Dawg's Blawg

No E-mails please

2009-11-21T20:55:00.007-05:00

Damn - I see that the good Doctor beat me to it! Well, since we are all talking about the hacked e-mails from the CRU, I suppose I should post about it as well. There are three points that I want to raise.

First, I think this is one of the most despicable acts I have come across. The e-mails contained personal opinions and observations. Who among us has never written an e-mail which they would not want someone else to read. Regardless of what you think of the content, you have to give full credit to the way they have handled the broadcasting of such personal information.

Second, from what I have seen, there is no smoking gun here and the documents have been around long enough for someone to develop a searchable index of them. To begin with these appear to be a sample (and a small sample) from e-mails involving a number of people over a period of about 10 years. Without all the e-mails a great deal of context is lost. This means that the remaining posts are misunderstood.

Just one example (although others will probably come up in comments) it is claimed that the e-mails show that:

Prior to AR3 Briffa talks of pressure to produce a tidy picture of "apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data".

While this appears to paint Dr, Briffa in a bad light, the actual e-mail provides more context:

>through high CO2 or nitrate input) . I know there is pressure to
>present a nice tidy story as regards 'apparent unprecedented
>warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data' but in
>reality the situation is not quite so simple. We don't have a
>lot of proxies that come right up to date and those that do (at
>least a significant number of tree proxies) some unexpected
>changes in response that do not match the recent warming. I
>do not think it wise that this issue be ignored in the chapter.

So what Dr. Briffa actually says is that the "story" is not tidy and it should not be presented as such.

Third, and most important, there is nothing in here that even begins to address, let alone challenge, the underlying science of global warming. Nothing that says we're not causing CO2 to rise, nothing that shows that our understanding of radiation physics is wrong, nothing that says the natural greenhouse effect is wrong.

My prediction is that nothing of substance will be found in the e-mails and in a month the big story is how the media and others ignore the "clear proof" of fraud. To those loyal readers who are still with me, here is a bonus link. I won't provide any description except to say it is related to the topic of this post.

Conservative Party logo, updated

2009-11-21T20:36:00.002-05:00

[H/t]

The Great Global Warming Conspi...whoops

2009-11-21T19:57:00.004-05:00

One of the usual dolts asks, "Where's Dawg?"

Here I am, after faithfully observing the 24-hour rule. Don't you wish you and your cadre of bloviating denialists had done the same?

You've had your day. Great big searchable files. Where's the smoke? Where's the gun?

Any proof climate change isn't taking place? Any proof that AGW isn't happening? Any proof of fraud? Any proof of a cover-up? Any proof of a conspiracy?

Well, er, no. So you're reduced to empty rhetorical manoeuvres, like parsing the word "trick" for all you're worth.

Nice trick.

In a 1999 e-mail exchange about charts showing climate patterns over the last two millenniums, Phil Jones, a longtime climate researcher at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit, said he had used a “trick” employed by another scientist, Michael Mann, to “hide the decline” in temperatures.

Dr. Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University, confirmed in an interview that the e-mail message was real. He said the choice of words by his colleague was poor but noted that scientists often used the word “trick” to refer to a good way to solve a problem, “and not something secret.”

At issue were sets of data, both employed in two studies. One data set showed long-term temperature effects on tree rings; the other, thermometer readings for the past 100 years.

Through the last century, tree rings and thermometers show a consistent rise in temperature until 1960, when some tree rings, for unknown reasons, no longer show that rise, while the thermometers continue to do so until the present.

Dr. Mann explained that the reliability of the tree-ring data was called into question, so they were no longer used to track temperature fluctuations. But he said dropping the use of the tree rings was never something that was hidden, and had been in the scientific literature for more than a decade. “It sounds incriminating, but when you look at what you’re talking about, there’s nothing there,” Dr. Mann said.

In addition, other independent but indirect measurements of temperature fluctuations in the studies broadly agreed with the thermometer data showing rising temperatures.

Here's what one of the denialist meemies has to say (and note the venue).

Here's what the saner folks are saying:

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

Surprise, surprise. Scientists dispute, tussle with data, have a low opinion of cranks.

And this CRU hack is supposed to herald "The Death Blow to Climate Science?" It's "not a smoking gun [but] a mushroom cloud"?

Good grief, get hold of yourselves.

Meanwhile the melting--and the real science--continue.

The Maple Leafs

2009-11-21T14:54:00.001-05:00

...forever.

A couple of winters ago we had more snow in Ottawa than most folks could remember. We suffered, and shoveled, and grumbled, as windrows grew to twenty feet or so. Then we learned that we were literally inches from the all-time snowfall record.

You guessed it. We prayed for a storm that would put us over. (And it didn't come!)

Go, Leafs. I just can't seem to wrench my gaze away.

Brother Gil

2009-11-20T14:21:00.002-05:00

I can't add a single word to this moving tribute to my union brother (although sometimes he seemed more like an uncle) Gil Levine, a legendary trade unionist in these parts.

A mensch indeed. Rest easy, old friend.

Ñakaq attack

2009-11-20T12:30:00.004-05:00

A bizarre story out of Peru today--with the backstory almost entirely missing, and the lede truly buried.

Police say a gang in the Peruvian jungle has been killing people and draining fat from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics, although medical experts say they doubt a major market for fat exists.

Three suspects confessed to killing five people, but the gang may have been involved in dozens more, said Col. Jorge Mejia, chief of Peru's anti-kidnapping police. He said one suspect claimed the gang wasn't the only one doing such killings.

Col. Mejia said Mr. Castillejos recounted how the gang cut off its victims' heads, arms and legs, removed the organs, then suspended the torsos from hooks above candles that warmed the flesh as fat dripped into tubs below.

Six members of the gang remain at large, Col. Mejia said. Among them was the band's alleged leader, Hilario Cudena, 56, who Mr. Castillejos told police has been killing people to extract human fat for more than three decades.

