test blog #10

Bob Herbert writes : State Department officials know better than anyone that the image of the United States has deteriorated around the world. The U.S. is now widely viewed as a brutal, bullying nation that countenances torture and operates hideous prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in other parts of the world - camps where inmates have been horribly abused, gruesomely humiliated and even killed. The huge and bitter protests of Muslims against the United States last week were touched off by reports that the Koran had been handled disrespectfully by interrogators at Guantanamo. But the anger and rage among Muslims and others had been building for a long time, fueled by indisputable evidence of the atrocious treatment of detainees, terror suspects, wounded prisoners and completely innocent civilians in America's so-called war against terror. Amnesty International noted last week in its annual report on human rights around the world that more than 500 detainees continue to be h...

Does Stephen Harper scare you? That's the question asked by this poll, which wmtc brings you via ALPF. While not a majority, a significant number of Canadians replied "yes" to the questions "Would you say that Stephen HarperÂ’s position on social issues such as abortion, the death penalty, and same-sex marriage scares you or not?" and "Would you say Stephen HarperÂ’s pro-American position scares you or not?". In this survey, more Canadians were scared by Harper's pro-American stance than his position on social issues. In WorldNetDaily - which isn't as loopy as it first looks, though obviously not my own editorial slant - Ted Byfield gives his take on why Canadians fear conservatives. In a word: religiosity. . . . what price for all this conduct can the Liberal party expect to pay in an election? The answer, according to the first poll made since the party survived a crucial parliamentary division by a single-vote margin nine days ago, is no ...

"It isn't Queer Eye," says Scott Thompson. "You've never seen anything like this before. It is bound to be controversial. But then, Scott Thompson knows all about controversy. Fortunately, he also knows all about entertaining and amusing, which is as much or more what "My Fabulous Gay Wedding" is about than pushing any sort of social/political agenda. The daring six-part tryout series, debuting Wednesday night at 10 on Global, puts a same-sex spin on your basic make-a-wedding "reality" show, giving host Thompson and a crack team of planners, caterers and stylists a mere two weeks to throw together an elaborate thematic nuptial event, tailor-made to a particular male or female couple's tastes. For example, the opening show, a Scottish-themed affair that had both bridegrooms, the show host, celebrity guest Ashley McIsaac and a chorus-line of muscled dancing boys all going commando in kilts. Next week's episode, a lesbian wedding, featur...

I think I could turn and live awhile with the animals, They are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. Walt Whitman, from "Song of Myself"

As he did last year, Garry Trudeau listed the names of the Americans who have been killed in Iraq in his Sunday "Doonesbury", to coincide with Memorial Day weekend. The strip is called "Operation Iraqi Freedom - In Memoriam - Since 4/28/04 - Part 1." There are so many names that the listing will continue in next week's "Doonesbury." As he did in 2004, Ted Koppel will read the names of the dead, and show their photos, on a special Memorial Day edition of "Nightline". But unlike last year, Sinclair Broadcasting will run the segment. Last year Sinclair ordered its eight ABC affiliates not to carry the broadcast, saying "the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq." That "Nightline" episode garnered 30% more viewers than the show did the rest of that week. (Story here .) I read Doonesbury every day during the war I grew up with. I'm so sad - and so...

John Conyers , excellent Congressmember from Detroit, MI, is circulating a petition , asking for answers about the Downing Street Memo . His website is here ; he also posted it at Kos , among other places. Read , sign and post. Don't ask whether or not it will do anything. Remember what Gandhi said . (And by the way, that's the correct quote. It is often misquoted as "...may seem insignificant to you". The original statement is not conditional.) Please: read , sign and post.

Here's some fodder for fascism. I received this comment today from - big surprise - an anonymous commenter. You are a disgusting vile traitor and have stabbed your country in the back! Our glorious armies who defend freedom across the world are shedding blood for the defense of the American homeland. President Bush in his infinite wisdom is defeating terrorism accross the globe. The United States is feared more than ever by the world and we have the President to thank for it. Fear and the threat of military anniliation keeps us safe and sound. This is the Pax Americana!!! We could crush Canada in one day if we so chose. All we need is some border incident and our northern neighbor is gone. I hope Canadians continue to keep their mouth shut and mind their own business. What we did to Iraq, we can also do to any other country in the world. I wonder if this guy treats his children the way he wants his country to treat the world. Very sad. Also very funny. Can you imagine thinking the...

