Poetry Corner

The Important Thing, Right, Right?

Oh, what a tangled web we weave ...

If you missed Christy Clark's epic fail on Global BC's News Hour on Wednesday, it starts at the 27 minute mark here: http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/index.html?releasePID=kTEy0ztIEtrXGeDpaWPCPW1MUkDnKcYo

And in case you've missed it, the documents Global's Marisa Thomas refers to in the clip, which contradict Christy's version of her role in the sale of BC Rail, are laid out at the blog of the courageous Alex G . Tsakumis, who is doing the vital but dangerous (gets you threatened, makes you unpopular) work the sunset media don't have the sack for.

Canada Sucks: Episode MMDCCLXI

Why not have a panel study whether we should be permitted to hear a song?

Methinks She Doth Protesteth Too Much

Former Gordie Campbell Cabinet Minister, liberal party du canerduh apparatchik, and erstwhile CKNW show host Christy Clark seems more and more desperate to avoid a full public inquiry into the sale of BC Rail, the stench from which rivals the raw sewage Victoria dumps into the saltchuck. BC Rail was of course, sold off (like so much of BC) by Gordie and his crew, during Christy's time aboard.
In the unlikely event you're beginning to suspect Christy's leveling with us on all this, then you clearly haven't been following the Basi Files series on the (highly recommended) blog of the courageous Alex G. Tsakumis. Here's the latest installment - Chapter X: A Done Deal. The earlier posts are in his Archives.
Read it all and then start demanding a full public inquiry; hell, let's get out and march in the streets.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Tour Iran

Mr Delaney Comes A'courtin'

and he wants your vote

By now you've heard of the new BC First Party. I don't know what to make of these guys. They seem to stand for everything, which usually winds up meaning they stand for nothing in particular.
I like the name. That won't surprise anyone. I like the first principle stated:

1. A BC first approach that will protect and promote the interests of British Columbia and its "citizens" (quotes mine) as the first priority.

If they mean BC's answer to the PQ, without all the socialists, great, I'm all for it.
Then they come with:

2. Limited constitutional government based on consent of the governed.
3. Government that is accountable to the people with workable Initiative, Recall and Referenda enshrined in a BC Constitution.
4. A free, open and competitive private sector as the primary engine of economic activity and growth.

Well, we were going just great until "primary engine" caught my eye. This would seem to indicate a 'mixed' economy approach, that old canerdian 'just a pinch of collectivism' thing. Mix a quart of ice cream and a pint of dog shit and the result will taste more like dog shit than ice cream. Then, blame the bad taste on the ice cream and add more dog shit ...
Same old same old.

5. A social conscience that protects the most vulnerable in society and provides care for those in need.

Oh good, they're 'compassionate'. I was frightened they might not be. /sarc

6. A universal health care system that is efficient, affordable and of the highest quality.

They can make that work at last. Uh huh.

7. A world class education system that is accessible, affordable and respects diversity.

See above. And you gotta love the 'diversity' bit. If by 'love' we mean 'feel faintly nauseated by.'

8. Fiscally responsible government that lives within its means.

No problem, aside from 5, 6, and 7 above making that impossible. Really. Sounds good. *snort*
Not a great first impression I'm afraid. We'll see. Heaven knows I'm desperate for an alternative.


http://www.bcfirst.ca/

For Gordie Campbell

Don't let the screen door hit ya in the ass, Gordie.

Idiots, Useful and Otherwise

" ... And now let's really hear it for those two giants of sanity - Mr John "Ozzie" "Frybrain" Osbourne and the Ayatollah's pal - Steven Cat Yusuf Georgiou Stevens Islam - who hasn't burned Salman Rushdie or stoned any women to death for adultery - yet - as far as I know - but hey - the day's not over - right, Yo? We'll see what we can do for ya! ..."