--

Col. Mejia said police received a tip four months ago that human fat from the jungle was being sold in Lima. In August, he said, police infiltrated the band and later obtained some of the amber fluid, which a police lab confirmed as human fat.

On Nov. 3, police arrested Serapio Marcos Veramendi and Enedina Estela in a Lima bus station with a litre of human fat in a soda bottle. Their testimony led to the arrest of Mr. Castillejos three days later at the same bus station.

And then:

Police dubbed the gang the “Pishtacos” after a Peruvian myth dating to pre-Columbian times of men who killed to extract human fat, quartering their victims with machetes. [emphasis added]

Here is more--a lot more--about the pishtacos (pistaku), an alternate word for a monstrous figure in folk mythology in Peru: the ñaqak, Quechua for "slaughterer" or "sacrificer". (I'll return to that throwaway word "mythology" below.)

According to anthropologist Peter Gose's 1986 paper "Sacrifice and the Commodity Form in the Andes,"* the ñaqak is a fearsome figure, very often (but not always) a fair-skinned person residing locally. In the crudest version of the story, the ñaqak lies in wait on country roads to kill unwary travellers, hastens them back to a cave or mineshaft, and hangs them on hooks upside-down, catching their fat in receptacles.

More recently, variants of the tale include the use of a special machine from the US to extract the fat more efficiently. The grease thus collected has several applications: in metallurgy, for lubricating machinery, and in pharmaceuticals. (It is easy to see why a number of commentators have been tempted to see the ñaqak and his practices as a metaphorical rendition of global capitalism, although Gose, in his dense and complex analysis, disagrees.)

Virtually every visiting ethnographer in rural Peru has at one time or another been suspected of being a ñaqak. A mestizo truck driver told Gose that he had picked up a Japanese medical student once, who began to make "discrete inquiries" about obtaining human grease in the area.

The first notion of a grease-gathering demon is in fact post-Columbian, emerging during an uprising against the Spanish called the Singing Sickness that occurred in the period 1564-71. The Indians believed that a certain illness had broken out in Spain, and that Spaniards in Peru had been sent to collect their grease as a curative.

Beth A. Conklin, in Consuming Grief: compassionate cannibalism in an Amazonian society, raises the possibility that this could have been grounded to some degree in actual European practices. The consumption of bodily substances for health reasons was commonplace then, although it was never considered "cannibalism." K. Gordon-Grube notes** that the purchase of the fresh blood of prisoners who had died on the scaffold--thought to be a curative for epilepsy--was a feature of the culturescape at the time. And so was the consumption of "mummy," especially from those who had met violent deaths.

But continuing on with the account:

Dr. Adam Katz, a professor of plastic surgery at the University of Virginia medical school, was incredulous when told about the Peruvian ring.

“I can't see why there would be a black market for fat,” he said. “It doesn't make any sense at all, because in most countries we can get fat so readily and in such amounts from people who are willing and ready to donate that I don't see why there would ever be a black market for fat, of all tissues.”

"It doesn't make any sense at all." And yet, oddly, it does. There is a perfect blend here of mythology and "reality" in all of these accounts, wherein it becomes impossible to separate out one from the other. Put a different way, the two categories have no "objective," fixed ontological status.

Perhaps the "origin" of the "myth" was a onetime European demand for bodily substances. Perhaps the Japanese medical student was imagined; perhaps he existed, knew of the local tales, and thought there might indeed be a store of human fat around. Perhaps the gang in today's news story believed in the tale enough to recreate it. Perhaps they are innocent, given the implausibility of a black market in human fat.

But there are points, as this story illustrates, at which the useful commonplace distinction we make between myth and fact, between metaphor and "reality," is revealed to be a construct. And it is precisely at such points that we have the opportunity to reflect more fully, and with much less of a sense of certainty, on the human condition.

References:

*Gose, Peter
1986 "Sacrifice and the Commodity Form in the Andes." Man, New Series, v.21:2, 296-310.

**Gordon-Grube, K.
1988 "Anthropophagy in Post-Renaissance Europe: The Tradition of Medicinal Cannibalism." American Anthropologist, v.90, 405-9.

[H/t]

Torturegate: the Liberal leader's vanishing act

2009-11-19T12:45:00.006-05:00

The Liberals drop the ball again.

The Invisible Man is too busy reconnecting, it seems, even if he never actually connected in the first place. His descent into utter irrelevance continues.

Man with a conscience

2009-11-19T11:28:00.013-05:00

Everything has by now been dragged into the sunlight. The Harper government, beyond all reasonable doubt, has been complicit in the torture of Afghan civilians, and the Canadian Forces' leadership and assorted conniving bureaucrats have joined this government in their complicity, and assisted it in trying to cover it up.

I have little to add. But I would like to salute the man who blew the whistle on these banal evildoers--Richard Colvin:

Counter-insurgency is an argument to win the support of the locals. Every action, reaction or failure to act become part of the debate. In Kandahar, Canada needs to convince local people that we are better than the Taliban, that our values were superior, that we would look after their interests and protect them. In my judgment, some of our actions in Kandahar, including complicity in torture, turned local people against us. Instead of winning hearts and minds, we caused Kandaharis to fear the foreigners. Canada’s detainee practices alienated us from the population and strengthened the insurgency.

Putting aside his career aspirations, refusing to keep silent, refusing to be silenced, Colvin held nothing back yesterday on Parliament Hill. A righteous man, surrounded on all sides by excuse-makers, cover-up artists and venal politicians, finally permitted to speak after the government had attempted to gag him--and heckled for his trouble by brainless Conservative magpies.

Colvin stands for all of the values that we as Canadians allegedly share, but too often put aside out of convenience, fear or apathy. Those who would attack this man's credibility merely shred the last remnants of their own.

Richard Colvin is a man who can sleep soundly at night, and who can look at himself in the mirror when morning comes.