Whew. It's been a crazy couple of days, flying up to see the house on Thursday, then being giddy with joy and exhaustion on Friday, trying to work but spending most of the day spinning my wheels. I should have recognized the low-concentration syndrome and thrown in the towel earlier; instead, I figuratively banged my head against the wall for hours. Well, deep breath, back to reality - deadlines, blogs, a dog with eyedrops. If it's quiet at work this weekend - and it's Memorial Day weekend, you'd think all the attorneys could stay home - I can catch up on Ancient Civs and get paid for it, too. I want to thank you all for your support and encouragement. It really means a lot to me. And thanks to Howard Kurtz - does anyone else think of Joseph Conrad every time they see that name? - I've received more welcoming email from Canadians, an email from another American couple making the move, and more page-loads than I've ever seen before. I found today's entry on ...

This is hilarious. In Statcounter, I found this: Money, meet Mouth . Later he created we move to lynn , which I assume is Lynn, Massachusetts. This is all in good fun, and should not incite any riots here at wmtc. It's not getting my book written, but it is making for an amusing Friday afternoon.

Wmtc is in the Washington Post ! Whoo-hoo! I've had a big uptick in traffic, but didn't know where it was coming from (no thanks to Technorati), until a nice Canadian emailed to laugh at Howard Kurtz. Howie's take? It's not coercion unless I say it is - so there! I give up. This is ridiculous. I am not getting any work done today so I might as well make a cup of tea and rest my brain.

Check out this comment I just received. People who give up and move in the face of challenging problems are cowards. If you felt The City was getting "bland" and that the country is moving too far to the right, what did you do to try to change things for the better? Robert Dinero created the TriBeCa Film Festival - You moved to Canada. We are probably better off without you. Please DO give your apartment to someone who understands there is something worth fighting for here. Too bad I couldn't create a film festival. That would have really ended the US occupation of Iraq, stopped future US invasions, and gotten the religious right out of the government. Comments from the yahoos on the right never bother me. In fact, I enjoy them. I like laughing at their ignorance; it's a good reminder of why I feel so out of place in the US. But these comments, presumably from a progressive, sting. Not because I believe what they say, but because I've tried so hard, and I recogni...

We took the house in Port Credit!! It was a pretty crazy day yesterday. We left our place at noon, and got home at 1:00 a.m. - but were only in Port Credit for an hour! Most of the day was spent getting to and from the airports on both ends. But we're so fortunate to be able to go to Toronto for a day, even to be able to see a place before we move in. Most immigrants don't have that option, and if we were moving to, say, Vancouver, we wouldn't have it, either. We went to Port Credit predisposed to like the place, and assuming we would take it. (Hence one month's rent in Canadian currency in our backpack!) We both knew that unless there was something very wrong with the house, we weren't letting this location slip away. We met the owner at his place, asked some questions, gave him some additional information about ourselves, then followed him over there. Walked around the inside and outside, murmured and consulted, shook hands all around, signed an agreement, and han...

That's the headline on this American perspective on Canada and Canadian self-image, a la sponsorship scandal. This line jumped out at me as wmtc material: The discussion over what exactly is Canada's identity - and whether its favored definition is perhaps a piece of Liberal propaganda - is beginning to emerge in the political debate between the struggling Liberals and the challenging Conservatives. Full story here . I must leave you now, talk amongst yourselves. The next time I post, I'll have a report about the house!

These days, whenever I make brief forays into mainstream media, or when it jumps out at me and I can't avoid it, I see or hear the phrase "now-retracted Newsweek story," or "a story in Newsweek, which has since been retracted". That's the party line: the story was false, Newsweek retracted it. Even though the story was true, Newsweek wasn't the first to report it by any means, and the retraction was coerced. This morning I find this on the front page of the New York Times : Newly released documents show that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained repeatedly to F.B.I. agents about disrespectful handling of the Koran by military personnel and, in one case in 2002, said they had flushed a Koran down a toilet. The prisoners' accounts are described by the agents in detailed summaries of interrogations at Guantanamo in 2002 and 2003. The documents were among more than 300 pages turned over by the F.B.I. to the American Civil Liberties Union in rece...

