The Politics of Life In Canada

Would Canada Kick Out The Greatest Hockey Player Ever?

2008-04-23T00:52:00.003-05:00

There was an 'interesting' piece on the CBC about immigration. The point of the story was that we should allow all immigrants, basically no screening process. It was based mostly on prominent Canadians who came here from another country, but who would have failed Canada's current immigration "test".

They mentioned Alexander MacKenzie was mentioned. Yup, it's pretty hard to beat the restrictive immigration rules of a country that doesn't exist. Would Canada have come up with another 2nd Prime Minister without Alex? Or would the country have been more likely to simply fold. Years after defeating the Americans in the War of 1812, I'm kinda doubting your average Canadian, nor leadership, would feel very terrified by anybody.

Also mentioned was one gentleman by the name of Wayne Gretzky. No, The Great One did not immigrate here from some other country. Nor did his father. His grandfather however, was an immigrant to Canada. The main point made by the reporter was that Wayne Gretzky's grandfather misspelled his own last name, originally spelled Gretsky.

The point being, that by todays standards of requiring a person being able to spell their own name properly to live and work here, we would have lost the greatest hockey player to ever live. Considering literacy rates 100 years ago, a guy writing an 'S' backwards on an official immigration form becomes understandable if not admirable, when taking background into regard. Is a hypothetical situation 100 years ago really the kind of data the average Canadian should base their opinions on? I kinda doubt it.

The best part of the mini-doc was when the reporter made reference to the fact that he would have failed the current immigration checks. And he took it after living here for over 40 years. And yet, he ends up working for the CBC trashing the Canadian government on public television. Funny, huh?

Google 411 Hits Canada

2008-04-08T22:05:00.002-05:00

The last time I'd tried Google's 411 service, it was only functioning in the US of A. I'm not sure when it started working in Canada, but it worked for me today!

It's a completely FREE service, which is a hell of a lot better than what the phone companies will offer you. And it seems to work a hell of a lot better than the 411 that Manitoba Telecom Services offers. And like I said, it doesn't cost anything, which is much nicer than paying a f*#%ing dollar just to get a phone number.

It's very simple. Dial 1-800-GOOG-411 and follow the voice prompts. You'll be connected to your desired connection within seconds. Give it a shot, it's brilliant. And did I mention it's free?

Tom Lukiwski Has To Go

2008-04-07T01:00:00.003-05:00

My question to Conservative party supporters across the country is: why in the hell would anybody defend this ignorant clown?

Many point to the fact that the video was taken seventeen years ago. His attitude could have changed over such a long period of time, they claim. Then again, maybe they haven't. What we do know, is that once upon a time this guy had a seriously despicable attitude towards homosexuals.

In addition to having a bad attitude, Lukiwski demonstrated extremely poor judgment in allowing a statement like this to be video taped, even if it was meant as a joke. It really makes a guy wonder what other videos Lukiwski has starred in.

Tom Lukiwski's career in politics is probably finished for good. At this point, he's no longer an asset in the House of Commons, but a liability. For this reason, he should go, now. It would also send a strong message that the Conservative Party of Canada will not stand for homophobia amongst its members. I do believe his apology is heart-felt and honest, but his current demotion from parliamentary secretary is merely a slap on the wrist.

Lukiwski is entitled to his opinions, and entitled to video tape all kinds of crass, confusing, and offensive jokes. But I don't think any Canadian would want someone with a sense of humor as exhibited to be their representative.

Stephie Still Can't Make Priorities

2008-03-07T13:14:00.002-06:00

Via Susan Delacourt:

It happened when Liberal leader Stephane Dion got up to ask a second round of questions, abandoning the Cadman controversy and turning to the Canada-Obama affair, which the NDP has been hammering away at all week.

Harper said: "I would point out to the Leader of the Opposition that when he was throwing around wild accusations of scandal, the leader of the NDP was already on top of this issue." [...]

Dion, to his credit, however, had a pretty decent comeback. "We do not know how to choose among all the scandals he has," the Liberal leader said.