Kudos.

UPDATE: The Conservatives further debase themselves:

MacKay painted Colvin as having been duped by the Taliban and said Canadians are being asked to accept the word of prisoners "who throw acid in the face of schoolgirls."
--
Conservative MPs dismissed Colvin's testimony as being based on second- and third-hand information and suggested his allegations were part of a disinformation campaign. [emphases added]

More at Impolitical. Excellent collection of background links from Aaron Wherry, via POGGE.

And still no word from former human rights advocate Michael Ignatieff. Nor, come to think of it, from the Torchers.

UPDATE: (November 20) Damian Brooks, of The Torch, has put up a post on the issue. His interview with the CBC, in a quasi-debate format, may be found here.

There ain't no-flys on me

2009-11-18T10:53:00.002-05:00

...yet.

For the gentle folks who wondered if I was overreacting by suing for a retraction recently, this news:

Transport Canada maintains its own no-fly list. The people in charge of your fate consist of a troika of representatives from CSIS, the RCMP and Transport Canada, and a Deputy Minister who was, at least until last February, "signing [recommendations] in a completely blind fashion." Decisions are not subject to appeal.

Once again, as in the case of a woman found guilty by a bank teller of depositing a small cheque, the swarthy are at special risk. Consider the case of Canadian author and playwright Jaspreet Singh, who was subject to lengthy and intimidating interrogations by airport security officials to the point that he had to cancel out of attending two literary festivals.

Ever-helpful Air Canada staff suggested that he change his name. Don't laugh. Some folks actually end up doing just that. See the security problem here?

It took a lot of personal lobbying on Singh's part, and an outcry in the artistic community, to get airport security off his back. It seems that a "J. Singh" was included in the Transport Canada list. To get an idea of just how mind-numbingly stupid this is, check your telephone book. "Singh" is a more common surname among Sikhs than "Smith" is for anglos. The Ottawa telephone directory alone lists no fewer than ten "J. Singh"s.

This sort of onomastic racial profiling, not surprisingly, is common south of the border, whence our own securibots seem to get all their ideas.

A full report from the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group on the operation of the Transport Canada no-fly list will be issued in three weeks. I can hardly wait.

The Prisoner [updated]

2009-11-17T22:02:00.000-05:00

The remake of the cult series that starred Patrick McGoohan, he of the one facial expression, begins tonight on AMC, continuing tomorrow and finishing Tuesday. I'm looking forward to it.

I watched "The Prisoner" originally as a re-run on TVO (or was it PBS?), avoiding most of Warner Troyer's insufferably pretentious post-show commentaries (a parasitical series called "The Prisoner Puzzle"). For once I just wanted to watch, not analyze. But no doubt I'll have some insufferably pretentious things of my own to say at the end of the three-part opus.

In the first series, a secret agent found himself in an odd and alarming place called The Village, where people had numbers, not names. The agent was Number 6. Why was he there? Supposedly because he resigned abruptly from the shadowy government outfit he worked for, and The Powers That Be wanted to know why. So various TPTB minions, a veritable parade of fungible Number 2's, tried ingeniously to worm it out of him, at what must have been a considerable cost to the taxpayer. Why didn't they just torture him? Wouldn't that have been cheaper, more efficient and the way real agencies of that sort behave?

But of course we are actually dealing with our existential plight in a world of simulacra and signs. (There I go.) So the re-make effortlessly replaces the secret agent with a corporate consumer-trends spotter. The same questions, however, apply:

Are we free or controlled? Do we think our thoughts or do we only think we think them and they are really put in our minds by others? Is love real or a product being sold to us? And so on.

The ghost of Jean Baudrillard--the godfather of The Matrix, even if he thought the movie got him wrong--will likely tune in tonight, and so should you, my fellow Villagers.

Comments on the series as it unfolds are strongly encouraged by Number 1.

UPDATE: (November 17)

Good grief, how flabby was that?

A combination of David Lynch's myriad loose ends in Twin Peaks, making the inability to construct a coherent narrative into a virtue, and the moralistic stupor of The Outer Limits. I half-expected a voiceover to read us the lesson of the day.

Worst remake ever. Anyone catch the hommage to the original? Hint: it was in the strip club.

The war against terror, Ch.3014

2009-11-17T14:23:00.002-05:00

In which our banks give whole new meaning to the word "teller."

Depositing a cheque could see Canadians entered into a government database of suspicious financials based on the colour of their skin and the whims of the local teller, warns Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, according to one of two new audits released today.

The commissioner audited the little-known Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) and found it was collecting more information that it is allowed to by law. In one case, an individual deposited a cheque from a law firm yet was entered into the database because of a notification by the bank.

“The institution was satisfied that the individual had provided legitimate reasons for the source of funds, but decided to notify FINTRAC anyway because of the individual's ethnic origin and the fact that his [sic] person had visited a particular country,” states a press release from the commission. [Emphasis mine]

Why bother with state surveillance when we can just report on each other? From bank to databank with the touch of a keyboard. From facecrime to skincrime in a mere quarter-century!

[H/t commenter Holly Stick].

Hasbara by juxtaposition

2009-11-17T11:35:00.011-05:00

One story is a report on anti-Semitic graffiti sprayed by vandals in Calgary, the city of whites-only nightclubs and apparently a place for up-and-coming Nazis to prosper. No surprises there. Nevertheless, Calgary Police Inspector Richard Hinse is being prudent:

This could be kids who have no hate in their hearts to have done something like this or it could be a group that does. So really it's classifying this after we've had a chance to talk to those who have committed it.

And nestled right in there alongside, the foolish commentary of a witness appearing at the bogus "inquiry" being run by HUAC North:

ANTI-SEMITIC VIEWS GOING 'MAINSTREAM'

OTTAWA–Anti-Semitism is creeping from the shadows into the mainstream and even onto university campuses, a parliamentary committee heard Monday.