Just a few quick posts this morning, then I have to get some work done before we leave for the airport. Funny, it's a very short flight, but still a long day of traveling and waiting. A few people have asked about what's keeping me so busy these days. I'm writing a book on Ancient Civilizations for a kids encyclopedia series. The series is written for 9-12-year-olds, and I've got 3500 BC to 500 AD. It takes in almost the whole world (Oceania [modern-day Australia and New Zealand] got dropped for space), highlighting 6 civilizations in each geographic region. Some of them I knew something about, like the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Maya and Celts. Others - such as the Ancient Japanese, Chinese, Korean or the people who lived in what is now India and Pakistan - are completely new to me. The book is not "great moments in history," but rather "how people lived". It's about domestic life, as well as the innovations each civilization brought to the worl...

I always forget that she's Canadian now. She used to be a New Yorker! Toronto's planners favour developers over citizens, says urban affairs guru Jane Jacobs. Called to give the Canadian Urban Institute award that bears her name, Jacobs stood before a room full of urban planners and policy-makers and harshly criticized Toronto's planning process. "If citizens don't like it, you call them names (and say) that they're selfish and ignorant and that they're NIMBY — not in my backyard," Jacobs told planners. "It's true that people don't want certain things in their backyard," she said. "But they're usually right. Full story here . And guess what?? We're going to see the Port Credit house tomorrow night! Yippee! We've been making arrangements all morning and now I must get to work. Have a great day, everyone.

The word feminism "had become a term of opprobrium to the modern young woman. [The word suggested either] the old school of fighting feminists who wore flat heels and had very little feminine charm, or the current speciies who antagonize men with their constant clamor about maiden names, equal rights, woman's place in the world, and many another cause, ad infinitum . If a blundering male assumes that a young woman is a feminist simply because she happens to have a job or a profession of her own, she will be highly - and quite justifiably insulted: for the word evokes the antithesis of what she flatters herself to be." Dorothy Dunbar Bromley, 1927. [As quoted in Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism by Susan Ware.] Further proof - as if any were needed - that nothing is new under the sun. More proof, too, of why studying history helps us understand our world.

After the 2004 election, I was depressed. I don't mean I was sad. I fell into depression, which is unusual for me. It was caused, I'm sure, by emotional and physical exhaustion, after putting so much into the fight, and having believed so thoroughly, so completely, that we would win. (And by "we", I mean those of us trying to defeat Bush, not the Kerry campaign.) Everything seemed so bleak. I felt as if someone had died. By coincidence, I started reading Howard Zinn's memoir You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train . Zinn's incurable optimism, and his indefatigable activism, restored me to myself. (I started collecting all my Zinn-related posts on wmtc, but I found there are too many of them! You can go here , here , here , or here , and then I gave up!) Shortly after that, Zinn wrote the column that I have permanently linked to; with that, my perspective was restored. Anyway, this is all just to say that I feel a personal connection to this man, and I admi...

I am hereby announcing - as much for myself as for anyone else - that I will be absent from comments and blog-chat during the day. I'd better be, anyway. I've been on a bit of a break between deadlines, as I waited for editorial feedback. Now I've got it, along with a series of deadlines between now and mid-July. Deadlines that I have no idea how I'm going to meet, though I know somehow I will. For the next six weeks, I'm going to try to post in the morning, then forget my blog and everyone else's for the rest of the day. Please know that I will still be avidly reading comments. My lack of response should not be interpreted as lack of interest, merely lack of time. Here's hoping that putting it in writing helps me stick to it.

This post is dedicated to David Cho , one of the most open-minded and considerate people I've met on the internet, a Christian evangelical with an incredibly cute dog . From yesterday's New York Times : It's that time of year again when President Bush turns up around the country in sumptuous commencement robes, assures thousands of college graduates that a C average does not preclude the presidency and urges them to go forth and do good. Calvin College, a small evangelical school in the strategic Republican stronghold of Grand Rapids, Mich., seemed a perfect stop on Saturday for the president's message. Or so thought Karl Rove, the White House political chief, who two months ago effectively bumped Calvin's scheduled commencement speaker when he asked that Mr. Bush be invited instead. But events at Calvin did not happen as smoothly as Mr. Rove might have liked. A number of students, faculty members and alumni objected so strongly to the president's visit that by ...