Which brings us back to the last Liberal leadership race:
It would appear that Stephane Dion is still having a tough time "making priorities"

Best Canadian Rock Album of the Year

2008-03-05T14:06:00.002-06:00

Canada's greatest newish rock n' roll band - The Waking Eyes (2006 Juno nominees) - have a new album coming out in June. It's the bands second album, and it's called Holding On To Whatever It Is.

AND, you can download the whole thing here in a ZIP file!

Listen to it, enjoy it, and then buy several copies for yourself, friends, and family when it actually hits the streets in June!

Headline of the Week

2008-03-04T19:48:00.002-06:00

Duh:

Later pub hours fail to alleviate Britain's drinking problem.

I Hate To Say I Told You So...

2008-02-26T23:20:00.002-06:00

Stop what you're doing, Global Warming has ended. I'm even gonna be lazy and just quote the whole damn thing:

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's, GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

While this news is interesting, I highly doubt it's going to make the Al Gore's and David Suzuki's go away. Nor will it stop people from looking at me like I'm a homicidal maniac for letting my car run (extensively) when it feels like -40 outside. What it may do, however, is make John and Jane Public rethink how they feel about socialist, wealth redistributing entities like the Kyoto Accord.

Trade Deadline is Over!

2008-02-26T14:31:00.003-06:00

Jebus the Penguins are going to be a scary scary team now. By adding Hossa to the lineup, they have got three of the top playmakers/scorers. Crosby, Malkin, Hossa are three names that I would love to have on my roster.

How many goalies are the Duck's gonna put in net who go by the name "J.S." From Guigere to Aubin, neither has ever rocked their real name. Strange.

It's a lot of fun though, to watch the TSN douche-bags on TV talking on their cell-phones. And watching John Furguson defend his aweful performance as Leafs GM is also entertaining.

As always, I predict the Canucks will win The Cup. But only because they're amazing.

Hello Sovereign Kosovo

2008-02-17T11:45:00.004-06:00

Kosovo has declared it's independence from Serbia today. All free nations should celebrate the occasion but sadly, that is not the case.

Prime Minister Hashim Thaci described the new nation as democratic (hurrah!) and "multi-ethnic". A "multi-ethnic" society seems to me to be a much better option than a "multi-cultural" society. It's a term that is equally welcoming of immigrants, but doesn't suggest that people can necessarily import the values of their homeland. Which is a very important distinction.

My money's on multi-ethnic in the long run. It seems a much stabler idea, not so prone to waves of cultural import.

$10k per Hole Bitch - Lets Go!

2008-02-11T16:36:00.000-06:00

I have a brief history of taking money from old people by kicking their asses around golf courses, it paid for a years worth of tuition for me. It's not my fault if people make stupid bets!

Stephen Taylor has a post up about an upcoming Liberal fund raiser, where they're auctioning off the right to play in a foursome with Paul Martin.

How much fun would it be to beat the ever living crap out of that old man on 18 holes of golf? And not to mention having approximately 4 hours to unload on him. Then again, they did call him Mr. Dithers while he was in power, so it could very well be a 9 hour round of golf. I can just imagine him deciding weather he wants to shank a 9-iron into the bush or rope-hook the 8-iron into his caddie's throat.

Tennis with Bob Rae may be a bit of a challenge, I don't think he's the kinda guy who would get into something like that if he sucked. But I'm saving my money for when they offer up a five-round mixed martial arts fight with Stephane Dion. How do you say roundhouse in French?

Poor Warren Kinsella

2008-02-08T12:32:00.000-06:00

Has Warren Kinsella violated his own closely held beliefs on violating human rights?

Warren Kinsella has been a happy crusader against Free Speech in the Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant cases. He says the cases against them are without merit, but he believes that the process is important... even though it is a totally one-sided process that has convicted every single person to become entwined in it. Even though it puts extreme limits on free speech. Even though Free Speech is an actual freedom, whereas the right not-to-be-offended is not a right. But the process is important, Kinsella tells us.

