The pope does Auschwitz

and asks : "God, why did you remain silent? Where was God?"

(...ring ........ring..)
"You have reached the Offices of Sky Wizard* and Son.
There is No One available to take your call right now but be assured your call is important to Us.
If you know the extension of the Person you are attempting to reach, enter the two digit number now.
For Holocaust and Other Genocides - Press 1
For Natural Disasters - Press 2
For Disease, Famine and Pestilence - Press 3
Please note that the Office of the Problem of Evil is temporaily undergoing restructuring and is not available to the public at this time.
If this is an emergency, please stay on the line as your call will be answered faster than if you hang up and dial again. Our First Available Operator will be with you shortly."
(....from Ipanema goes walking and as she passes each one she passes goes ahhh...oh, but he watches so sa...)
"Thank you and have a nice day."
Click.

* "Sky Wizard" TM - Dave's Random Snarky Northern Canadian Gibberish Blog

It isn't a war, so the rules of war don't apply

The Ottawa Citizen, April 10 : Canadian soldiers may be subject to war crimes charges.

CTV.ca, May 31 : Canada not at war in Afghanistan : O'Connor

The Globe and Mail, May 31 : Troops told Geneva rules don't apply to Taliban

In April, UBC international law professor Michael Byers and University of Ottawa Prof. Amir Attaran, a constitutional human rights law specialist, said that the International Criminal Court could charge Canadian soldiers with war crimes because they transfer prisoners into Afghan custody where even the Afghanis state the prisoners are regularly tortured.

But O'Connor says we're not really at war.

So Lieutenant-General Michel Gauthier, who commands the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command and all Canadian Forces deployed abroad, says because the regulations only apply in an armed conflict between states, and what's happening in Afghanistan is not an armed conflict between states, therefore there is no basis for determining whether or not individuals are prisoners of war.

It isn't a war, so there are no POWs and therefore the Geneva Conventions don't apply to us.
Just like the US.

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Day on Da Vinci

From the Ottawa Sun :
"Public Security Minister Stockwell Day says Christians shouldn't get too upset over Dan Brown's controversial book The Da Vinci Code and the hit movie based on it.
Day, a devout Christian, told a prayer breakfast in Edmonton last week that Christianity is up to the challenge posed by a plot that debases the very tenets of the faith.
He noted that even though the book suggests "Jesus was a fraud and that everything he stood for is absolutely not true" it's an admitted work of fiction."

Yes, an admitted work of fiction that is gospel to 22% of people polled in Alberta.
Anyway, Doris, I don't think you want to go delving too deeply into the whole "fictional" aspect here.
Uh, too late, there he goes...

"Day said he discovered that while there are only about a dozen ancient documents that relate the life and times of Julius Caesar, there are a thousand times more that document the life of Christ."

And still a millions times more that document the life of Mohammed.
Speaking of Mohammed...

"In an apparent reference to the violence sparked by recently published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, Day noted Christians have been restrained in their opposition to Brown's debunking of Christianity.
"I haven't seen the clerics order that the movie studios be destroyed or that the newspaper places be burned down," he said. "Isn't it great that the message of Jesus Christ is one of love and tolerance?"

Yeah, those stupid gullible Muslims. To think anyone could be manipulated into a hysterical warmongering frenzy just at the sight of some pictures in a newspaper.

Twas brillig, but for slithy Toews

Further to yesterday's post below in which Justice Minister Vic Toews is quoted as saying :
"I don't think that anyone can seriously say that our streets today are as safe as they were 20 years ago",
here's some more research from the Ministry of Justice, the place where, you know, he works now.

Worse than 20 years ago? Not so much.
There are certainly some horrendous local disparities on the ground to be addressed:

but nothing to suggest a reason why most of Canada shouldn't continue on with whatever it is they are obviously already doing right.
And while we're at it, perhaps Mr. Toews can find time within his busy Jabberwocky Crimestoppers Tour to address this one :



Callooh! Callay! and a frabjous day to Dave at Galloping Beaver for the link.
More on this from The Woodshed, Jacob's Super Patented Brain Thoughts, and A BCer in Toronto

Toews Town Hall

From CTV :

"On Wednesday night in Calgary, Justice Minister Vic Toews insisted all questions be screened in advance during a town hall discussion on the government's get-tough-on-crime bill."