Several people have emailed to thank me for posting Bill Moyers's recent speech at the National Conference for Media Reform, and mentioned they hadn't caught it before. So, working on a basic tenet of political organizing - "each one, reach one" - I once again urge you to read this formidable piece of writing and thinking. It's long, and I suspect many of us have skimmed it, but not read it cover to cover. I'm guilty of that more often than I'd like to be; we're all pressed for time, with too much to read. But please. Set aside 15 or 20 minutes of your life for this man's thoughts. For me, it's easy: Moyers quotes Orwell, and Steinbeck, and calls Judith Miller a government stenographer! I'll give him 15 minutes on my busiest day. As further proof, I offer you some excerpts. I mean the people obsessed with control, using the government to threaten and intimidate. I mean the people who are hollowing out middle class security even as they enli...

The Perfect Place, if and when we find it, will be in Port Credit. We found Port Credit completely by accident on our first trip to Toronto. We were driving in from Buffalo, got hungry, saw an exit sign and pulled off the highway, had lunch at a pub. The town looked so nice, and from that we got the mistaken impression that the Toronto suburbs were all cute little towns. Only after further exploring did we find out that Port Credit is fairly unique in Mississauga, having been an actual town before it was subsumed into the larger sprawl. The other areas of Mississauga we saw, though they seemed very nice, lacked that. The "town center" is a big mall. After a series of coincidences kept taking us back there, I said, that's it, we have to live here. We're definitely not moving to downtown Toronto, but what I would miss most in the urban/suburban trade-off is the "urban village" - the main drag with shops and restaurants, where you don't have to drive to eve...

I may have just found the Perfect Place - a house that may be exactly what we're looking for. We're going for a very specific location, and we don't see many things available there (hardly any). This may be It. I've spoken to the landlord, and I think we'll be going up to see it soon. If it works out, we'll move at the end of August. !!!!!!!!!!!!! Details as they develop.

Last week, a huge National Conference for Media Reform was held St. Louis. Danny Schechter, "blogger-in chief" of the amazing MediaChannel , filed this report, called "Why We Need A Media and Democracy Act". My idea: A Media and Democracy Act to package proposals for an anti-trust program to break up media monopolies; a funding strategy for public broadcasting and the independent producing community (perhaps financed with a tax on advertising); reinstatement of an updated fairness doctrine; free broadcasts for political debate across the spectrum; limits on advertising and monitoring for honesty and accuracy; guarantees for media freedom in the public interest; media literacy education in our schools; provisions for free wireless; media training and access centers; more support for media arts, etc. This list is endless. No one group has the clout to put its priorities on the agenda without support from others, so why not make everyone a stakeholder in the proces...

I have a practical - totally non-political - question for the Canadians among us. Do you use a DVD rent-by-mail service? If so, which one, and do you like it? I am a complete Netflix addict. We both love movies - especially enjoyed without stupid people talking behind us. (Perhaps Canadian audiences are more considerate?) I love Netflix's great selection, the service is speedy, and if you watch a lot of movies, you can't beat the price ($17.99/month for unlimited rentals). Last year I read that Netflix was going to expand into Canada by early 2005, but apparently those plans have been postponed indefinitely. Checking around online, I found several competing Netflix-type services in Canada. I'm wondering if anyone has feedback on selection, speed of delivery, price, and so forth.

I learned today that CBGB , that Bowery institution where I discovered... oh, a lot of stuff... will likely close next year. It's a complete wonder that Hilly Kristal's palace has managed to survive so long, and it's not surprising that it has finally come to the end of the line after 32 years. (It does make me feel a little old, but that's ok.) I gleaned this NYC tidbit from an Op-Ed in last week's New York Times City section, called "Go To Brooklyn, Punk" , which I traced back to Tony Fletcher , who I confess I had never heard of before. Fletcher's piece is about New York's ever-changing - some would say ever- disappearing - music scene, forever forced to discover new neighborhoods as areas become too pricey. And then there's CBGB. When Hilly Kristal opened his Bowery bar in December 1973, the neighborhood was too dangerous to draw an audience for the club's promised country, bluegrass and blues. Instead, a new generation of downtown roc...

The Yankees are playing the Mets this weekend (boo, interleague!), and today's the game everyone's been waiting for: Pedro vs the Yankees. Here's how it looks from my little corner of the world: 1. I hate the Mets. I love to hate the Mets! Hating the Mets is like a national pastime for me. 2. I love Pedro Martinez. He's one of the many attractions that ushered me into Red Sox Nation. 3. I really like Willie Randolph, former Yankee, now the Mets manager. I've liked Willie from his playing days in the late 1970s, when I first got into baseball. Plus he's the first African-American manager in New York and I want him to do well. 4. I want the Yankees to lose. The more they lose this year, the happier I am. 5. I especially want the Yankees to be bested by Pedro, for reasons that should be obvious to most baseball fans. (And if you're not a fan, I won't bore you with the explanation.) 6. But I hate the Mets! What to do?!