Why is the process so important? To quote Kinsella:

So: close your eyes, and imagine for a moment that you are a Jew, and you open the front door to take your children to school one morning, and someone has scrawled a swastika on your doorstep. Or imagine, instead, that you are a person of colour, and you jolt awake one night to see some teenagers running away, leaving a cross burning on your lawn. Or, imagine that you are a gay kid - living in the closet and living in fear - and you step up to your school locker, and someone has scrawled "GOD HATES FAGS" on the front of it.

It's just words, some say; it's just a couple of symbols. Big deal. No one has hit you, no one has beaten you up.

Okay, fair point. So close your eyes and imagine for a moment that you are Ezra Levant, who is a Jew, and you hear that this prominent Liberal writer named Warren Kinsella has been writing an awful lot of criticism about you. So you go to his website and search for "Levant", and you click on the link titled It's Easy to Get Depressed Some Days. Staring back at you is an image of two swastikas centered with the words "White Power".

Since Ezra is a Jew and is personally named in the same post, this could easily be interpreted as a personal and racist attack against him. And not just Ezra either. Any Jew who wandered across Warren's website and saw this glaringly racist image staring back at them could have just as easily been horrified.

So why shouldn't Kinsella be forced to defend himself in front of the Canadian HRC? For exactly the same reasons why Ezra shouldn't be there. Because when taken in context, neither instance would be considered offensive by most reasonable people. Kinsella posted an offensive image to prove that there are still racist assholes in Canada, not with the intent to offend Jews, even though an uninformed observer could easily be offended by it.

Ezra's publication of the Mohammed Cartoons could, and in has case was found to be offensive to some Muslims. But again, when taken in context, Ezra was just publishing the cartoons to inform the public. At the time, millions of Muslims world-wide were rioting in response to the offensive cartoons. Every single media outlet on the planet reported on the riots, but there were a VERY select few that had the stones to republish the cartoons. Obviously the images were offensive to many Muslims, but the rest the rest of the world has a right to know exactly what it was that caused such unrest. Sadly Ezra was the only publisher in Canada with the stones to actually give the public the complete and unvarnished context of the riots. If a few cartoons are responsible for mass rioting, death, and fatwas, the public deserves to see what the cartoons look like, if not for the sole purpose of gaining an understanding of what Muslims find offensive.

If there were any justice in this country, Warren Kinsella should be held to the same level of accountability as Ezra Levant. But Kinsella's a friend of Richard Warman and Ezra is his avowed enemy. So it begs the question, why can Warren Kinsella post swastika's on his website, but Ezra Levant gets hauled before the thought police for publishing material offensive to Muslims? There is a double-standard there, is there not?

Can You Spare Some Change?

2008-02-06T11:25:00.000-06:00

It's been three long months dear readers (cue the sound of crickets). Anyway, on to more important things: Presidential Politics 2008!

I'm pretty much in agreement with this assessment of the GOP field. It's very weak, especially since Guilliani dropped out. I don't agree with the idea that McCain will drive "real" Conservatives to vote for Hillary Clinton. That is just patently insane.

Nor will it ultimately matter. Hillary Clinton will not win the Democratic nomination. The media is far too in love with Barack Obama, and that is in large part because Hillary is too divisive among independent voters. Of the general field the party, um, fielded, I think it is also weak on the Democratic side. One one hand you have a person who rode in to power on their spouses coattails. On the other, the polar opposite: a candidate with absolutely no record, but he's charming, a left-wing nut-job, and he's black to boot. Oh, and change, lots of change. He's just handing out spare change everywhere he goes. He says change so often, you'd think he's actually targeting the homeless vote.

Once McCain and Obama have their nominations though, this thing is going to go straight Republican. Because McCain will start move to the left throughout the race he'll placate the Indie's. Meanwhile, the Republican attack machine is going to have an aweful lot of questions about Obama's admitted cocaine use, and you know the thing about his Muslim education are going to come up again.

McCain will ultimately win the Presidency. He'll be a mediocre President, but we're all just waiting for Jeb Bush 2012 anyway.

Hockey's Back

2007-11-02T22:45:00.000-05:00

Hockey's back... and so am I!

So far I'm feeling quite vindicated in saying that the Oilers gave Dustin Penner a better deal than they should have. I have no doubt that some day, he'll be worth $4.25M each season. He's not there yet.