U.S. experts told the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism that officials in some countries and even students are using anti-Israel tirades to mask their anti-Jewish views.

--

The experts pointed to the rise of rallies against so-called Israeli apartheid at Canadian universities. Supporters argue they're denouncing Israeli policies. [emphases added]

Geddit? Critics of Israel are the same as Nazis.

Stay classy, Star. We keep Stephen Harper around for that sort of thing.

UPDATE: (November 18) Via commenter Holly Stick, this classic example of political symbiosis. Stephen Harper is now out to paint the Liberals as "anti-Semitic," as he trolls for votes in Jewish districts.

And more hasbara follies, as the Jewish Tribune "reports":

B’nai Brith Canada was overwhelmed by the positive feedback it received as a result of the public service announcement waking up Canadians to the dangers confronting us as a result of radical Islam.

It would appear that Canadians were waiting for a leading human rights organization to come forward and finally tell it like it really is. The phone calls and emails have been most encouraging and pleading with us to continue this proactive advocacy. [emphasis added]

Maintiens le droit

2009-11-17T10:44:00.002-05:00

"[W]orse than watching the Dziekanski tape."

That's how Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, describes watching an edited version of a video shot in 2003 in which a Metis man, Clayton Alvin Willey, is knocked to the ground by RCMP officers, hogtied, kicked in the chest, pepper-sprayed and repeatedly Tasered.

Willey died. A coroner cleared the officers in 2004, even though the video had been entered into evidence. A writer researching aboriginal deaths in police custody brought the video to Phillip's attention.

Willey's surviving family has provided a signed authorization requesting the release of the video by the Mounties. The RCMP has declined--citing "privacy concerns."

Trash talk

2009-11-17T10:02:00.004-05:00

Those pesky opponents of the foreign occupation of Afghanistan are due once again, it seems, for a ritual denunciation, and a couple of bloggers, Terry "War is ~~not~~ the answer" Glavin and one who shall remain nameless, have mounted their Stalinist podia to oblige.

Glavin's target is the outspoken Afghan feminist Malalai Joya, of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), an undergound organization that brought the hideous misogyny of the Taliban to light back when the West was frying other fish. Her sin is that she opposes foreign troops in her country, sees the problems in Afghanistan as ones for the Afghans themselves to solve, opposes Hamid Karzai and his misogynist warlord allies, and, uppity woman that she is, will just not shut up about it.

So the whole tiresome rhetorical apparatus of character assassination is dutifully wheeled in. Joya is marginal, she's sectarian, she doesn't know how to behave, and besides, she never did anything anyway (setting up an underground school for girls when the Taliban was in charge, taking on the misogynist warlords still running much of the country and withstanding five assassination attempts in the process, don't seem to count).

Here is how his nasty little piece begins:

"Bravest woman in Afghanistan" my ass, Brian Platt, my colleague at the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee, observes.

Platt was incensed, apparently, because his attempt to monopolize a question period during a public meeting with her was, after ten minutes or so, objected to by other members of the audience. Now he's mumbling about her in his lair, claiming, inter alia, that she thinks the war in Afghanistan is "all about oil." (It's not, and I don't believe she has ever said any such thing, but I'm prepared to stand corrected.)

Anyway, Glavin's screed is all downhill from there.

I'm familiar with feminist politics here at home over the past several decades, and they can get pretty wrangy at times (indeed the word "internecine" has come to mind on occasion), so I'm not surprised that there are widely divergent, even antagonistic, factions within the Afghan women's movement. I have no idea whether Joya's tactics are truly counterproductive, nor what her (and RAWA's) overall strategy might be. What I do know is that she has taken substantial personal risks--of a kind that Glavin likely can't even imagine--to stand up to the mediaeval theocrats in her homeland, whether they be the old Taliban or the kinder, gentler Taliban now in office.

For that one might imagine that she deserves respect. Instead, an old white male, snug as a bug on the west coast, who knows what's best for Afghan women, sneers in contempt.

Now, if there's one thing I (another old white male) have learned in the past thirty years or so, it's best to let the women figure out their differences themselves instead of, if you will, horning in. I have no doubt whatsoever that some of the other women mentioned by Glavin and Platt, ones like Sima Samar who have a more qualified approach to the presence of Canadian troops in their country, have made substantial contributions to the well-being of girls and women in Afghanistan. And perhaps RAWA has no clear plan about reconstruction in the event of a troop withdrawal. I don't know. Neither, frankly, does Glavin, unless he speaks better Dari and Pashto than I. But he doesn't hold back:

In Afghanistan, Joya is dimly remembered for these things, but is otherwise beautifully useless, and is in fact understood as largely an invention of the western media, anyway. For all the stenography that accompanies her travels in the masquerade of "journalism" in western capitals, it isn't at all clear what her real story is. Malalai Joya isn't even her real name.

That little throwaway comment at the end gives you the full measure of the man. Here's what he didn't tell you:

Malalai Joya is not her real name. She chose that name after returning to Afghanistan during the Taliban era in order to protect her family. She does not like to speak about her family because she fears for their safety. She only says that they live in Afghanistan, but not in the Farah province.

Even the identity of her husband, who she wed in 2005, just a few months before winning her seat in parliament, is unknown. She says that before they married, he knew that her political struggle was her priority, and that she could be assassinated at any moment. Nevertheless, he married her. Sometimes he stays with her at the homes of her relatives and friends. They live lives that are far from ordinary.

Turning now from this highly literate character ninja to one less gifted, I merely quote without comment:

Although we often think of those outside our borders as the enemy, the insurgents in Afghanistan who plant IED’s in the hopes of killing our soldiers, or the foreign jihadis who fight a religious war against the west, some of the most effective enemies exist right here within our borders. These people refer to themselves as anti-war activists, or anti-racists, or social justice activists; but really their goals are all very similar. They are people like Naomi Klein, socialist anarchists who use any means necessary to undermine our success as a nation, and the prominence of western civilization’s accomplishments.