Well how terribly Bush of you! And at a "town hall" too.

OK, what have you got?

From CBC :
"Federal Justice Minister Vic Toews outlined the Harper government's justice initiatives Wednesday night at a town hall meeting in Calgary.
"I don't think that anyone can seriously say that our streets today are as safe as they were 20 years ago," Toews told about 150 people at the meeting in the riding of Calgary West."

Really? How about compared to 10 years ago?
That would certainly qualify as a trend, wouldn't it?

From Statistics Canada :

OK, so we can seriously say that our streets are safer than they were 10 years ago.
Next.

"Toews concedes the government has estimated its prison budget might increase by up to $300 million, but he says it's worth the cost."

Even Bushier!
While looking for statistics on violent crime, I ran into this page from the Corrections Service of Canada, dated Sept 2000. There's a lot of interesting data there but their conclusion seems particularly pertinent here :

"American politicians have often found it in their self-interest to use fear of crime as a strategy to win elections, by promising to wage war on crime.
It is ironic that in the United States, as in Canada, crime rates have been declining since 1991. However, by waging war on crime they have managed to double their prison population without making the United States a noticeably safer society than Canada. We would do much to advance the public interest if we can better manage the fear of crime than our American neighbours."

No comment.

Close your eyes...ok, now imagine they're poor.

Eagle Ridge Bluffs protest ends in 23 arrests on Day 38.

Yeah, I know, it was almost impossible not to be amused by this protest. I know I was.

Rich, white, NIMBY conservative protestors who were huge fans of both the Olympics and unfettered free-enterprise. At least they were right up to the point where they heard a P3 would be blasting a new piece of highway smackdab through their backyard to Whistler - where, it must be said, some of them also own cottages and condos.

They were rich and they were outraged.
They were hopping into the Lexus to drive a few hundred yards to Starbucks to buy lattes for the reporters.

They were very outspoken about being primarily "professional people".

Their tent city sported some of the very finest in available camping gear.

Did I mention they were rich?

Because God forbid we should get over our own class envy long enough to support environmental protestors just because they're rich.

God forbid we should realize that being a NIMBY is actually something to be proud of, as long as you aren't forcing some other backyard to accept what you reject for your own.

And God forbid we should recognize that those elderly local residents who had recently had hip-replacements and knee operations but were willing to sleep out in tents for an environmental cause they passionately believe in do not conform to anyone's definition of "hypocrite".

Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon dismissed this protest as "a small group of neighbours", saying they "have failed in the courts, they have failed in the election and they have failed in the public relations campaign."
David Emerson and Premier Cambell wouldn't return their calls.
The Squamish Nation, very big supporters of the Olympics, were quick to distance themselves from Squamish elder Harriet Nahanee, one of the first to be arrested, saying "she does not represent the Squamish Nation".

Starting to feel sorry for them yet? That wealth starting to matter a little less here?
Their relative wealth had insulated them for years against any realization that the Campbell government doesn't represent them any more than it does the rest of us if they don't play along.
OK, I think they get that now.
I intend to pitch my tent with these rich guys in the next go-round if they get one.

The Accountability Act and throwing babies out of incubators

From Public Eye Online, we learn that PR giant Hill and Knowlton Inc will be joining the C.D. Howe Institute in co-hosting a private roundtable with Treasury Board president John Baird to discuss the Accountability Act -legislation that is supposed to toughen up the rules around lobbying.

Public Eye Online finds the addition of Hill and Knowlton Inc. 'odd'.

C.D. Howe's Duncan Munn explained Hill and Knowlton's presence.

"They're a registered lobbyist. They have different aspects to their business - including media relations and communications and things like that. So, from our perspective, we're operating above the political fray. And the whole point of the exercise is to educate people about the Accountability Act and what's involved."

Ah yes - Hill and Knowlton, the great public educators.
Didn't CBC do a nice little doc - "To Sell A War" - on how they sold the first Gulf War to the American public?

