Begin Each Day As If It Were on Purpose

There's a Reason they Call it "Dope"

2009-11-24T18:28:00.004-05:00

Read this interview with Ross Rebagliati. Now, I'm sure he wasn't the brightest spark before he started smoking pot, but what few brain cells he had have clearly been smoked away.
For example:

Q: What do you think of Michael Ignatieff?

A: Well, I think Michael Ignatieff has been a great leader for the Liberal party, and we’re looking forward to the next election campaign. I know the issues are important ones, and as far as I can tell he’s doing a great job of putting those issues on the table and making sure that a great Canadian tradition is carried on.

Q: There’s a new Angus-Reid poll that suggests only 15 per cent of Canadians approve of Ignatieff’s performance as Liberal leader. Why do you think he’s in such difficulty?

A: That’s a great question. But right now, I’m not prepared to talk about Mr. Ignatieff’s popularity. I don’t feel like I have enough information to make a comment on that.

Um, okay.
And another example:

Q: What about youth issues? What would you do to try and get young people more involved in Canadian politics?

A: What I’m doing right now—stepping up to the plate and taking a stand against the current political way of thinking. And basically informing young people that voting is important, one vote can make a difference. If we can all get together and vote one way or another, I think democracy in Canada would work a lot better, and represent Canadians in a much broader way. My message to younger Canadians, and I mean 40 and under, is that complacency is not acceptable. We’re sending our Canadian soldiers overseas to create a democracy in a foreign land, and a lot of them are paying the ultimate price. And we can’t even bring ourselves to vote here, when we have that right and privilege? To me, that’s unacceptable.

Q: Have you been a regular voter?

A: No I haven’t.

Um, okay.
And there's so much more.
Kids -- stay away from pot.

"Canada Really Lost Something Special"

2009-11-24T13:39:00.002-05:00

Jacksoul lead singer Haydain Neale is dead, at 39. Sheesh. Lung cancer. I have always loved this song -- one of the best heartache songs.

A Rare Look Inside an Actual Birdhouse

2009-11-24T08:06:00.001-05:00

This is adorable -- from a British ad.

(H/T, my sister.)

Did I Say my Christmas Shopping was Done?

2009-11-23T13:05:00.003-05:00

I did, but I was wrong. Lookey here -- the perfect gift for any young girl you want to see grow up hating herself, Jews, gays, and assorted infidels everywhere!

One of the world's most famous children's toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover - wearing a burkha.
Wearing the traditional Islamic dress, the iconic doll is going undercover for a charity auction in connection with Sotheby's for Save The Children.

Now, it's for charity, so I hope people cough up the big bucks. But I find this sort of nonsense rather putrid.

The Amazing Race

2009-11-23T12:36:00.002-05:00

I really hope the Harlem Globetrotters win. After them, I'd like Brian and Ericka to win. Meghan and Cheyne are about as entertaining as toast and I hate the way "Cheyne" spells his name. That should be "Shane," Cheyne's mom and dad! As for Sam and Dan...yuck. They had better lose next week. I do not like them. First of all, they formed an alliance with another wretched pair, the poker players (thankfully, now eliminated), and second of all, they have spent the entire race pointing out everyone else's ethical shortcomings, only to turn around and commit some pretty serious ethical infractions themselves. And for a gay man, Sam is one big dope. Prague is not a country, my friend.

Animal, Vegetable, Miserable

2009-11-23T11:32:00.004-05:00

Great op-ed in yesterday's New York Times -- about veganism and human (mis)treatment of animals. I love this part:

To go down this road is to stare headlong into an abyss that, to paraphrase Nietzsche, will ultimately stare back at you.

The challenges faced by a vegan don’t end with the nuts and bolts of material existence. You face quite a few social difficulties as well, perhaps the chief one being how one should feel about spending time with people who are not vegans.

