time for the queen to step in

The Queen should step in - she shouldn't come to Canada. What if she decided to stall her visit to Canada in order that the PM could deal with his laundry? That would send a message and the great thing about it is, she could decide to not come and just not mention the reasons why. For her sake, better that she doesn't come. Coming would allow Mr Martin to hide behind her skirt.

Coren no Qur'an on the Crusades

Forgive the title.

Michael Coren in yesterday's National Post (May 5, 2005) blames the Crusades on the Muslims, he says they started it by invading the holy land and starting wars with Europe. But I find this conclusion rather unfair and quite arbitrarily chosen. If Coren is looking for a cause to crusade his pen through paper, why stop with the Muslims? Why not blame the Israelites for invading Jericho in the first place - better yet, blame God for delivering the Holy Land to the Israelites, catapulting mankind into an endless series of seriously passionate skirmishes over a ridiculously small tract of land. Perhaps this is more accurately the truth about the Crusades - God started it.

The one group Christians hated even more than the Muslims are fellow Christians. Millennia of experience attest that the Christian's zeal for barbarous hatred toward fellow Christians has always been much worse than for anyone else. When Pope Urban II declared the first crusade with the words, "Men of God, men chosen and blessed among all, combine your forces!" he was saying "quiet down, violently happy princes, and stop your infighting; for God's sake you're Christian, men; here, focus your energies on something else and go play in the backyard." Trying to solve the bloodlust of princes, I think, is more accurately the truth about the Crusades.

GM industry to legalize cannibalism - puts human gene in rice

hmm, succulent human liver genes...

Japanese researchers have inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to digest pesticides and industrial chemicals. - The UK Independent

For the most part I've not been too concerned about genetically modified foods. Viewing it as similar to grafting I've subscribed to the view the Economist has held for a number of years. However, genetically grafting cacti into maize is one thing, genetically grafting humans into rice is quite another.

Telling stories titilate all

I wonder how Canadians would have responded, if Bush said something to the effect of what Martin said last night:

"When I was young, I practically lived here in the White House. My father was president and he went to war against Iraq. He taught me that those who serve in public office have a duty to protect the integrity of government."

Telling stories is one thing, but to play into a story of nationhood that may be more a matter of mythmaking is something that Canadians have lacked in contrast to Americans.

Two rather fascinating quotes from George W Bush used at the beginning of Rogers Smith's new essay, Providentialism, Foreign Policy, and the Ethics of Political Discourse, sounds like something I'd never hear a Canadian PM say:

“We have a place, all of us, in a long story; a story we continue, but whose end we will not see…It is the American story…We are not this story’s Author, Who fills time and eternity with His purpose. Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty; and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another.” -- George W. Bush, 2001

“We go forward with complete confidence in the ultimate triumph of freedom…Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills…History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty…we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.” – George W. Bush, 2005

Rogers M Smith's thesis in the paper, I think, is:

[Bush's] ... providentialist discourse bears the hallmarks of a “story of peoplehood” that is being used politically to gain an aura of ethical legitimacy for policies that are otherwise unlikely to be seen as in accord with the nation’s dominantmoral traditions.

Though Smith is critical of the story telling, I wonder if a country can really do with out it.

For why do people find coercive force and persuasive stories convincing? You might recognize that behind the pusher and the story teller is an elite group of people who are using their power or ability to accumulate power against people, but why does it work? When pushed, why do people not just fall over and die, becoming useless to the state? When told a story, why do people not just say, "yeah, whatever"?

Political societies may indeed not be natural, as Smith says, but why is their naturally a favourable response to pushing and story telling? Is there something in Bush's story telling that does come natural? Or is the notions behind the ideas he appeals to in their linguistic context and syntax merely the product of nurture? Is there something missing in Canada persuant to the notion of an evolving story?

Paul Martin speaks for himself, but others can do it better

Not after 9/11, even though 24 of our countrymen were murdered by terrorists. Not when we joined the war in Afghanistan. Not when we declined to back the U.S. in Iraq; not when we naively rejected the U.S. missile defence program.

Not when the government refused to compensate thousands of victims of the tainted blood scandal, many of whom are dying as they continue to await justice today (despite a hasty Liberal flip-flop on the issue Wednesday night, which will change little). Not even when the government decided to redefine the institution of marriage.

No, none of those things were deemed important enough for the Liberal prime minister to address the nation.

But hey, through all of those events, the Liberals were doing fine in the polls.

Linda Williamson wins the competition for best response to the Martin address to the nation. Damian Penny comes second with his truncated version of the Martin speech:

I'm sorry, I didn't do it, I'm cleaning it up, let Gomery finish his work, I'll call an election within 30 days of the report being published, please please please please please don't call an election right now, I hung out here on Parliament Hill when I was a kid, let's get back to the real issues.

White smoke, White pope

Joseph Ratzinger becomes:

Pope Benedict ..................... 16th
Born April......................... 16th
of non-italian popes, he is the ... 16th

JONATHAN:
Christo makes an interesting point. Why don't they select the Pope like the Apostles selected one another?: through the fatalism of lots. Instead of determining the will of God through politics, why not arbitrary fate? Here is the narrative as found in Acts 1:

²³So they proposed two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. ²⁴Then they prayed, “Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen ²⁵to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs.” ²⁶Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.