--

The enemy exists within. And given their proximity to us, I’d say they’re more dangerous than the radicals we fight 10,000 kilometres away.

--

As for the Luton crowd, they had nothing of value to say. They were nothing more than disturbers of the peace. They made a mockery of their “free speech” by testifying as to their hatred of it. If there were any justice, the protesters would have been deported.

--

How legitimate is it, however, to listen to immigrants who use our freedoms as a shield to undermine everything we stand for?

As is the case with my frequent B'nai Brith commenter Harry Abrams, sometimes it's best just to let these folks speak for themselves. Anything we might say in response runs the risk of being superfluous, even condescending to the audience. Res ipsa loquitur, then--but by all means avail yourselves of the combox.

UPDATE: Reader Alison alerts us to an interview with Joya at The Tyee.

Fun with VISA

2009-11-16T19:19:00.008-05:00

Bad enough trying to find what is effectively a last-minute flight to transport my stepson (presently at college in Whitehorse) home from the Yukon for the holidays. Aeroplan almost laughed at me, and I can't say I blame them. My tardiness was not entirely my fault, but I won't get into that.

Using my points being out of the question, I soon found an on-line seat sale outfit, flightnetwork.com. Turned out that there were at least ten seats available for the to and fro legs. Not cheap, but not outrageous either. I picked one--and the site found that there was "a problem with my credit card." I tried again--same result.

I pay my card off every month, and I have yards of room, so I figured it was just one of those on-line glitches. I phoned the flightnetwork service number, and then my adventure truly began.

A very pleasant woman answered my call. All I had to do was give her the name of the passenger, and she was right there, with all of my particulars, itinerary, everything. She tried to re-book. Error message: "flight not available." Then she proceeded through all of the ten return flights shown. None were available. Say what?

All of this took some time, with a few holds so that I could enjoy the canned music. She wasn't having much luck. Finally she put me on hold once again, for another twenty minutes or so, and came back to tell me that she had phoned Air Canada directly, and had got me the ticket at the price specified.

There was just one problem. My VISA card wasn't working.

I didn't have time to break into a cold sweat, because my other line began to ring. VISA fraud department. "We have some questions." The unceasingly pleasant woman stayed on the line while I dealt with the VISA guy.

"Your last payment," he said, "was unusual."

"But it was precisely the amount on the monthly statement," I replied.

"But it was larger than usual."

"That's because I spent more than usual." (Regular readers will understand that vet's bills largely accounted for this.)

I did pay it a little earlier than the end of the month, just to get the thing done. I asked if my bank had failed to put the amount through.

"No, the electronic transfer went through. We just haven't had the physical transfer."

He went on to say that fraudsters will sometimes place money in a cardholder's account, then purchase something like...a plane ticket, and then it turns out that the cheque is returned NSF and VISA is out the money.

But, I pointed out, this was an electronic transfer through a legitimate bank. No matter, he said. You paid more than usual. We had to ascertain that it was you who actually paid.

He was impeccably polite, more so than I, and he put through my ticket charge while we spoke--to the relief of the ticket agent on the other telephone, who issued the ticket forthwith, after one hour and forty minutes-- but I soon got tired of the game. We rang off.

So, readers, take warning: if you have a bad month and pay your VISA bill in full, Things May Happen. Remember that this isn't a suspiciously large transaction with a merchant: I appreciate the anxious calls I get from VISA when that happens. This is paying your damned VISA bill to the penny and on time.

Why would an electronic transfer from a bank, covering the exact amount of the bill, merit a red flag? Would such a transfer even be made by my bank if I had no funds to cover it?

The kid has his ticket. And I'm on my second glass of wine.

HUAC North: the Chairman's sophistry

2009-11-16T18:17:00.003-05:00

Mario Silva today:

I think Israel can be criticised like any other country, but the question is where to the lines start to be crossed, and when those lines are crossed then it becomes a problem and it is anti-Semitism. For example, when there’s cartoons depicting Jews in a very derogatory fashion, when there is presentation that all Jews are responsible, when they’re referring to Israel as an apartheid state that doesn’t have a right to exist, then there’s still some lines that are crossed and I think that’s not appropriate. Is criticism of Israel legitimate? Absolutely it’s legitimate, and people have a right to criticise Israel like they have a right to criticise any other country – it’s a free country. The problem is when people start crossing the line into areas that will legitimately be considered anti-Semitism.

Let's pick this apart, just for fun.

"when there’s cartoons depicting Jews in a very derogatory fashion." Jews qua Jews? Couldn't agree more. IDF soldiers on one of their rampages, who happen to be Jews? Not so much. Could we get some examples of the former?
"when there is presentation that all Jews are responsible." Might we have an example of this? Is that too much to ask? Besides, "responsible" for what?
"when they’re referring to Israel as an apartheid state that doesn’t have a right to exist." Nice bit of double-barreling there, Mario. But in any case, why is it "anti-Semitic" to make the case that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is a kind of apartheid? Bishop Desmond Tutu thought so, and he ought to know.

In fact, why is it "anti-Semitic" to question the "right" of Israel to exist? What nation on the planet has such a "right?" Does suggesting a one-state solution to the ME situation effectively question this "right?" Is it "anti-Semitic" to propose such a solution? (Good luck with a two-state one.)
"Is criticism of Israel legitimate? Absolutely it’s legitimate, and people have a right to criticise Israel like they have a right to criticise any other country – it’s a free country. The problem is when people start crossing the line into areas that will legitimately be considered anti-Semitism."

I'm still looking for a name for this slimy rhetorical gesture. Shorter Mario: "In principle, criticism of Israel is fine. In practice, it jolly well isn't."

Recall that Mario and his companions are supposed to be conducting an "inquiry." Do some readers sceptical of my earlier remarks now doubt that the CPCCA's conclusions were established before this farce even began?