Thirteen games in, he's tallied a meager two goals, and three assists. Not bad for a third-year player, if he had been an Oilers draft-pick, everybody would be happy. But it's certainly not what you're expecting for 4.25M/year.

Penner has also been a -3 on the season so far, so he's not as effective defensively as he was in Anaheim either.

I have little doubt that he'll be a great hockey player, but I think the Oilers paid too much. Not the mention the Oil's history of developing great young players just to watch them move on for the really big payout.

Natedawg out.

Social Programs For All

2007-10-25T02:42:00.000-05:00

The most insightful quote I've read from Stephan Dion in a long time:

"The Conservatives, they have difficulty in seeing social programs otherwise than as a burden on the economy. We Liberals, we think that social programs that are well-designed will help people be better trained, better-educated, healthier, more confident in life and because of that, they will be better equipped to be competitive in the market... And then the market economy will be stronger and provide more room for social programs."

It's all about social programs leading to bigger, stronger, faster social programs. Stephan Dion's ideal world is one where everybody is taken care of by some form of government program. And that is a sad vision for Canada.

Video Games Not Just For Nerds

2007-10-03T09:39:00.000-05:00

I've always said that Computer Scientists will save the world. And along that line, I am not in the least surprised to read that therapists are using the Nintendo Wii for rehab (h/t).

We saw 77-year-old Jerry Pope getting a workout playing a virtual tennis game. He suffered a debilitating stroke in June. Pope said that the Wii has enabled him to regain his balance, and the use of his arms.

"Not only am I moving the hand, my feet are moving, I am jumping around, it is as if I am really playing the game. It is motivational, makes you feel like you are progressing, even if you are not and that helps you," he said.

Before his stroke, Pope was a semi-pro tennis player. He initially tried the traditional exercises recommended by physical therapists, but found them repetitive and boring.

He says the Wii is fun and it is helping him make progress. His therapists agree.

I had guessed that the Wii would make its first practical use in Phys. Ed. classes, to keep the brats in a more controlled environment with fewer weapons around.

Nintendo has also developed a pad that you stand on, which can detect most movements your body makes. Along those lines they are developing some really cool "games", like Yoga, and Soccer amongst other things.

Nintendo totally scooped the gaming console market with the Wii, which anybody will tell you is more fun than the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360. And with an unknown number of practical uses for it on the horizon, Sony and Microsoft had better watch out.

The End of an Error

2007-09-23T14:12:00.000-05:00

As a Canucks fan, I feel relief and bitter joy knowing that Dan Cloutier has been sent down to the AHL. And it certainly doesn't come as a surprise that it reads like an obituary.

LOS ANGELES (CP) -- The Los Angeles Kings assigned goalie Dan Cloutier to the Manchester Monarchs of the American Hockey League on Saturday.

The 31-year-old played in 24 games with the Kings last season, going 6-14-2 with a 3.98 goals-against average.

He's posted a 137-139-36 record with a 2.75 GAA in 342 career games with L.A., Vancouver, Tampa Bay and the New York Rangers.

Unfortunately, the Manchester Monarchs do not meet the Manitoba Moose during regular season play this year.

State Senator Sues God; God Responds

2007-09-21T14:25:00.000-05:00

One of last weeks weirder stories was Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers lawsuit against God.

Angered by another lawsuit he considers frivolous, Chambers says he's trying to make the point that anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody.

Chambers says in his lawsuit God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents, inspired fear and caused widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants.

The Omaha senator, who skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians, also says God has caused fearsome floods, horrendous hurricanes and terrifying tornadoes.

He's seeking a permanent injunction against the Almighty.

Its a stupid waste of time, no doubt, even for a politician. But the real surprise is that God responded to the lawsuit.

One of two court filings from "God" came Wednesday under otherworldly circumstances, according to John Friend, clerk of the Douglas County District Court in Omaha.

"This one miraculously appeared on the counter. It just all of a sudden was here -- poof!" Friend said. [...]

His [God] response argues that the defendant is immune from some earthly laws and the court lacks jurisdiction.

It adds that blaming God for human oppression and suffering misses an important point.

