Deja Vu

Wait a minute this isn't new, or news, this is the same policy that led to the invasion of Iraq.

US document cites Iran ‘confrontation’
Deccan Herald - 1 hour ago
A new US national security strategy document warns of a possible “confrontation” with Iran if “diplomatic efforts” fail to pressure Tehran to give up its aspirations to develop nuclear weapons. Preemption remains US policy option


Also See: Making Iran Nervous


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Iraqi Distraction

When you get bad news;

Like the lowest poll numbers ever, for both your Presidency and your private war.

The folks that are supposed to govern Iraq meet for for less than an hour and adjourns.34 Iraqis Killed, Sectarian Parliament Meets for Just 30 Minutes

Your allies the Brits announce they are withdrawing 10% of their troops.

The leader you have deposed is calling on his people to end sectarian violence and unite against you. Saddam Urges Iraqis to Unite Against GIs

The people you were supposed to liberate burn down a monument to the masacre of their relatives because they still don't have housing, water or electricity, Kurds attack Halabja memorial and govt offices

And you want to let folks think that all is going well, than make a big announcement about a standard training mission for the Iraqi Army. Don't include the press, and you create a distraction from a bad news week.

Which is what this is all about; US launches major air assault in Iraq


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Nosferatu Fortier

The saying goes is that the Red House, the Senate is where the dead play.

Hmmm perhaps this is why the Harpocrite's newly appointed Conservative Senator Michael Fortier looks like Nosferatu.

See: Abolish the Senate






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Carrots Scream

Does the carrot scream like mandrake when you put it in the blender?

You have to listen vewy , vewy carefully.

Which is probably why the makers of vegimatic blenders make them so loud,
so you don't hear the screaming.

I missed the meeting the other day of People for the Ethical Rights of Vegetables, or I could have raised this point there.

I love those PETA folks who want to stop us from having any relationships with our animal friends other than petting them and taking care of them.

I too support helping our animal friends and relations since we are animals too. So when right wingers get their knickers in a twist over animal rights being different than human rights, they forget that point. We are animals too. So it should behoove us to protect all our rights as sentient beings.

But in being animals and thus members of the animal kingdom we also eat our fellow creatures. We are not naturally vegan or vegetarian, never have been never will be. At best we have evolved into omnivores, in the transition from Hunter Gatherers to agriculturalists.

Veganism and Vegetarianism is a moral dietary choice. Sort of like not drinking milk. Which PETA also promotes. PETA's agenda has never been about saving animals or even animal rights its about getting us all to become something we aren't, vegans.

Killing, per se, is not the central concern of AR philosophy, which is
concerned with the avoidance of unnecessary pain and suffering.
Thus, because plants neither feel pain nor suffer, AR philosophy
does not mandate fruitarianism (a diet in which only fruits are eaten because they can be harvested without killing the plant from which they issue).
Animal Rights FAQ

In doing so they forget the fact that vegetables and fruits, members of the flora family, also have feelings. Indeed one could argue that the inherent nature of living, of being alive is to have 'feelings'. How of course one expresses those feelings is another question. If one is mute like most veggies then it is hard to communicate, to humans, however they do communicate.

But like lobsters, which PETA also opposes eating, we know when veggies are done, are cooked, are dead, because they change colour in boiling water. And again you don't hear them scream cause you drowned them you cad.

Now as far a moral diets go there are those out there that do go further than PETA and the vegans. Such as fruitarians a particular cult from good old cult heaven, California. They believe you should only eat fruit. Tell that to the Inuit.

But better yet are the breatherians, who believe you should not harm any living creature, and should survive only on breathing and sunlight. Of course by breathing you do obsorb bacteria, spores, germs etc. and thus are consuming some innocent creature. And living on sunlight only would again be hard for Inuit and northern peoples where sunlight vanishes completely. Which maybe why this is the only honest moral diet, since very few breatherians exist. Thank goodness.

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War Is Peace-keeping

To misquote Orwell.

When is WAR not WAR?

When it is part of a convoluted argument by Progressives For War, (PFW) in order to justify their mistaken allegiance to the Canadian State and its military actions. In this case in both Afghanistan and Haiti. These are NOT WAR's according to the PFW.

This is the argument posed by Skippy the Amazing Wonderdog, and cross posted at the Torch . Skippy sez, and pardon me while I quote him extensively in order to address his argument;

This is not really the case in Afghanistan. The enemy Canadian soldiers face -- or do not face, in fact -- is not organized in any military sense, does not occupy terrain, and cannot be defeated through firepower alone. Calling this a "war" is an attempt to manipulate perception by emphasizing combat operations.