[H/t Hill Queeries.]

Canadian citizenship, second class

2009-11-16T11:28:00.004-05:00

Another significant omission from Jason Kenney's shiny new booklet for aspiring citizens: there are levels of citizenship in Canada. Just ask our Native people, remorselessly played with by a succession of governments, impoverished and neglected, unable even to get decent schools out of the current regime. Canada is one of only three countries in the world (Australia has since ratified) that have taken an international stand against Native rights.

A potentially explosive case, two years in preparation, is now before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. It is a challenge on behalf of a group of particularly vulnerable second-class citizens--Native children living on reserves. The complainants' arguments appear to be powerful indeed, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, upon receipt of the complaint, forwarded it immediately to the Tribunal for adjudication.

Some preliminary procedural matters were disposed of in August and September, with the full case scheduled for today. But without a word of warning or explanation, the new Harper-appointed Chair of the Tribunal, Shirish P. Chotalia, vacated the hearings on November 6. And so the dreadful plight of children on reserves continues, with no remedy in sight.

How many people know that Native children, who comprise 3.8 percent of the Canadian population, account for 30 percent of the children in foster care? Yet the funds provided by the federal government for children's services on reserves (a federal responsibility) consistently lag equivalent provincial funding to non-Native children by 22 percent.

That's systemic discrimination. In 2008, the office of the Auditor-General slammed the government for its systemic neglect of Native kids. The report concludes, in part:

Our audit found that Indian and Northern Affairs Canada does not have assurance that the First Nations Child and Family Services Program funds child welfare services for on-reserve First Nations children and families that are culturally appropriate and reasonably comparable with those normally provided off reserves in similar circumstances. In most provinces we visited, many on-reserve children and families do not always have access to the child welfare services defined in relevant provincial legislation and available to those living off reserves.

At stake is between $80 million to $100 million annually for First Nations children. We aren't talking extra funding here, but simply the amount that would bring these children's services up to the level accorded off-reserve children.

The complainants are the Assembly of First Nations and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, an umbrella organization for all First Nations child and family services agencies carrying out child protection work on reserves across the country. Cindy Blackstock is the Executive Director of the FNCFCS. In her eloquent opening statement to the Tribunal, she noted that the chronic underfunding implicates past Liberal governments as well as the current Conservative one, and explains why they brought the case:

It is important to underscore that this case was not our first choice. It was filed simply as a last resort after ten years of trying to work cooperatively with the federal government to get them to treat First Nations children equitably. Our first job dated back to the turn of the millennium in what is called the Joint National Policy Review completed in 2000. This report found that the federal child welfare funding was 22% less than that received by other children. Four years the Wen:de series of reports found that the funding on reserve needed to be increased by 109 million dollars per year to achieve basic equity (excluding Ontario). The Auditor General in 2008 found the federal government’s old funding formula known as "the directive" to be inequitable and their new formula to be inequitable and not tied to the needs of First Nations children on reserve. Since the time of the Directive, the federal government has advanced something called the "enhanced funding formula" which was also reviewed by the Honourable Auditor General of Canada and in her report she find that too to be inequitable. So we have had numerous solutions that have been affordable to the government and these solutions were announced at times when the federal government was running a surplus budget in the billions of dollars and at times when the federal government was spending billions to stimulate the economy using "shovel ready projects." But it seems no matter what the financial situation of the government; the equality of First Nations children did not receive the attention that was required.

What is most important for me, and the Caring Society and the Assembly of First Nations is that the children could no longer wait. There are more First Nations children in care today, Honourable Chair, than there were in residential schools at the height of their operations by a factor of three. [emphasis added]

The government appears to be in direct contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The cultural assimilation of the residential school period survives in another guise. Three out of four children removed from their homes on reserves are placed in non-Native venues. The UNCRC, however, is explicit on this point: states removing children from their homes must "pay due regard to the desirability of continuity in the child’s upbringing and to the child’s ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background."

The UNCRC also binds member states to "always ensure that the principle of the best interests of the child is the paramount consideration in any alternative care placement of indigenous children." But Blackstock, in a 2007 report to the Senate, noted:

Many of the First Nations agencies will tell you that it is not a problem to get $300 a day to put a child into foster care, but try to give $25 to a family so they can afford to feed the child and keep him or her safely in their home, and it is not possible under the current formula.

Separating children from their families is normally considered a last resort, and in fact for other Canadian children, all other measures--prevention, alternate arrangements--must be exhausted before they are removed from the home. But this is not the case for families on reserves.

The author of a recent article notes:

[T]he most tragic aspect of this situation is that the vast majority of children are taken into care because of ‘neglect.’ When one closely examines the definition of the term and its key drivers—poverty, inadequate housing and addiction—it is debatable whose ‘neglect’ that is. In the words of the National Children’s Alliance, "It is important to note that two of the three factors are largely outside of parental control."

Readers are invited to learn more about this case and to list themselves as "witnesses" to indicate their concern. Please sign the petition. I'll be keeping you all posted on developments, and the reasons for the Chair's unilateral decision once I learn them.

The unbearable lightness of Sarah Palin, Ch. 423

2009-11-15T12:56:00.004-05:00

The person who can see Russia from her house (well, not really) has published a Palindrone--equally non-compelling, apparently, read backwards or forwards. Fresh from her disastrous intervention in New York, she's on an honest-to-goodness book tour at the moment, doubling as an early campaign launch for 2012.

The way things are going, she ought to have her nomination in the bag. The next GOP Convention might well be held in a telephone booth, as the wingnuts steadily pare away the conservatively impure. At this point only 17% of Americans identify as Republican (scroll to p.24). Even traditional family man Newt Gingrich is a RINO now.

Given Palin's inability to master basic English, I'd suggest that belief in ghosts is entirely warranted, at least insofar as the authorship of her book is concerned. After all, she herself believes in a big One. But in any case she has evidently "gone rogue" with the facts, those pesky things with a left-wing bias.