"I created man and woman with free will and next to the promise of immortal life, free will is my greatest gift to you," according to the response, as read by Friend.

There was no contact information on the filing, although St. Michael the Archangel is listed as a witness, Friend said.

Since famed O.J. Simpson super-lawyer Johnny Cochran has passed on, it would come as no surprise to see him defend the Almighty. But it begs the question, do good lawyers go to heaven?

The Horrors of Socialized Medicine

2007-09-15T10:16:00.000-05:00

Whoops:

CARACAS (Reuters) - A Venezuelan man who had been declared dead woke up in the morgue in excruciating pain after medical examiners began their autopsy.

Carlos Camejo, 33, was declared dead after a highway accident and taken to the morgue, where examiners began an autopsy only to realize something was amiss when he started bleeding. They quickly sought to stitch up the incision on his face.

"I woke up because the pain was unbearable," Camejo said, according to a report on Friday in leading local newspaper El Universal.

His grieving wife turned up at the morgue to identify her husband's body only to find him moved into a corridor -- and alive.

Reuters could not immediately reach hospital officials to confirm the events. But Camejo showed the newspaper his facial scar and a document ordering the autopsy.

Oh, Hugo. Thats a wonderful country you've got there. Dead until proven alive. I can just imagine the doctors who saw Camejo, poking him with a long pointy stick to test if he was alive. "The patient did not respond to poking, he simply MUST be dead. Send him to the morgue."

Petition MPI

2007-09-09T11:02:00.000-05:00

Manitoba Public Insurance has adopted a policy where law abiding car owners will not be allowed to legally insure they're cars without government approved immobilizers installed. Cars which are on their list of "most at-risk" vehicles to be stolen will no longer be insured without a government sanctioned immobilizer installed.

As the proud owner of a rusty banged-up fifteen year-old car, which also happens to be on "the list", I find this a little outrageous. My car is not worth the cost of an immobilizer, and frankly if someone wants to steal my car I wish them the best of luck.

I would have no problem with the policy if I were able to find another insurance company, but in Manitoba you can't. In Manitoba you can't legally drive you're car if you're not insured. And you can only insure your car with the government-mandated monopoly Manitoba Public Insurance.

After a series of articles in the Winnipeg Sun by Tom Brodbeck, I'm also quite concerned about the irreparable damage this sucker's going to cause to my car. My car is actually about three different cars Frankenstein'd together, and having some witless hack who usually installs car stereos under my hood doesn't instill a lot of confidence. But my car runs great because the hatchetman behind it is very talented at what he does, but the MPI "certified professional" installing the immobilizer is unlikely to have the same magic touch.

Just for fun, the letter I received from MPI closes with the statement, "Get the theft protection you and your newer vehicle deserve." Clearly this concept is designed to target "newer vehicle" owners, not people who own old cars that are worthless.

If you're in agreement with me, please sign this petition by The Canadian Tax Payers Federation to have this policy reversed. It's a travesty that we have a government that feels it needs to control such minute aspects of our lives.

Dean Kamen Saves The World

2007-08-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

Dean Kamen has been changing the world for many years now. To Kamen, it's nothing new to invent a device that can improve the lives of millions. His most notable invention to date has been the Segway Personal Transport.

Most of Kamen's inventions however have a medical aspect to them. The Segway was actually derived from technologies used in the iBot all-terain wheel-chair. Kamen has received awards for his work on personal insulin pumps and portable dialysis machines.

Recently, Dean Kamen has started work on revolutionizing the way we think of prosthetic limbs. From the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference:
I've got two friends who have lost their arms just above the elbow. Both have overcome the obvious obstacles that arise when one looses a limb and have achieved some incredible things. It boggles the mind to contemplate what they could accomplish with a prosthetic arm like that.

One Spicy Meat Ball

2007-08-27T09:50:00.000-05:00

Any time that some organization or scientist questions the reality of mainstream global warming theory, they instantly are accused of being in the pay of Big Oil. Of course this isn't always true, and in either case it doesn't necessarily put the credibility of the science into question.