Sometimes as children, we admire certain people, we have heroes, but when we grow up, we learn those people weren't very heroic. It turns out their public images were mainly myth, or their private lives were hateful, or worse, they didn't really achieve the feats they are credited with. But sometimes, the reverse happens: someone we admired as a child turns out to be even better than we imagined, and the more we learn, the larger their stature grows. I've had that experience with two of my childhood heroes: Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart. I was always fascinated with both these women. I read kids' biographies about them, saw documentaries, collected quotes, and just generally loved the idea of them, in a kid way. Imagine my joy and amazement when I learned that my idol Joni Mitchell identified with her , too. Now that I've learned much more about them, as an adult, I can truly say they are heroes. (If it seems I'm always referring to people as heroes, it...

"Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him." When I first read this story, I assumed you all saw it, too, and didn't need my take. And it was so sickening, I caught myself looking the other way. But after taking a few deep breaths, I feel an obligation to post it, just in case someone stumbles on it for the first time on this blog. The story I'm referring to is the details of the deaths of the Afghan prisoners, by torture at the hands of the US military, in the Bagram prison. And how the military tried to cover up those deaths. In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both. The army even admits that "most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar [one of the men tortured to death] w...

G alerted me to an excellent post at Are We Still A Democracy? . Apparently the White House press corps recently borrowed some courage and did their jobs. (You know I won't say the journalists found their balls. But anyone with evidence suggesting a correlation between testicles and courage is welcome to email me.) While over at AWSAD , you can read a wonderful quote from Ben Franklin, one of the US's more enlightened founders: "They that give up an essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

With threats of losing the 2012 Olympics (as if we're getting them anyway!), New Yorkers are being held hostage to backroom brokering among Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Robert Wood Johnson IV (known as "Woody"), the mayor's good friend who owns the Jets football team, the MTA, and the construction industry. What they are railroading us into is outrageous, even in this town. It's like something out of Tammany Hall days, but this time it's happening in public. The Stadium plan is insane. The city can't afford it, doesn't need it, will lose money from it, won't benefit from it in any way, and will suffer long-term problems because of it. But it will create some temporary construction jobs and will make Bloomberg and Woody very happy, so who cares. Please read what Bob Herbert has to say . Trust me, it's going to be a boondoggle of breathtaking proportions. Here's the first thing you need to know about the insanely expensive football stadium ($2.2 ...

That was the conclusion of the UN committee against torture about Canada. Canada and six other countries were up for review at the committee's latest session. The committee monitors compliance with the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Citing extradition and torture victim Maher Arar, the UN committee said Canada should do more to prevent extraditions where torture is a likely outcome. The committee also criticized Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act 2002 for what it described as a blanket exclusion of refugees and other people in need of protection. The new law, enacted almost a year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, allows for the removal of foreign nationals who constitute a danger to the public or the security of Canada. However, the Canadian report to the committee said "this is to be done only in exceptional circumstances and after the risk to the individual has...

...whose comments have been deleted: If you need to insult me, please do so from your own blog. As for liberals attacking conservatives, you won't find that here either. Since you've started off on the wrong foot, your comments will always be deleted.

Redsock posted this excellent excerpt from Greg Palast : Was there a problem with the [Newsweek] story? Certainly. If you want to split hairs, the inside-government source of the Koran desecration story now says he can't confirm which military report it appeared in. But he saw it in one report and a witness has confirmed that the Koran was defiled. Of course, there's an easy way to get at the truth. RELEASE THE REPORTS NOW. Hand them over, Mr. Rumsfeld, and let's see for ourselves what's in them. ... Despite its supposed new concern for hidden sources, let's note that Newsweek and the [Washington] Post have no trouble providing, even in the midst of this story, cover for secret Administration sources that are FAVORABLE to Bush. Editor Whitaker's retraction relies on "Administration officials" whose names he kindly withholds. ... As with CBS's retraction of Dan Rather's report on Bush's draft-dodging, Newsweek's diving to the mat on Gua...