Sarah, then, is offering what turns out to be a crowd-pleasing work of fiction. I'll get to it, I promise, just as soon as I've perused Carrie Prejean's provocatively-titled "Still Standing." Or maybe, in the latter case, I should just wait for the movie?

[H/t CC.]

HUAC North: the fix is in

2009-11-14T13:43:00.007-05:00

If anyone had any doubts about the purpose and function of the Parliamentary inquisition now under way--the so-called Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism--they should now be dispelled.

This isn't an inquiry. It's a witch-hunt.

Here is the Chair, Mario Silva: "Freedom of speech, thought and expression are vital components of academic discourse - but this rule has to apply to all points of view, including those who have unfashionable views supportive of Israel." [emphasis added]

"Unfashionable views," eh?

In Canada, the Prime Minister himself has called criticism of Israel "anti-Semitic," and compared parliamentarians who have voiced such criticisms to Nazis. Three well-heeled pro-Israel lobby groups have the ear of this government: B'nai Brith, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and the moderate Canada-Israel Committee, which at least appears more interested in dialogue than denunciation.

The Harper government is uncritically supportive of Israel. It has refused to oppose continued settlement-annexation of the West Bank in Har Homa, for instance, even after the US did so. In 2006, our PM called the wholesale destruction and carnage in Lebanon a "measured response," and appeared completely disinterested in the deaths of Canadian citizens at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces. Internationally, it has soiled our reputation for fairness on the issue. Politicians at the federal and provincial level who speak out of turn, and even some who are merely accused of doing so, are smeared and pressured to withdraw their comments.

The media don't exactly hang back either: it wasn't that long ago that CanWest re-wrote copy to make it more pro-Israel, suppressed numerous articles, and harassed employees for daring to explore the Palestinian side of the dispute.There are some brave commentators who try to be even-handed, but they are in a distinct minority even today.

As for public opinion, while it is divided, Israel enjoys a substantial base of support. In a CTV poll carried out in 2006, for example, 45% disagreed with Stephen Harper's uncompromising stance, but 32%--nearly a third--agreed with it.

"Unfashionable" to support Israel? I don't think so.

Back to the current activities of HUAC North. Check out this new press release, with the provocative hed, "Is campus antisemitism on the rise in Canada?"

Why do these "inquirers" even bother with the question-mark? Here is the roster for their hearings on the issue:

Part one:
- Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
- Professor Yehuda Bauer (Yad Vashem Institute)
- Professor Kenneth Marcus (City University of New York)
- Professor Alvin Rosenfeld (Indiana University)

Part two:
- Zac Kaye (Director, Hillel of Greater Toronto)
- Josh Zelikovitz (former President. Hillel at Queen's University
and Jewish Identity Chairperson for the Canadian Federation of
Jewish Students)
- Miriam Stein (University of Ottawa Law Student)

How fair. How balanced.

My speculation? The Final Report from HUAC North was written before it even went on the road, leaving a few gaps so that gobbets of the unbiased testimony they have solicited can be dropped in before it goes to the printer.

The only bright note is that commenter Marky Mark, who takes a far more moderate view, was notified at the last minute that he would be invited to appear. This was after concerns had been raised* that the CPCCA was showing obvious bias in its selection of witnesses. But Marky, bless him, is evidently the closest thing to the "other side" that HUAC North is prepared to tolerate.

Somewhere, Joe McCarthy is smiling.

____________
*For example, in this internal email from MP Carolyn Bennett:

From: Bennett, Carolyn - M.P.
Sent: October 25, 2009 11:59 AM
To: Silva, Mario - M.P.
Cc: Bennett, Carolyn - Assistant; Neville, Anita - M.P.; 'bob.rae@***'; Cotler, Irwin - M.P.
Subject: Independant voices

Judy Rebick just approached me at a conference

She says NONE of the dissenting opinions groups have been allowed to appear .. Only able to submit written reports ....

Big backlash brewing ..
I think we have to hear from both sides ...

And then write a report .... That can take a stand ...

Carolyn Bennett MP St. Paul's

"An unhappy day for these girls"

2009-11-14T10:07:00.003-05:00

It's official. International ski jump champions will not be permitted to compete in the Vancouver Olympics. Because they're women.

Them's the International Olympic Committee rules, and the Vancouver Organizing Committee spent $100,000 to enforce them. They were successful: apparently, according to our courts, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn't apply--despite the heavy infusion of federal money and involvement in the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. Extraterritoriality is now the law. Presumably, if the IOC were to declare the games whites-only, Canadian Black or Asian or aboriginal athletes would be excluded, and the courts would decline to intervene.

Sounds like Harper's new citizenship booklet needs a footnote.

The President of VANOC, John Furlong, summed up the underlying problem spendidly, if inadvertently, in comments after the court decision: "It's an unhappy day for these girls."

Not girls, Mr. Furlong. Women.

Colby Cosh, b'gosh

2009-11-13T15:12:00.002-05:00

Colby Cosh has left the building.

I didn't usually agree with him (although on occasion I did), and sometimes I found him insufferably smart-ass, even callow. He was also named after a cheese.

But the man could write, one of the few in the Natty Post stable who had that ability, and I'm actually going to miss his stylish and intelligent feistiness and his edgy ideological excursions.

Best of luck in your next endeavour, Colby.

[H/t BCL.]

UPDATE: (November 17). Aha!

"Barbaric cultural practices"

2009-11-13T11:09:00.009-05:00

I've been doing a little self-interrogation about my discomfort with the phrase quoted, from Jason Kenney's spanking-new Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship. (There's a fine spoof of the pamphlet here, although I'm not entirely opposed to its revised emphases, which include references to some of the darker chapters in our history.)

Here's what Kenney himself has to say:

We want to make sure that ~~these~~ people understand that multiculturalism doesn't create an excuse to engage in those barbaric cultural practices.