From PR Watch :

"Hill & Knowlton, then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion."

Hey, remember this terrific Hill and Knowlton video news release?

"A 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die." 

Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."

At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony.

The Caucus also failed to reveal that Hill & Knowlton vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false testimony. If Nayirah's outrageous lie had been exposed at the time it was told, it might have at least caused some in Congress and the news media to soberly reevaluate the extent to which they were being skillfully manipulated to support military action. Public opinion was deeply divided on Bush's Gulf policy. As late as December 1990, a New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 48 percent of the American people wanted Bush to wait before taking any action if Iraq failed to withdraw from Kuwait by Bush's January 15 deadline.

On January 12, the US Senate voted by a narrow, five-vote margin to support the Bush administration in a declaration of war. Given the narrowness of the vote, the babies-thrown-from-incubators story may have turned the tide in Bush's favor.

Following the war, human rights investigators attempted to confirm Nayirah's story and could find no witnesses or other evidence to support it."

Selling the Accountability Act to Canada should be at least as easy as throwing imaginary babies out of incubators.
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Iran eyes transparent badges for atheists

Yeah, I was just leaving anyway....
But first here's a round up of some great new posts on the National Post's contribution to the mighty Let's-invade-Iran neo-con wurlitzer :

Galloping Beaver
The Gazetteer
Firedoglake
Lenin's Tomb
Unqualified Offerings has two

Who'd I miss? Leave a link in comments and I'll add them to the list.

Focus on the fetus as a "protection" racket

From Focus on the Family :
"And at least one of the pro-life MPs who was at the [May 11 March For Life] gathering is not ruling out some initiative, such as introducing a private member’s bill, as a way to try to reignite the debate in Canada over abortion :
“There are always options for members of Parliament to put forward good initiatives on a range of subjects,” said Conservative Maurice Vellacott, the Globe and Mail reported."
shortly before he explained that women need to be protected from abortions because they cause cancer.

Oh look, here's one of those "initiatives" already :

From the Toronto Star :
"Aims to protect unborn from violenceTory could reopen abortion debate.
May 22, 2006. 01:00 AM
Ottawa : A Conservative MP has introduced a private member's bill that would make it a separate criminal offence to harm an unborn child in cases where a pregnant mother is assaulted or murdered.
The bill that pro-choice advocates say has implications for the abortion debate in this country "is not an abortion bill," says Alberta Conservative backbencher Leon Benoit, who describes himself as "pro-life."
But Benoit says this is all about providing more protection for women, especially pregnant women, who statistics suggest are more vulnerable to violence."

Because you can just see some guy pausing before he whacks some woman to consider whether it's worth doing the extra time for the fetus as well.

And just for the record, here's a list of the more than one third of the cabinet who are on record as "pro-fetus" :
Jim Flaherty - Finance Minister
Chuck Strahl - Agriculture Minister
Vic Toews - Justice Minister
Loyola Hearn - Fisheries Minister
Monte Solberg - Citizenship and Immigration Minister
Rob Nicholson - Minister for Democratic Reform
Stockwell Day - Public Safety Minister
Gary Lunn - Natural Resources Minister
Carol Skelton - National Revenue Minister .
plus Jason Kenney as Harper's parliamentary secretary

Oh just stay dead already!

Say, isn't this the exact same Amir Taheri article that sparked all that hysteria over at the National Post four days ago? The one that states "Jews would be marked out with a yellow strip of cloth sewn in front of their clothes".
Why, yes it is, and with nary a mention of the thorough debunking it received in the meantime.

A number of blogs linking to it are claiming that it having been republished after the National Post retraction means that it must be true after all.
No it doesn't. It just means Taheri is still a liar.

Update : "PRESS RELEASE: AMIR TAHERI ADDRESSES QUERIES ABOUT DRESS CODE STORY
by Amir Taheri
Benador Associates May 22, 2006
Regarding the dress code story it seems that my column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun. As far as my article is concerned I stand by it."

Jumped the gun? Jumped the gun?
More like jumped the shark.