The Taliban certainly are an organized military as they were also the Government and State of Afghanistan and as such can be considered the Government in exile. There are also Warlords, gee that title might hint at their involvement with 'war', who rule a variety of provinces. There is Al-Qaida which was an army in Afghanistan, and of course there are various armed tribal groups spread through out the Tribal districts between the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. All of these are organized Mujahadin armies. Even if they use Guerrilla tactics.

Does it matter what we call it? Yes, it matters a great deal, at least as far as public opinion is concerned. Canadians seem happy to support "peacekeeping," but they aren't so keen on seeing Canadian troops deployed in a "combat role." But what does that really mean?

Peacekeeping which is currently being trashed by the Right and the PFW,is also being dismissed as an outmoded idea by the Conservative government and its spokespersons. Peacekeeping by definition is:

• Deploy to prevent the outbreak of conflict or the spill-over of conflict across borders;
• Stabilize conflict situations after a cease fire, to create an environment for the parties to reach a lasting peace agreement;
• Assist in implementing comprehensive peace agreements;
• Lead states or territories through a transition to stable government, based on democratic principles, good governance and economic development.

What we are not doing in Kandahar is peacekeeping. We are in combat to pacify the province of Kandahar and its surrounding region in order to create the conditions for peacekeeping.

There was plenty of support for a "combat role" in the Balkans, where one side of the civil war had been demonized.

True, especially when the war against Serbia was declared the first Humanitarian War by Clinton. However there were many of us opposed to that war, including some who now support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jingoism and nationalism in this case was replaced with bleeding heart liberalism, the poor suffering Albanians in Kosovo vs. the nasty demonic Serbs. However as that war was conducted and Serb civilians were targeted, the humanitarian gave way to the usual conduct of war. And suddenly it was clear that this was an Imperialist War as all wars are.

Nobody seemed to notice at first that our operation in Somalia was not "peacekeeping," and Canadians initially supported that ill-fated deployment. There would have been little objection to sending troops into Rwanda to stop the genocide by force.

In fact Somalia was a peace keeping mission from the beginning . The failure which led to scandal and national shame, a national inquiry found that the mission was ill conceived from the begining, was that Canadian military leadership failed to define it as a Peacekeeping mission rather than a combat mission. Canadians were led to believe that Somalia was a peacekeeping mission, but with the American involvement it quickly degenerated into another oil war, with the consequences of being a failure for the UN and a disaster for Canadian Forces.

Rwanda on the other had was the result of Imperialist disdain and interference. In this case the interference of France and Belgium, the former colonial masters in that region of Africa, it was their refusal to allow the UN in, and their support of the Hutu subaltern leadership that led to the disaster. The failure of American Imperialism in Somalia, their first defeat in battle since Viet Nam, led them to abandon Rwanda.

There would be, on the other hand, a strong objection to deploying Canadian troops in a "combat role" to overthrow a government -- in other words, to "war" as we usually understand it

Really then what was the coup that Canada supported militarily in Haiti two years ago? Canada led the joint American, French, UN troops in a combat operation to overthrow a duly elected government? And we are still there. Despite the most recent election. These are combat operations, war by any other name.

And in Haiti's case we led those operations, because of Quebec's close relationship with Haiti. In fact as I have written here, it is because both Canada and Quebec view Haiti as our 'neo-colony'. See Gildan Sweat Shop Success Story


So let's ask an expert on War, Carl Phillip Gottfriedvon Clausewitz as to his definition of it;

War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.

Violence arms itself with the inventions of Art and Science in order to contend against violence. Self-imposed restrictions, almost imperceptible and hardly worth mentioning, termed usages of International Law, accompany it without essentially impairing its power. Violence, that is to say physical force (for there is no moral force without the conception of states and law), is therefore the means; the compulsory submission of the enemy to our will is the ultimate object. In order to attain this object fully, the enemy must be disarmed; and this is, correctly speaking, the real aim of hostilities in theory. It takes the place of the final object, and puts it aside in a manner as something not properly belonging to war.

So yes folks this is a war we are in. And yes we should be opposed to this war.

Those PFW who say this is not war are merely deluding themselves, or like Skippy the Wonderdog barking at the moon.



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Stephen Chretien

Stageleft makes some interesting observations on Chantel Herberts latest column in the Toronto Star comparing, gasp, Stephen Harper to Jean Chretien. Similarities: Harper and Chretien

I personally think a picture tells the story. It's all about the finger.

For two years, Martin navigated with his finger stuck on the pulse of public opinion.

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Price Fixing Booze

This is happening in Alberta home of Free Enterprize.