The practices he cites--"honour" killings, genital mutilation, forced marriages--should certainly be illegal. Nor do I confuse cultural relativism (a method of inquiry) with moral relativism, a mistake too often made by anthropological illiterates. Understanding is one thing: condoning is quite another. To know all is not to forgive all.

So as a budding anthropologist, I nevertheless reject slavery, torture and genocide, all "cultural" imperatives at one time in the US, more recently in Germany, and today in Darfur.

But let's be wary of that tricky word "culture." The closer one examines it, the less meaningful it appears. In countries where genital mutilation is practised, there are also movements opposed to it--are they not part of the local "culture" as well? "Culture" is not determined by a majority vote, it changes ceaselessly, it absorbs and transforms elements of other cultures, and is absorbed and transformed by them. I'm one of those who finds the word "culture" more a hindrance than a help in anthropological inquiry.

Back, then, to the Kenney formulation and my unease with it. Am I bothered by his phrasing because I am reluctant to see other "cultures" judged by his absolute standards? Not precisely. It simply strikes me as at once too broad and too narrow. And like other initiatives from this government, there's a whiff of partisan politics in the air.

I could quibble about the word "barbaric," referring to an alleged stage of human cultural evolution in our inevitable progress to "civilization." No serious anthropologist takes that unilinear view any more: there's been a lot of water under the bridge since Lewis Henry Morgan. The term these days is simply pejorative, in any case. It means "bad," and "uncivilized," and carries with it connotations of cruelty and excess.

My teeth are always set on edge when someone uses phrases like "these people."* Who are those barbarians at our gates? Are all people from those "cultures" equally keen on stoning, amputations and "honour" killings? If so, why would they want to come to a relaxed, relatively liberal country like ours? I suggest that some, in fact most, ~~of "these~~ people do so at least in part to get away from practices that they abhor as much as native-born Canadians.

I admit that I'm speculating, and there are certainly well-publicized exceptions, but the implicit suggestion that all ~~of "these~~ people require Kenney's gentle civilizing touch is far too broad and one-dimensional. Worse, it perpetuates stereotypes, which by definition are over-generalizations about ~~"these~~ the "people" to whom Kenney is implicitly referring.

More troubling is the notion of "barbaric cultural practices." The problem with this phrasing is that "barbaric," on one level or another, seems to modify "cultural" as well as, or rather than, "practices." I'm not being pedantic here: dismissing entire cultures with a magnificent handwave as "barbaric" reduces the notion of "culture" to a handful of abhorrent practices carried out by some members of the culture in question. That's ethnocentric, and it plays into the boneheaded hérouxvillisme that constitutes the bedrock of Conservative electoral support.

Stressing gender equality in Canada is a fine addition to the old citizenship guide, if a tad hypocritical on the government's part. Arguing that it's a cultural value--that "Canadian culture" is monolithic in this respect, or indeed in any other--is pushing things a bit, unless we want to argue that your average right-wing blogger and the "pro-life" movement are "unCanadian." But it's a useful injunction to immigrants (as well as to the native-born).

I only wish that Kenney had left it thus, rather than using his new guide as yet another stick to beat ~~"these~~ certain "people" with. The dogwhistles, even for an old Dawg like me, are ear-shattering.

___________________
*CORRECTION: Two of my commenters--regular sparring partners "fergusrush" and "jimmy durante"-- are absolutely right: Kenney said "people," not "these people." Mea culpa, and I'm happy to correct the record. But to what "people" is Kenney referring? While he did not make the slip that I thought I had read, the dogwhistles sound just about as shrill--at least to me.

Trivialization of the Holocaust slammed

2009-11-12T17:51:00.001-05:00

B'nai Brith Canada has received a stinging rebuke from Canadian Holocaust survivors for its recent advertisement comparing radical Islam and Nazism.

"We survivors have fought everybody that tries to trivialize the Shoah. We get very, very angry when it is done by Jewish leaders. I think that they should know better," said the co-president of Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors, Sidney Zoltak.

Barbara Landau, co-chair of the Canadian Association of Jews and Muslims, wasn't too happy either, wondering about the timing of the ad--two days before Remembrance Day and just before the second annual Weekend of Twinning of Synagogues and Mosques. "My first thought was 'why?'" Landau said. "It was so distressing."

Trivializing the Holocaust is nothing new, of course, for the far Right. Republicans do it. "Right to lifers" do it. But this may be the first time that an organization purporting to speak for Jews has done it.

Defending the ad, B'nai Brith Vice President Frank Dimant said it had been well received.

"It seems there are a lot of people out there who are waiting for this kind of strong messaging," he said. He added that the intent of the ad was to "wake people up."

Epic fail, Frank. Please go back to sleep.

Well, that's a relief

2009-11-12T13:38:00.000-05:00

We're not just unwelcome dinner guests, we're an untapped resource.

[H/t neighbour Richard, b/c]

The nutty professor

2009-11-12T12:17:00.002-05:00

Well, retired professor, actually--one Edwina Taborsky, about whom I've written before.

Normally I tend to ignore her tedious rants over at Small Dead Animals. But this was simply too ripe to let pass. I have booby-trapped it with exploding links for what a regular contributor to SDA might call your "delectation."

But the analogy between radical Islam and Nazism is strong. Both are farleft, socialist and 'cleansing' agendas, devoted to a monolithic and essentially theocratic notion of the political and social structure.

Both are openly violent, both express this devotion to violence as an inherent part of the ideology. And both focus this violence on 'Others', i.e., any who are not members of the tribe, so to speak. Both see this agenda in a military idiom, seeing their actions as a 'just war' against evil.

Both opt for a homogeneity of the population, with no individualism allowed. Both are primarily emotional constructs, requiring and operating within deep emotional and adrenalin-inducing near-hysteric bondings.

Readers are invited to contribute links of their own.