Is it O.K. to eat dinner with people who are eating meat? What do you say when a dining companion says, “I’m really a vegetarian — I don’t eat red meat at home.” (I’ve heard it lots of times, always without any prompting from me.) What do you do when someone starts to grill you (so to speak) about your vegan ethics during dinner? (Wise vegans always defer until food isn’t around.) Or when someone starts to lodge accusations to the effect that you consider yourself morally superior to others, or that it is ridiculous to worry so much about animals when there is so much human suffering in the world? (Smile politely and ask them to pass the seitan.)

OMG, I have heard, so many times, people assert to me that they are "pretty much" vegetarian, but for the odd animal carcass here and there. And the one about vegetarians and vegans considering themselves morally superior is so familiar to me. I had someone ask me -- when I told her I became a vegetarian for ethical reasons -- whether I considered myself a better person than her, therefore. When someone asks something that loaded and stupid, there is only one answer you can give -- "Yes, I do think I'm a better person than you." And, of course, the moronic, "There are people suffering so you shouldn't help animals" argument is just that -- a moronic argument. A non-sequitur.

Palin and the AP

2009-11-20T23:19:00.003-05:00

I just read that the AP hired eleven reporters to fact check Sarah Palin's book. Eleven? Really? WTF? Did the AP even hire one to fact check either of Obama's books? I doubt it. Do they fact check anything Obama says or does now? I doubt it. Whatever you think of Palin, this is an example of media bias and ridiculosity.

Shinto

2009-11-20T12:39:00.003-05:00

I don't think it matters much that Barack Obama bowed to the Emperor of Japan. It didn't bother me. It also didn't bother me when George Bush held hands with Saudi Prince Abdullah. What I find interesting is the ignorance of certain media in regards basic (and recent) Japanese history. Chris Matthews, ever eager to excuse anything Obama does, said on Hardball earlier this week (don't ask me why, but I sometimes watch him) that in Japan "they worship the emperor as a god," and that Obama was just being respectful. Um...not only is Matthews ignorant of recent history, it is history that directly involved the United States and could hardly be called obscure.

After World War II, the Allied occupation separated Shinto and the state and this break was written into the new constitution. So visits by leading politicians to Yasukuni Jinja, which enshrines the Japanese war-dead, are always protested as being provocative by Japan's Asian wartime foes. The emperor issued a statement renouncing all claims to divinity and the use of Shinto symbols for nationalistic purposes was forbidden.

My students in Japan viewed their royals very much they way the British seem to view Queen Elizabeth et al -- with a mixture of respect, amusement, indifference and as fodder for gossip. Not a one of them thought the emperor was divine. Only a small minority of Japanese (and, I imagine, a diminishing minority) seemed to feel any resentment about the post-war changes to Shinto.

The Equalizer, RIP

2009-11-19T13:05:00.002-05:00

I was sad to hear that Edward Woodward -- he will always be "the Equalizer" to me -- died. My mom and I both had a crush on him. Apparently (according to the afore-linked BBC obituary) he did not enjoy doing the series that made him so famous in North America.

The success of Callan earned him an award for TV Actor of the Year and led to Woodward starring in a long-running American television series, The Equalizer.

His five years in New York made him wealthy, but Woodward regretted making the series, which took a heavy toll on his health.

Working 20 hours at a time, he coped by smoking 100 cigarettes a day - and had a major heart attack.

A Funny Thing

2009-11-18T20:51:00.002-05:00

My friend Gerry Nicholls asked me to write an article about healthcare for Libertas Post. I did so, and sent it to him with the following message: "It's a piece of crud, but knock yourself out." He posted it, and I got a lot of positive feedback, as did he, which surprised me. And then I found out it got picked up by Cafe Hayek, favoured blog of libertarian geektards everywhere! Odd. I just thought it was a piece of crud.

Gladwell...or is it?

2009-11-18T20:45:00.002-05:00

In a hugely influential 2004 experiment at the University of Colorado at Bollocks Falls, Professor Sanjiv Sanjive and his team asked 323 volunteers to wrap themselves in swaddling clothes and spend the night in a stable, lying in a manger.