For a time, I wrote about adoption issues, a topic that fell into my lap, not one I was led to from personal experience. I am not personally involved in any side of the "adoption triad" - as adoptee, birth mother or adoptive parent - but I spent a lot of time listening to people on all sides of the triangle, as well as professionals in the field. So this headline in yesterday's Toronto Star -"Adoptees vow to fight for access to records" - jumped out at me. Adults who were given up for adoption as children say they have an inherent right to know their birth name, and are vowing to fight any restrictions added to a bill that would unseal adoption records. For 78 years, adopted children have had no right to access basic information such as their name and birthday, and that must change, said Wendy Rowney, an adoptee and president of the support group Adoption, Support, Kinship. "This is a human right, and we will keep fighting until we have access to our own o...

So there won't be an election yet. Talk about a squeaker . Feel free to tell us how you feel about this, unless it's all been said already, then feel free not to. ALPF mustered his courage and sent more links, so I have some good commentary to post. I found this Macleans story on the Conservative party's reaction to Stronach's decision - and public reaction to that reaction - very interesting. Canadians seem almost universally turned off by the name-calling and sexist slurs. On the other hand, when a certain governor made his "girly men" pronouncement, his constituency howled with glee. (Which is not to say the rest of us weren't appalled.) The Macleans article also notes that not all the sexism came from politicians: Some of the most sexist characterizations of Stronach didn't come from her political adversaries, but from media. Montreal's La Presse newspaper ran a cartoon of Martin leaning out his car window to solicit a street-walking Stronach...

Check out this gif file! This is also a cool pic from the same blog, though only with the post title and commentary. Alone, and without irony, it's beyond nauseating: it's terrifying. Seems like an interesting Irishman, though I wish I read Gaelic.

Two quick links on the Koran desecration story and the Newsweek retraction: in The Progressive and the Boulder Daily Camera (original requires registration, so thank you Common Dreams). Good stuff.

You know I love books. I also have a thing for reference books. (Am I a geek, or what?) So naturally I love libraries. I always have. When I was a kid, when I walked into a library, I would sometimes get that spine-tingly, awed feeling that some people get when they walk into a church. If I have the chance to visit a really old or really vast library, like the one we saw at Trinity College in Dublin, I still will. As if this wasn't enough love, in these days of government censorship and spying, librarians are now also freedom fighters, leading the battle against the so-called Patriot Act. And so I dedicate this post to wmtc's resident librarian , who keeps the flame alive while battling bunheads on a daily basis. Librarian's brush with FBI shapes her view of the USA Patriot Act By Joan Airoldi It was a moment that librarians had been dreading. On June 8, 2004, an FBI agent stopped at the Deming branch of the Whatcom County Library System in northwest Washington and reques...

Whew! That was quite the discussion we had going on. Thanks for all your thoughts, your patience with each other, and your page views. However, you may have scared away ALPF ! I will await your return, my friend. Back in the discussion about racism (notice how the post wasn't even about racism?), Sassypants - who I believe is Sassycat wearing trousers - said : "I started to write a response about some of the stuff discussed here, and it really just sort of snowballed into a blog entry. A really really long one. So, go read it there, if you'd like." "There" is here . I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I will, as soon as I post this. Which reminds me: the rampant commenting and replying has taken me away from the blogs I try to read regularly. So if I've been absent from your discussions, it's your own fault! I plan on catching up at work this weekend. Also, someone left an interesting comment about breed-specific dog bans, way back here . ...

A liberal Texan brings us This Day in Alternate History . I'm kind of amazed. A lot of thought and creativity goes into this.

The right is falling all over themselves blaming the you-know-what media, and the government has Newsweek backed into a corner. I'm sure I don't need to link about this, commentary and innuendo is all over the internet. But Molly Ivins reminds us that the retracted story is essentially true. Uh, people, I hate to tell you this, but the story about Americans abusing the Koran in order to enrage prisoners has been out there for quite some time. The first mention I found of it is March 17, 2004, when the Independent of London interviewed the first British citizen released from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner said he had been physically beaten but did not consider that as bad as the psychological torture, which he described extensively. Jamal al-Harith, a computer programmer from Manchester, said 70 percent of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike after a guard kicked a copy of the Koran. The strike was ended by force-feeding. Then came the report, widely covered in American med...

Why are these women smiling? I've been reading some heart-wrenching stories lately, tales of human cruelty that defy comprehension. This victory in Kuwait is welcome and soothing. I can only imagine the celebration among the Kuwaiti activists! The story linked above is also a tale of human strength and survival. I read it in the New York Times Magazine a couple of weeks ago, and it's been captured here . Once again I say to myself: geography is destiny .

