Measuring the inevitable

Harper has called Israel's bombing of Lebanon in reaction to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others "measured".

Then : Immediately after 9/11, Harper cited the deaths of the 24 Canadians killed in the World Trade Towers as reason enough for Canada to join in the US bombing of Afghanistan and then later Iraq.

Now : Harper is real sorry about the deaths of the 7 Canadians killed in the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, but refers to them as "inevitable".

Anyone want to hazard a guess as to whether Harper would have used the words "measured" and "inevitable" to describe the deaths of those seven Canadians had they been killed by Hezbollah or Hamas instead?

Bonus : Two more events whose eventual ramifications were "inevitable" but were not adequately "measured" at the time :

• The 1982 Israeli bombing of the towers of Beiruit in which 18,000 Lebanese were killed, the event which Osama bin Laden says radicalized him and for which he claimed retaliation with 9/11.
• The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, resulting in the formation of Hezbollah.

Link

The Kings do "This is Spinal Tap"

Think Progress has video up of US Rep. Steve King demonstrating a fence he designed himself for the US/Mexican border. Tell me the first thing that popped into your head when you saw this picture wasn't the Stonehenge scene from "This Is Spinal Tap" :

"I think that the problem *may* have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being *crushed* by a *dwarf*. Alright? "

Another fan of fences is Rep Peter King, the Chair of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee. He will be up in Canada tomorrow checking out whether we need a fence too, "whether it's an actual barrier or a virtual wall with sensors and other equipment".

Says Peter King : "I think it's a disproportionate number of al-Qaida in Canada because of their very liberal immigration laws, because of how political asylum is granted so easily."

Yes, and we will be proudly granting political asylum to US war resistors too. The Canadian government won't, of course, but the rest of us will. Just like last time.

I sure hope I haven't confused you here by mentioning two fence enthusiasts named King in the same post.
Fence-building Rep. Steve King is a total whackjob who described the Abu Ghraib torture as hazing, says Iraq is safer than Washington DC, and claims Senator Joe McCarthy as a personal hero.
Whereas House Chair of Homeland Security Committee Peter King is merely a former IRA supporter who still believes there is a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda and wants the New York Times prosecuted for treason. Sigh.

Hey, just for fun, given that Steve says his fence could go up at a rate of a mile per day, how long would it take for Peter to have one built along the Canadian border?
Let's see....4000 miles divided by 365 days....equals 11 years.

One more quote from "Spinal Tap" seems appropriate here :
"The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and... "

"A danger to society"

I know I'll personally feel much safer just knowing that this 78 year old grandmother is going to be locked up for at least the next two months.
Link.

Energy security and prosperity pardnership

Gosh is it G8 time again already?
Yes it is, and Harper will be leaving for St Petersburg this week.

You remember last year's G8 summit in Gleneagles, right?
The televised Live 8 concert and the billions of dollars in aid promised by the world's richest nations to the world's poor.
On the way over, Harper will first make a stop in England, who failed to meet the Live 8 Aid to Africa target they set for themselves last year, and afterwards he'll spend a day in France, the only country who did.

The focus of this year's G8 is "energy security".
Well, that's handy - Harper should be really well boned up on this one.
As it happens, "energy security" was also a focus of the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" pact which Harper endorsed in his meeting with Bush just this last March. In fact the phrases "North American energy security" and "North American energy markets" appear repeatedly in this document, along with the stated goal of "Increasing private sector engagement in the SPP by adding high-level business input".

Plus of course Bush and Harper announced the implementation of the North American Big Box Competitiveness Council.

Death to regulation of industry by government, but pleased as punch to have industry regulating government.

I wonder what grand promises will be made in the interests of the public good this time round.
And whether Harper will be "standing up for Canada" or North America.

7-Q!da rOxxOrs!

Members of an alleged terrorist ring were arrested today in a daring predawn raid on RCMP offices in Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal. A joint US/Canadian security task force had been quietly monitoring RCMP communications for several months when they noticed a sudden increase in RCMP terrorist-related activities. Undercover operatives were then sent in to make contact.

"When we approached the RCMP, they immediately offered us cell phones, cameras, guns, surveillance equipment...you name it," stated a source at the terrorism task force who spoke to us on condition of anonymity. "They also promised to put us in touch with al-Qaeda, but never actually followed through."