Logic would dictate that at least one of them would be visited by shepherds, wise men, or kings from the East, right?

Wrong. The results—codified and analyzed on a specially devised and integrated grid system known as blsht—were astonishing. All 323 volunteers experienced a quiet night in. In other words, they waited up all night, but no one—specifically, 0.0000 percent of a total world population of 6,783,940,189 human beings—bothered to come by.

So what does this blsht metric tell you about your appeal, compared with the appeal of the baby Jesus?

It tells you this: he was special.

And—here’s another thing—you are not.

It's Craig Brown, in the December issue of Vanity Fair. I love it, because I think Malcolm Gladwell is hugely overrated. In fact, he goes into my "Gallery of the Overrated," along with Kate Winslet, David Sedaris and so many others.

So Glad I Love Indian Food

2009-11-18T08:50:00.001-05:00

A molecule found in a curry ingredient can kill esophageal cancer cells in the laboratory, suggesting it might be developed as an anti-cancer treatment, scientists said on Wednesday.

Researchers at the Cork Cancer Research Center in Ireland treated esophageal cancer cells with curcumin -- a chemical found in the spice turmeric, which gives curries a distinctive yellow color -- and found it started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.

The cells also began to digest themselves, they said in a study published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Previous scientific studies have suggested curcumin can suppress tumors and that people who eat lots of curry may be less prone to the disease, although curcumin loses its anti-cancer attributes quickly when ingested.

Read the story.

My Kind of Mafia Boss

2009-11-18T08:42:00.003-05:00

Domenico Raccuglia, who was on the run for nearly 15 years, was surprised by law enforcement officers while he was watching television on the outskirts of the drab Sicilian provincial city of Trapani on Sunday night...
The 45-year-old boss, whose mob nickname is "The Veterinarian" because of his passion for animals, had been handed down three life sentences in trials held in his absence.

(Emphasis mine.) Really, how bad can he be? (Read here to find out.) And I can certainly think of one part of the Godfather of which he would not have approved (and which made me ill).

Of Kindles and Khadrs

2009-11-17T13:43:00.003-05:00

Two new posts from me, at the Examiner. One about the Kindle now being available in Canada, and one about Omar Khadr.

Daniela Santanche Probaby Wasn't Invited to Meet Gadhafi

2009-11-17T12:40:00.003-05:00

Perhaps she should have been, though. This is from an Italian talk show two Sundays ago, regarding the EU decision about crucifixes in schools, but it turned into rather something else! I hope Ms. Santanche has top security at her home. I wonder how many fatwas have been issued against her. On a lighter note, I don't think I could handle watching Italian talk shows on a regular basis, if this is an example of what they are like. A tad bit too animated for this WASP, especially the audience.

Obama's Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

2009-11-17T09:20:00.001-05:00

Obama's Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

Come Back Little Bomb-Sniffing Dog!

2009-11-16T11:37:00.004-05:00

This is so sweet. Sabi, a bomb-sniffing dog who worked with Australian troops in Afghanistan and was lost during a fierce battle, has been found.

(Sabi, photographed by Andrew Mearse/AP)

And Sabi the black Labrador is getting a celebrity welcome home.
Sabi was with a joint Australian-Afghan army patrol ambushed in restive Uruzgan province in September 2008, triggering a gunfight that wounded nine troops and earned one Australian soldier the country's highest bravery medal.
But there was no sign of Sabi after the battle, and months of searching failed to find any sign of the retriever - until now.
Defence officials said Thursday that a U.S. soldier recovered Sabi at an isolated patrol base elsewhere in Uruzgan. Further details about the base were not given.
The dog was returned to the Australians' base in the province just in time for a visit by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was photographed Wednesday along with the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, petting Sabi.
"Sabi is back home in one piece and is a genuinely nice pooch as well," Rudd told reporters.

Read the story.