Yes, This Is About Islam

By SALMAN RUSHDIE
November 2, 2001

LONDON -- "This isn't about Islam." The world's leaders have been repeating this mantra for weeks, partly in the virtuous hope of deterring reprisal attacks on innocent Muslims living in the West, partly because if the United States is to maintain its coalition against terror it can't afford to suggest that Islam and terrorism are in any way related.
The trouble with this necessary disclaimer is that it isn't true. If this isn't about Islam, why the worldwide Muslim demonstrations in support of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda? Why did those 10,000 men armed with swords and axes mass on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, answering some mullah's call to jihad? Why are the war's first British casualties three Muslim men who died fighting on the Taliban side?
Why the routine anti-Semitism of the much-repeated Islamic slander that "the Jews" arranged the hits on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with the oddly self-deprecating explanation offered by the Taliban leadership, among others, that Muslims could not have the technological know-how or organizational sophistication to pull off such a feat? Why does Imran Khan, the Pakistani ex-sports star turned politician, demand to be shown the evidence of Al Qaeda's guilt while apparently turning a deaf ear to the self-incriminating statements of Al Qaeda's own spokesmen (there will be a rain of aircraft from the skies, Muslims in the West are warned not to live or work in tall buildings)? Why all the talk about American military infidels desecrating the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia if some sort of definition of what is sacred is not at the heart of the present discontents?
Of course this is "about Islam." The question is, what exactly does that mean? After all, most religious belief isn't very theological. Most Muslims are not profound Koranic analysts. For a vast number of "believing" Muslim men, "Islam" stands, in a jumbled, half-examined way, not only for the fear of God — the fear more than the love, one suspects — but also for a cluster of customs, opinions and prejudices that include their dietary practices; the sequestration or near-sequestration of "their" women; the sermons delivered by their mullahs of choice; a loathing of modern society in general, riddled as it is with music, godlessness and sex; and a more particularized loathing (and fear) of the prospect that their own immediate surroundings could be taken over — "Westoxicated" — by the liberal Western-style way of life.
Highly motivated organizations of Muslim men (oh, for the voices of Muslim women to be heard!) have been engaged over the last 30 years or so in growing radical political movements out of this mulch of "belief." These Islamists — we must get used to this word, "Islamists," meaning those who are engaged upon such political projects, and learn to distinguish it from the more general and politically neutral "Muslim" — include the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the blood-soaked combatants of the Islamic Salvation Front and Armed Islamic Group in Algeria, the Shiite revolutionaries of Iran, and the Taliban. Poverty is their great helper, and the fruit of their efforts is paranoia. This paranoid Islam, which blames outsiders, "infidels," for all the ills of Muslim societies, and whose proposed remedy is the closing of those societies to the rival project of modernity, is presently the fastest growing version of Islam in the world.
This is not wholly to go along with Samuel Huntington's thesis about the clash of civilizations, for the simple reason that the Islamists' project is turned not only against the West and "the Jews," but also against their fellow Islamists. Whatever the public rhetoric, there's little love lost between the Taliban and Iranian regimes. Dissensions between Muslim nations run at least as deep, if not deeper, than those nations' resentment of the West. Nevertheless, it would be absurd to deny that this self-exculpatory, paranoiac Islam is an ideology with widespread appeal.
Twenty years ago, when I was writing a novel about power struggles in a fictionalized Pakistan, it was already de rigueur in the Muslim world to blame all its troubles on the West and, in particular, the United States. Then as now, some of these criticisms were well-founded; no room here to rehearse the geopolitics of the cold war and America's frequently damaging foreign policy "tilts," to use the Kissinger term, toward (or away from) this or that temporarily useful (or disapproved-of) nation-state, or America's role in the installation and deposition of sundry unsavory leaders and regimes. But I wanted then to ask a question that is no less important now: Suppose we say that the ills of our societies are not primarily America's fault, that we are to blame for our own failings? How would we understand them then? Might we not, by accepting our own responsibility for our problems, begin to learn to solve them for ourselves?
Many Muslims, as well as secularist analysts with roots in the Muslim world, are beginning to ask such questions now. In recent weeks Muslim voices have everywhere been raised against the obscurantist hijacking of their religion. Yesterday's hotheads (among them Yusuf Islam, a k a Cat Stevens) are improbably repackaging themselves as today's pussycats.
An Iraqi writer quotes an earlier Iraqi satirist: "The disease that is in us, is from us." A British Muslim writes, "Islam has become its own enemy." A Lebanese friend, returning from Beirut, tells me that in the aftermath of the attacks on Sept. 11, public criticism of Islamism has become much more outspoken. Many commentators have spoken of the need for a Reformation in the Muslim world.
I'm reminded of the way noncommunist socialists used to distance themselves from the tyrannical socialism of the Soviets; nevertheless, the first stirrings of this counterproject are of great significance. If Islam is to be reconciled with modernity, these voices must be encouraged until they swell into a roar. Many of them speak of another Islam, their personal, private faith.
The restoration of religion to the sphere of the personal, its depoliticization, is the nettle that all Muslim societies must grasp in order to become modern. The only aspect of modernity interesting to the terrorists is technology, which they see as a weapon that can be turned on its makers. If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based, and without which Muslim countries' freedom will remain a distant dream.

Belated Birthday Greetings, Mr President

Guns, Guns, Guns

Steve Lee rocks.

Meanwhile, over at calgunlaws.com Don B. Kates and Prof. Carlyle Moody explain that its okay to like guns; guns are very likable when one gets to know them. For example:

MORE & BETTER GUNS = LESS CRIME; EUROPEAN HISTORY

Afghan Democracy Update

Afghanistan should have been nuked pt MCXXXVIII

"KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban on Sunday ordered their first public executions by stoning since their fall from power nine years ago, killing a young couple who had eloped, according to Afghan officials and a witness. ...

Mr. Khan estimated that about 200 villagers participated in the executions, including Khayyam’s father and brother, and Siddiqa’s brother, as well as other relatives ...

“People were very happy seeing this,” Mr. Khan maintained, saying the crowd was festive and cheered during the stoning. ..."

Always remember, folks, NATO troops are dying and your taxes are paying to bring the light of civilization to the Afs, a fool's errand since Alexander.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/world/asia/17stoning.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=stoning&st=cse