parker Posey will be Lady McLaura and we will get to see mankind Rise from the Rubble of the Rampaging Right, led by the reformed stay-puff marshmallow man, Karl Rove (Jason Alexander), and the no-longer-profane, dyed-in-the-wool-again atheist Chuckie Colson (Drew Carey).

****

While Mr. Bush's eyes are not Irish I was reminded once again of Brian Mulroney earlier this week during a flight out of Vancouver on an aging Airbus-300.

Those are the smaller ones, the ones that were designed to grab market share from the Boeing 737 at a 4:1 cost multiple.

Which is all well and good if you are Lyin' Brian or Karl-Heinz Schreiber.

But it positively stinks if you're sitting in a window seat and you can't see the bloody movie over the bulkheads without straining your neck and spilling your drink on the person sitting next to you.

****

I flew to Ottawa on Sunday night with Ujjal Dosanjh.

And let me tell you, the last non-stop to the Nation's capital on a Sunday is a sour-eyed tomb.

Until, that is, we climbed through 10,000 feet somewhere over Chilliwack and the fasten-seatbelt sign was estinguished with a ping.

Then, suddenly, 200 laptops chimed alive and a thousand monkey fingers commenced pounding out the bureaucratic mushwords that would be chased, non-stop by the policy wonks, the hucksters, and the lobbyists until Friday when everybody climbs back into the cigar tube to fly home again, drunk, for a weekend away from the bunker.

Which is what the entire town of Ottawa is. And even more so, the town across the river, Hull Quebec

****

After touchdown, the cab ride downtown was a wild one with an Ethiopian named Joseph who drove like a banshee and regaled me with non-stop tales of politio-indelico all the way to the Marriott on Kent St.

The 'Marriot on K' is a bi-annual torture chamber for people like me.

Because what takes place there is kind of like a science-geek version of the Fight Club. They fly us in from all over the country; then they lock us in the basement and force us to beat the crap out of each other for two days straight (aka, peer-review). Ultimately, the last 25% left standing get to keep their federal funding until we go at it all over again six months later.

All of which doesn't leave much time for sightseeing.

I did, however, manage to sneak away for half an hour on Monday to make the three block trek up to Parliament Hill so that I could check out the preparations for the arrival of King Dubya.

What I found was pretty damn Canadian, and it made me feel proud in a quaint, Hoser kind of way.

First off, the place was wide open. There were protest groups quietly erecting signs on the lawn and tourists were wandering freely over the grounds. Of course, there were some security barriers, but mostly they were those three foot high, lightweight aluminum gate/fences designed to keep the tour buses and lookie-loo's moving in the right direction.

Down the street and around the corner it was a very different story at the American Embassy where the security precautions, concrete buttresses, razor-wire, spiked sidewalks and black-clad guys with long sticks(?) on the roof-tops made the entire block look like a gigantic, heavy metal chastity belt on steroids.

Safe streets, indeed.

****

Tuesday, Dubya Day, arrived cold and windswept.

The 'W' Caravan rolled into Ottawa's downtown core just before lunch.

By the time I got outside at about 4:30pm there was nothing to be found but a few dozen happy protesters who, while they had been unable to bear witness to the closed-captioned meeting of the Emperor and Our Paul, at least they had done their best.

Which was a heck of a lot more than the tens of thousands that stayed home to watch it all on TV, ostensibly because they had been bombarded for six days straight about the viscious traffic snarls and security checks that would have surely befallen them if they had ventured downtown.

Which got me to thinking.....what would it take to get North Americans out in the streets in numbers that even halfway approached what is going on in the Ukraine right now.

Probably nothing political, but if the TV networks went down because of a strike or a 'terrorist' attack for more than, say, half a day, that just might make the nut.

****

On the flight home I passed by smilin' Sammy Sullivan in first class on my way to the back with the hoi-polloi where I belonged.

And after settling into my seat, I peered out the window into the bright white light generated by the huge banks of floodlights shining on a paleblue 747 sitting bloated like a whale on the tarmac.

It was AirForce One and the colour of the thing made me chuckle.

Girly-man hues, I thought.

But after that I was done, brain-fried and exhausted after throwing and taking all those hypothesis-slaying haymakers from the science-geeks for the previous 48 hours.

In fact, I was so tired that when the movie came on I didn't even bother to don the ear pullers or crane my neck to watch.