Libya's Next Top Model

2009-11-16T11:17:00.004-05:00

This is too weird:

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi gave a speech to 100 young Italian women recruited by a model agency and urged them to convert to Islam, newspapers reported on Monday.
The young women selected for Kadhafi's speech in Rome late Sunday each had to be at least 1.70 metres (five feet seven inches) be "pleasant" and "well dressed" but low cut tops and mini-skirts were banned, the newspapers said.
Each woman was paid between 50 and 60 euros and was hired by the Hostessweb agency, the reports said.
The women were told to got to a luxury hotel in the Via Veneto, without knowing why, and were then taken in buses to the Libyan ambassador's residence. Kadhafi is in Rome for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) summit.
The leader of the Libyan revolution arrived one hour late at 10:30pm to the amazement of the women who had expected a party rather than a lesson on the history of relations between Islam and the West and the role of women.
Kadhafi spoke for one hour during which the women were given nothing to eat or drink, the reports said.
"It is not true that Islam is against women," he reportedly said, with the Libyan ambassador, an interpreter and two of his "Amazon" female body guards in military uniform at his side, said Corriere della Sera, quoting the young women.
Before offering each woman a copy of the Koran, he shouted at them: "Convert to Islam, Jesus was sent for the Hebrews, not for you. But Mohammed was sent for all humans," La Stampa newspaper reported.
"You think that Jesus was crucified, but this is not true. God took him to heaven. They crucified someone who looked like him. The Jews tried to kill Jesus because they wanted to put the religion of Moses on the true path," ANSA news agency quoted him as saying.

Mind you, this spiel is nothing new for Gadhafi -- remember when he wanted to "save" European women?

The Bel Airabs

2009-11-15T13:05:00.003-05:00

Remember when Saturday Night Live was funny? They would never do a skit like this now, of course. The only thing I don't like is the implied cruelty to animals.

Saturday Night Live - The Bel Airabs
by ClassicPL

Left in Dark Times

2009-11-14T11:57:00.003-05:00

I recently read Bernard-Henri Lévy's Left in Dark Times. I was very impressed. Yes, I know BHL is an egomaniac and this book, in places, reflects that. He is certainly French, and, as such, has apparently never met an intellectual tangent that he doesn't feel is worth pursuing -- but this is often to the benefit of the reader. Left in Dark Times is primarily about the contemporary political left and its failings. He takes no prisoners, and as with Paul Berman and Chris Hitchens, it is refreshing to see debate and criticism from within.
I adore this passage, where BHL talks about the former Yugoslavia and some of the usual suspects' (here, Pinter and Chomsky) odd take on things.

There was, once again, the case of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Harold Pinter, who -- seeing the United States of America finally take the side of the Bosnians...then push to overthrow the president of Serbia -- decided that a person so hated by his enemies could only be a friend of his and boldly joined..."the International Committee for the Defense of Slobodan Milosevic."
There was Noam Chomsky, that maniacal negationist who had already distinguished himself, we recall, by his support of [Holocaust denier] Faurisson (that "relatively apolitical liberal"), then by his revision of the history of the Cambodian tragedy (Cambodians committing genocide against other Cambodians? A genocide perpetrated inside a Communist country without being able to place the blame on the awful Americans? Irrational! Therefore unreal!), and who, for the same reasons, because of the same imbecilic and terrible reasoning, undertook, in 'Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance," the book Chavez brandished at the UN General Assembly at the end of 2006, to rewrite, pure and simple, the history of the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo: the massacres committed by the Serbs, he assures us, all happened after and not before the NATO air strikes; and as for the crimes committed from before that time -- as for those that it was impossible to deny had fallen back before anyone dreamed of intervening -- they were mostly caused by the Albanian bandits of the KLA.

Terror and Liberalism

2009-11-13T07:39:00.004-05:00

The inability of so many to grasp that the Fort Hood murderer is simply another jihadi got me thinking about a book I recently read -- Terror and Liberalism. In it, Paul Berman (a leftist who is realistic about Islamic fascism, a la Hitchens or Levy) writes about how hard it seems to be for people to accept that there can be such a thing as mass pathology, and mass political movements around that pathology. He writes about Nazism, of course, and similar refusals in the 1930s to see the forest for the trees. He writes about other such points in history. People need, he argues, to believe that there has to be a logical reason for this kind of insanity. But there really doesn't (although there may well be reasons that appear logical to those participating in the mass pathology).