Drink prices rising?
Alberta is eyeing a minimum price for booze in bars and restaurants in a bid to stop customers from pounding back drinks and pounding on each other.The province is considering the floor price following concerns raised by bar owners, police and municipalities, Gaming Minister Gordon Graydon said Monday."Once upon a time, long ago, Alberta did have minimum drink prices. It would be going back to that policy," he said. He said the issue will be explored at a round-table discussion in Calgary later this month.

So much for the "Free market" in booze. Once upon a time we also had unionized liquor stores run by the province.

It is of course alright to privatize the liquor stores , despite the loss of monies it created, but now the business folks want the State to regulate per shot prices.

Once again proving that the capitalist state exists to do what business wants, not what the supposedly sacred "market " wants. Guaranteed prices means a guaranteed profit, and lessens competition between bars and lounges. Hey isn't that price fixing by any other name? Why of course it is.

Next time you hear the refrain about the need for government to get out of business or how the free market creates competition, remember this. Business hates a free market, it wants an assured market, it wants the state to guarantee its business. Protectionism is ok to these guys until they become a monopoly and then they want markets to open up to them.

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The King is Dead Long Live the King

King Ralph has announced, finally, that he is retiring October 2007, as he said he would during the last election.

This allows him to stop being made a fool of on April 1 when the Party of Calgary (PC's) gathers for its annual meeting and leadership review.

The knives are out and ever the populist Klein thwarted the embarassment of not having the parties support, which he demanded earlier this year when he challenged them to support him or else.

Alberta is now being governed by the Retirement Party, after Premier Ralph Klein confirmed he plans to step down as head of the Conservative dynasty -- but not for 19 long and aimless months.

And while his announcement not means that the leadership race which has been occuring in the back rooms will not become official till November of 2007, the infighting and backstabbing will make the Chretien and Martin struggles in the Liberals look like a fight in a sandbox.

Jim Dinning, who some consider the front-runner among six leadership hopefuls, said "there's still some confusion" about when the official leadership race will begin."If the date is October 2007, does the race start now or does the race start then?" Dinning said in an interview.

As I have noted before this is a struggle between the Calgary Capitalist Class which are classic liberals and the right wing social conservative rump in the party.

Ah there is no joy in mudville with this announcement, it merely delays the inevitable. The King is in his counting house, mad as a hatter. He is following his own agenda despite his party, his caucus or his MLA's. He is saving his own ass at the expense of his party.

More articles on King Ralph.

Tories risk taking same trip over a cliff as Socreds

That means the Conservatives won't have a new leader in place until February 2008 -- which gives the party little time to rebuild before the next provincial election is held, likely the same year.

Disaffected Tories are afraid Klein is giving himself too much time to say goodbye and the new leader too little time to say hello.

For them, 19 months is more than enough time for Klein's distracted, at times grumpy, leadership style to drive more supporters away from the party, and to drive the party over the same cliff that claimed the Alberta Social Credit Party and the federal Progressive Conservative Party under Brian Mulroney.

The grumblers are a paranoid lot and they're overstating their worst-case scenario. But they'll be voting at the party's convention and the only way they'd give Klein a ringing endorsement to stay is if he announces he's leaving -- soon.

Klein might still win the leadership vote by a comfortable margin, but then what?

How can he govern for the next 19 months?

He is such a lame duck he'll need crutches to get around for the next year.

Klein to step down next year
Globe and Mail - 4 hours ago
EDMONTON -- Ralph Klein, the country's most colourful and longest-serving Premier, ended years of speculation yesterday by finally announcing his official retirement date: October of 2007.
Klein says he'll quit in October 2007 Toronto Star
Klein locks in retirement date CBC.ca
Canada.com - CTV.ca - Calgary Sun - Edmonton Journal (subscription) - all 47 related »

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Democracy is Ok Abroad

King Stephen the Harpocrite assured the puppet regime in Afghanistan that Canada is behind our Military Mission there, for now. Because he will NOT allow any debate on the issue. Of course when it comes to extending the deployment next year well that's another story.


So while the cheerleaders on the right and the PFW (Progressives for War) applaud our troops fighting for democracy in Afghanistan, at home it is being denied to us.

New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton said it would not look good for Canada's Prime Minister to deny MPs a vote on a military mission aimed at encouraging democracy. "We think it would be ironic that we're defending democracy in another country but not permitting a fundamental democratic process in our own," he said.

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Doctors Pass on Third Way

File this under the Government forgot to consult.....delegates to an Alberta Medical Association policy meeting voted unanimously Saturday not to back his Third Way plan to allow for more private medical treatment.


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