Website gagged as Calgary police chief wins court order

Well, if anything, this says that the police officer chief was more likely precisely that which he is accused of - appears that there are a number of sites dedicated to the misdemeanors of the Calgary police. I think the best course of action, not knowing anything about this police chief other than what I have been presented in the last hour, is for him to forget about false accusations - he doesn't have to clear his name of things that aren't true only of things that are true. And in the event that they are true, he really ought to take sanctuary in his "getaway church" and spend some hard time finding away to reconcile with others.

Nice to see that the CBC is also fighting the gag order that preceded the police chief's gagging of a website. Gagging really is the big thing these days.

GPS-Enabled School Uniforms

Combine this with the new satellite Google maps and you can always know where your friends are...

Japanese school uniform maker Ogo-Sangyo Company has released their newest advancement in uniform technology: GPS-enabled blazers. The GPS terminals, located inside the uniforms, can communicate back to parents (or potential kidnappers, naturally) the location of their children, allowing them to know exactly how many stops at the okashiya they made on their way home. The terminals are built by Secom, whose GPS devices showed up in similarly-intended GPS satchels. - from Gizmodo

Shall we make those ribbons maroon, boys?

One ought not to say in general that a man is obsessed with his crotch. For if this were true, one would need to account for the disproportionate number of men that die of prostate cancer over women from breast cancer every year. I say, men, take hede: it is time that you became more attentive to the radical otherness of that which dwells in the South and give it what it deserves - consult your friendly neighbourhood Economist for details.

"Prostate cancer is far more common in men than breast cancer is in women. Yet the public awareness of the two diseases could not be more different. Women have their mammograms, their ultrasounds, pink-ribbon days, designer T-shirts and celebrity-awareness campaigns. Like breast cancer, cancer of the prostate is treatable if caught early enough. Unlike breast cancer, it is also completely curable. Yet more men in America and in Britain still develop prostate cancer—and more die of it—than any other cancer other than that of the lungs. Why so?"

Al Gore shuts down CBC Newsworld

and only now has CTV received permission to do what they want with their Newsnet channel.

While the news report on the CBC business page is entitled "CBC to shut down Newsworld" the reality depicted by the article, further down, is that Al Gore is shutting down CBC Newsworld. Him and the group of investors that he represents successfuly purchased an operating chunk of CBC Newsworld from Vivendi in 2004. Vivendi, also not Canadian.

For one, I thought there were ownership rules governing Canadian media that demanded an operating share to be owned by Canadians. For two, what is part of a government run media outlet doing in Al Gore's hands?

Apparently, Gore is going to ressurect the channel and call it the "Current" - a "youth-oriented" news channel that will somehow gain programming from user input off of the internet. Well, here's my contribution as someone of the youth-orientation.

While this is my contribution - check out the CBC Board of Directors contribution to not only coverage of the Gomery case but also to the coiffeurs of the Liberal Party.

The case for rationalism, progress and globalization.

"Why are they not more convincing?" - The Economist holds up the old Enlightenment band wagon in their review of two books, one by Dick Taverne and the other by Thomas Friedman.

...the book's greatest weakness: an insistence that the scientific, rationalist world-view is not just mostly right, but always so without exception. This is manifest in its skimpy and simplistic treatment of religion. In attacking a loosely defined “fundamentalism”, Lord Taverne conflates private piety with public zealotry, and appears to assume that deeply held religious belief is always synonymous with intolerance.

Which service is worthy to be...

...in the news. The Canadian Atlas Online (which recieved money from the Canadian government) or Google's satellite maps (which hasn't)?

Charges against Canadian blogs?

What Free Trade did to the Neanderthals may just be what the Internet will do to the Liberals and their luddite comrades.

The Attorney General is apparently considering to charge Canadian blogs. Excuse me? Anyone can go to a search engine, type in "Gomery leaked" and come to a US based blog and find the same thing. Stopping Canadians stops nothing. Actually, come to think of it, is telling people how to find the information the same as linking?

Moreover, if it is already out there doesn't a ban on links or means to find the information mean that only an internet savy elite are allowed to have potentially powerful information?

And what about all those people that just happened and will happen to go to the US site in question on a regular basis for their news?

And what are they going to do about the Globe and Mail who give people a key phrase to search up? Three guesses where "Captain Ed" will take you too when you google it?

Blogs are becoming a threat to the ruling it would seem - threatening the media and politicians. To put it more bluntly, discourse is becoming a threat to the ruling powers.

An exercise to prove we're prepared, I mean...

So the US, together with Canada and the UK, are running a major anti-terrorist exercise.

The BBC selected a fantastic quote from US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff:

"The point of this [the exercise] is not to design a simulation that makes us "look good" because we were able to figure out how to pre-package everything that we wanted to do..."

Of course not and of course they would not admit something like that and of course they would not fail their own exercise miserably. It would be interesting to know how useful these exercises will really be. Hopefully all evaluations will be academic.

Will blogs take down Canada's Government?

"The explosive testimony given out of the public eye last week at the
Gomery commission began appearing on websites yesterday, capping a
weekend of frenzied rumours about snap elections and covert political
meetings in Ottawa."

Will Blogs Bring Down Canada's Government?

This is an interesting blog and quite unrelated to the topic at hand.