I Like a Man Who Loves his Kitty

2009-11-12T16:29:00.002-05:00

I also like a man who names his kitty after Lady Thatcher. I had already read somewhere that John Baird is a cat-lover (as are the Harpers). This speaks well of him. As for the "incident," I see no problem. The person who jumped to the wrong conclusion (the person Baird was texting) is to blame, not Baird. Obviously, this person knew him well enough to know his cat's name and was simply thoughtless. There was no need for Baird to specify to which Thatcher he was referring.

"Thatcher has died," read the short text message that kicked off a brief diplomatic flurry among members of Canada's parliament and their advisors at a black tie dinner this week, said local media Thursday.
Upon learning the "news" via mobile or Blackberry at a soiree honoring Canadian military families Tuesday, some 2,000 shocked Conservatives, said to revere the Iron Lady of British politics, and their advisors reportedly huddled to discuss a reaction.
The prime minister's office called Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street to confirm that Margaret Thatcher had indeed passed away -- baffling British officials, CanWest News Service said.
It turned out the message was sent by Canadian Transport Minister John Baird from his home in Toronto to a person at the gala dinner to say his beloved 16-year-old gray tabby cat, named for Margaret Thatcher, 84, had died.

The story is here.

Fort Hood

2009-11-12T15:43:00.003-05:00

I haven't commented on what happened, because I hoped things would calm down and we would get some sensible commentary from the mainstream press. Instead, I am still hearing anchors ask "experts" what Nidal Malik Hasan's "motivation" could have been? Um, I think he made that quite clear when he shouted Allahu Akbar right before opening fire. He was a jihadi. Whether operating alone or with a group, he was a jihadi murderer.
The day after the attack, Bruce Bawer wrote a great piece about media coverage of the case.

By way of “illuminating” Hasan’s actions, Blitzer interviewed a panel of — no, not experts on Islamic jihad, but psychiatrists. Blitzer endlessly repeated the mantra that Hasan had been “taunted” for being Muslim, had feared going to a war zone, and had ultimately gone “berserk,” and the docs echoed this line. “He did not reach for help when he should have,” lamented one panelist. Another opined: “It sounded like it got to be too much for him.” Yet another told us: “All kind of people need help who aren’t getting help. … He was feeling picked on by his colleagues. … He was strained. He was scared.”

Could there be a more bitter contrast? At Fort Hood, so many courageous GIs, all of them prepared to risk their lives fighting the Islamic jihadist enemy in defense of our freedom, several of them now dead. And, on our TV screens, so many apparently craven journalists, public officials, psychiatrists, and (alas) even military brass — all but a few of whom seemed unwilling to do anything more than hint obliquely at the truth that obviously lies at the root of this monstrous act.

A week later, it's the same story.

Saudi Arabia and Brazil Should Organize a Student Exchange

2009-11-12T11:12:00.002-05:00

Brazil's case of the pink mini-dress that went viral on the Internet has left many scratching their heads: How could it be that an outfit, no matter how short, would cause such an uproar in a tropical nation where skimpy clothing and tiny bikinis barely raise an eyebrow?
The answer, a Bandeirante University official said, is not in the pink dress, but in how Geisy Arruda, a 20-year-old tourism student, chose to wear it. In expelling her from the university — where she has since been reinstated — officials said she paraded provocatively and raised the dress.

It's all very silly. Even if she did "parade provocatively," so the hell what? One wonders if maybe the school officials in question need a dose of niqabs and burqas to teach them something.

Lest We Forget III

2009-11-11T11:34:00.000-05:00

My uncle, training in Canada prior to being part of the D-Day invasion. He died at Falaise Gap, August 11, 1944. He was a volunteer who could have stayed in law school.