After all, I had no interest in supporting Matt Damon in his quest to kill scores of innocents just so he could take revenge on the few that had ticked him off in "The Bourne Supremacy."

The Emperor Loves Red

Canada
North of 49th Parallel

You need outrage?

Youngfox has outrage.

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Warning: Obscenity included but, as Brando's Col Kurtz made clear, empire is the ultimate obscenity. Come to think of it Conrad's Kurtz pretty much did the same thing.

VanRamblings is Back

Vancouver, British Columbia
49°15' North; 123°08' West

Raymond Tomlin, bon vivant and international man of mystery tours about town, is back.

He was gone for awhile, recuperating from a car accident and simultaneously fighting the good fight.

If you haven't already, go check out his site.

Get Shorty!

Paris, France
48° 52' North; 2° 19' East

Wanna beat the Shrub like a gong at his own game?

All you've gotta do is make like a currency speculator and start shorting the US dollar, hard.

Duncan Cameron tells us how:

"Drop in at a branch of one of our local currency monopolies, and borrow as many U.S. dollars as they will let you have. Then sell the same dollars. Buy bonds denominated in Euros. Get a rate of return that covers the interest charges on the U.S. dollar loan. Watch the value of the U.S. dollar drop. Celebrate the impending collapse of the U.S. currency on George's watch; be pleased you are helping make it happen."

And don't cry for thee Alabama, or Argentina for that matter because debtor nations will do just fine, thank-you, in the switch to Euros, not to mention Venezuala.

And besides, you don't think the boys from the Carlyle group aren't already protecting their asse(t)s hand-over-BofA'-fist do you?

Phone Jamming

Manchester, New Hampshire
42° 59' North; 71° 24' West

From the 'We are Not the Ukraine' Dept.....

"A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted James Tobin, President Bush’s former New England campaign chairman, on four counts related to the jamming of get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002."

It's a technique called 'phone jamming' in which Republicans hire telemarketers to call Democratic groups, en masse, to tie up voter information/get out the vote hotlines.

Mr Tobin, no small figure in the "Re-Thug Election-Suppression" machine, was working for Cheney/Rove 2004 until two weeks before this year's federal election, despite the fact that one of his closest associates was indicted months ago.

"In the summer, Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the state GOP, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a conspiracy charge and admitted paying $15,600 to a Virginia telemarketing company that hired another business to make the calls. GOP consultant Allen Raymond, former president of GOP Marketplace in Alexandria, Va., also pleaded guilty."

Can only wonder.... Did Gordo got a chance to ask Mr. Bush to 'Please Pass the Jam' during the dessert portion of last night's 'Where's the Beef' state dinner?

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If you want the full, and historical, story on the Jam (not the Paul Weller version) go to Josh Marshall and follow the links.

Just What Kind of People Are We Dealing With Anyway?

Victoria, B.C.
48° 39' West; 123° 26' West

Regarding our last bit on personal experience of the malfeasance at the Ministry of Child and Family Development, as usual David Schreck has the bigger picture story on the fiscal/social policy hypocrisy of the SS Gordon Campbell:

"Shortly after Black Thursday, January 17, 2002, Collins said that he was committed to restructuring government. In other words, regardless of the financial details, the Campbell government wanted to shift the tax burden to lower income earners and to cut government services. They went beyond that by not only shifting taxes and cutting services but also by privatizing crown corporations and core government services."

Now, if you happen to be a Kool-Aid gulper this is where you tuck your well-read copy of today's National Post under your left arm while you simultaneously pound your right fist on the keyboard and exclaim "but don't these commies get it...slashing and burning bloated social programs is the ONLY way we can dig our province out of the hole. Haven't they heard of trickle-down, greed-is-good economics!"

But what if the cuts just kept coming after privatization, rising commodities prices, and a federal equalization swindle had already filled the public purse with our own money?

Again from Schreck:

"What kind of government does it take to cut $70 million more from Children and Family Development while sitting on a $2 billion surplus?"

New Era indeed.

Just don't get sick. And whatever you do, don't get poor.

Because if you do you won't be one of the few thousand who are lucky enough to be among the newly-minted nouveau riche.

Instead, you will be one of the millions who will be once again and always be screwed.

Unless, of course, we start fighting, right now, to get our Province back.