This morning's raids netted hundreds of pages of transcripts from internet chatrooms in which the RCMP anonymously made repeated references to al-Qaeda. Also confiscated were firearms, detailed maps of key public buildings and transportation systems, a large quantity of fertilizer that could be used in the making of a bomb, and some boxes of doughnuts which have been sent to local forensic labs for tests.

Canadian civil rights groups were quick to denounce the arrests as an infringement on Canadian sovereignty based solely on circumstantial evidence, but a spokesperson for the sting operation code-named Operation Scanner Darkly waved these objections aside.

"Nonsense," he said. "The RCMP were clearly in the aspirational stage of terrorism. We have averted the danger. Freedom, democracy, ....my, these doughnuts really are quite excellent, aren't they?"

Further arrests are expected as soon as experts have cracked the code of the RCMP chatroom communiques.

First edited by bogger; then re-edited by me.

The far side of crazy

From the transcript of the Bush/Harper press conference yesterday, here is Bush answering a question about the threat posed by North Korea :

Are you ready, Ginger?

"blah, blah, blah, blah, we're trying to make sure, by the way, that the missile that he fired wasn't headed for Canada. We don't know, for a fact, where it was headed. But, for example, one thing that Stephen and I talked about is he could be seemingly firing a missile at the United States, say, at -- I don't know, this is all speculation -- but could be headed toward the Northwest of our country, and it wouldn't take much for it to get off course, and end somewhere where he may not have intended blah, blah, blah, blah."

Did you get all that, Ginger?
What's that? You only heard "missile headed for Canada"?
Good boy, Ginger, good boy!

At this point Harper is balancing sucking up to Bush with not freaking Canada out about it.
Harper has hitched his wagon to Bush's falling star and up till now Canadians have shown little inclination to follow. We are especially leary of hitching Canada's wagon to Bush's Star Wars shenanigans.
Harper's best hope here is to convince Canadians that it is already too late to base our security on our ability to keep our distance from the egregious imperialist misadventures of our neighbours to the south.

So the question for Canadians is : Are we any smarter than Ginger?

Bonus snark : Bush calls Harper "Steve"; Harper calls Bush "Mr. President". Try to imagine Harper calling Bush "George".

What is it they say about guys who wear huge belt buckles because they have small...

In this picture we can see that Harper liked the big belt buckle he gave Bush for his birthday so much that he decided to get one too.
Just a couple of choads, hanging out...

"Happy birthday, Mr Resident"

By now Harper will have finished dining with Cheney in Washington and in a few hours he will be meeting with Bush on the occasion of the Resident's 60th birthday.

Hmm...what to give the guy who has everything?

We've already given him our troops for his "war on terror", our energy security in NAFTA, our unquestioning support at the UN, and $1-billion worth of illegal lumber tariffs.

Now what else would he like?

According to CBC, Harper finally settled on symbolic gifts - "an RCMP Stetson was chosen as a symbol of Canada's history of policing and security, and a Calgary brass belt buckle in recognition of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington". You know, the "festival" in which Alberta "culture" is represented by the tar sands and a monster truck.

That is some serious sucking-up symbolism there, Harper.
And presumably your damp handshake will be symbolic of your readiness to hand over our water.

By comparison, in 2003, following his decision not to 'sign on' to the US war on Iraq, Jean Chrétien presented Bush with a wooden pen rest, estimated to be worth approximately $20. Heh.

Gravy train spotting

Some people hate the Americans.
I don't.
Americans are just wankers.
We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers.*

Eleanor Grant has a great piece up, tracing the history and players of "deep integration", or, as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives winningly puts it : "creating a single economic space".
The only thing I would add to her summary is that it's always worth dropping by the CCCE website from time to time to listen to them take credit for it.

*with apologies to Irvine Welsh

Extra soft and super absorbent

David Emerson hailed the new improved softwood lumber agreement as "a nation-to-nation agreement, it's a treaty."

Ha! Why, sure, if by "treaty" you mean another 2-ply extra-soft super-absorbent guarantee that the US will treat like so much used toilet paper whenever it suits them. And what do we get out of it? In return for $1 billion, the US promises not to bother losing any more NAFTA court battles to us for the next two years.

Harper released a statement hailing the agreement as "a great day for Canada" and CTV further reports:
"the Tory hope is that, with softwood out of the way, Harper and Bush can concentrate on issues like global security, water exports..."

And photo ops. Lots and lots of photo ops.
You're not fooling anyone, you know.

Update : Ross at The Gazetteer is all over this.
And Canadian Cynic weighs in on water exports.