This blog sometimes morphs into a discussion board for intellectual and political discussion . I love it! I never imagined this would happen and couldn't have planned it if I tried. One thing I am continually impressed with is the quality and tone of discourse among the Canadians who post here. Why is it I've never had to delete and banish a Canadian poster? And the answer is not because I always agree with them. Julia B says : I have no interest in a leader who spends more time firing insults than promoting a platform, and no respect for a party whose members refer to a departing member (no matter the circumstance) publically as a "dipstick" and a "whore". And G concurred : Add to it the many members of the CPC party's insult-laden attacks on Belinda Stronach's decision to leave. No high road there. Far too often these guys sound like they belong in the playground - every day they prove themselves to be mere boys among men with the personal attac...

And there's a very interesting Canadian history lesson going on here . Someone called loneprimate said this: When I say that (English) Canada was founded by Americans, I don't mean the people you meet in, say, Kentucky today. I mean people with a certain set of experiences and assumptions, in common with others who lived in places that are today the United States, but had a different opinion of the necessity of the Empire, and moved to another part of North America to live in accordance with those opinions. In a way, that is exactly what Laura is doing, though not, I think, because she has some attachment to the Crown... but rather, to values being given the force of policy here, but not currently in the United States. In that, she is very much a Late Loyalist... the object of her loyalty may be different, but the tradition is a long and honourable one, and she and Allan are treading a path northward well-worn by the feet of hundreds of thousands of their countrymen over the c...

Procrastinating - no, letting my work sit before editing! - I found this very cool blog: Canadian Cynic . Through CC, I found Skeptico , who has some amazing links. Warning: contains material offensive to the reverent. Atheists, agnostics and skeptics, enjoy!

There's a great discussion of racism going on here . I really appreciate the different perspectives people bring to the table. Sassycat has a particularly interesting take, having grown up in Canada and New Hampshire, currently living in Florida.

Not everyone thinks the Conservative government is a lock. Canada's opposition Conservative Party, which is set to bring down the minority Liberal government later this week, was hit by a new opinion poll on Monday that showed it was trailing in the country's most vote-rich region. The Leger Marketing poll for the Sun chain of newspapers put support for the Liberals in the powerful central province of Ontario at 43 percent compared with 31 percent for the Conservatives. Ontario, a Liberal stronghold at the federal level for the past 12 years, accounts for 106 of the 308 seats in House of Commons, and no party can hope to form a government without doing well there. . . . Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals have been badly hurt by a corruption scandal and Conservative leader Stephen Harper says the government must be defeated as soon as possible. The Leger figures, however, suggest there is no guarantee Harper can end 12 years of Liberal rule. Thanks, ALPF! I must say, I...

I know I'm blogging out of control today. Maybe I'll skip tomorrow, but right now I've got to bring you Paul Krugman , because I know you can't find him without me! Is there any point, now that November's election is behind us, in revisiting the history of the Iraq war? Yes: any path out of the quagmire will be blocked by people who call their opponents weak on national security, and portray themselves as tough guys who will keep America safe. So it's important to understand how the tough guys made America weak. Krugman links to the Downing Street Memo and says: In other words, the people who got us into Iraq have done exactly what they falsely accused Bill Clinton of doing: they have stripped America of its capacity to respond to real threats." So what's the plan? The people who sold us this war continue to insist that success is just around the corner, and that things would be fine if the media would just stop reporting bad news. But the administrati...

A friend and loyal wmtc reader sent me two Canada-related items from The Economist . (Thank you!) The first is a letter to the editor, in reply to a story on the EU. A man in Toronto writes: Canada Belongs In Europe I believe that the citizens of the European Union would be best served if the next expansion of the EU was not to the east but rather to the west, to incorporate Canada ("Now that we are all bundled inside, let's shut the door", April 30th). While this notion might seem odd at first, a little investigation would show that the vast majority of Canadians claim ancestry from the nations of the EU and Canada's cultural, social and economic policies are very similar to those of Europe. Access to NAFTA as well as Canada's natural resources, such as oil and gas, holds obvious advantages for our European brethren. Equally, Canada's easy access to Europe would be just as beneficial to Canada. It is time for Canada to petition the EU for membership. The adv...