In this context, it's curious that Al Gore's Alliance For Climate Protection can plan to spend $100 million a year on a massive ad campaign (sure to include lots of fear mongering) to convince American's to "quickly and meaningfully reduce their own global warming pollution" (*). $100 million is a lot of money for a "public awareness campaign". But I am curious as to who's funding such a large attempt to change public opinion.

Hopefully the Alliance has also remembered to buy their carbon offsets from Generation Investment Management. A $100 million marketing campaign is sure to generate a lot of hot air.

Michael Vick Has A New Problem

2007-08-14T17:53:00.000-05:00

As if the charges relating to dog-fighting weren't bad enough for Michael Vick. Now he's facing a lawsuit for $63 billion, filed by South Carolina convict Jonathan Lee Riches.

Riches alleges that Vick stole two white mixed pit bull dogs from his home in Holiday, Fla., and used them for dogfighting operations in Richmond, Va. The complaint goes on to allege that Vick sold the dogs on eBay and "used the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government."

The complaint also alleges that Vick would need those missiles because he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda in February of this year.

Who knew Al-Queda was purchasing weapons from Iran, through NFL stars with funding coming from underground dog-fighting operations? Perhaps this is a case of 'too strange to be true'.

Computer Scienticts And Lawyers

2007-08-10T11:59:00.000-05:00

They make a good point.

It looks like those alleged drunken drivers in Florida trying to get their hands on the source code to the breathalyzer that deemed them intoxicated may have been on to something, as the Minnesota Supreme Court has now granted just that to a defendant currently facing DUI charges in an unrelated case. According to CNET, the court ruled that CMI, makers of the Intoxilyzer 5000EN, must turn the breathalyzer's source code over to the defense attorneys, who said they needed it because "for all we know, it's a random number generator." Apparently, the case wound up focusing largely on whether the source code was actually owned by CMI or by the state, with the court ultimately siding with the latter camp, although not without a good deal of dispute. No word on a next move from either party, but we have a sneaking suspicion that it won't be too long before someone starts lobbying for the code to go open source.

It's a damn good argument. Why shouldn't the accused be able to scrutinize the source code of an electronic device that is essentially convicting him of a crime? Especially, when it's known that:

The request may actually have some merit, as Kentucky-based CMI, who manufactures the devices in question, has been accused of making uncertified changes to the machines, and has had to issue at least one recall in the past due to faulty software.

755 - With Authority

2007-08-05T17:17:00.000-05:00

Bonds is the greatest player ever... EVER! His record speaks for itself. The records he holds:

Career home-runs

Single season home-runs

Career walks

Career intentional walks

Single season on-base percentage

Single season slugging percentage

7 time MVP

12 time Silver Slugger

8 Golden Gloves

14 All-star game appearances

Joined the 30-30 club 5 times

The second of only four players to ever enter the 40-40 club

I know a lot of people don't like Barry Bonds because of the steroid allegations (don't allegations usually need to be backed up with evidence?), and because he treats the media like the vile vermin that they are. But, based on career achievements there has never been a player as dominant as Barry Bonds.

Congratulations on hitting 755 Barry Bonds, and to many, many, many more.

Re-Cap Iraq Roundup

2007-07-31T12:46:00.000-05:00

I had saved this as a draft a few months ago.... In hindsight I think this roundup pretty much answers the question, "What's going on Iraq?" I think in short the answer is, "so little, the MSM doesn't cover it anymore". The lack of news from Iraq is good news.

Democrats want failure in Iraq (h/t).

Many Democrats have anticipated that, at best, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker would present a mixed analysis of the success of the current troop surge strategy, given continued violence in Baghdad. But of late there have been signs that the commander of U.S. forces might be preparing something more generally positive. [House Majority (D) Whip James] Clyburn said that would be "a real big problem for us."

American death toll in Iraq hits 8 month low.

Even the New York Times is now willing to admit the war is winnable, and that the "surge" is working.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily "victory" but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

American troops have recovered more insurgent weapons in the first six months of this year than all of 2006.

Football victory unites Iraq’s feuding leaders.

Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called the win - shared by a national football squad of Shiite Arab, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish players - "a lesson in how to triumph over the impossible to realise victory." [...]

Iraq’s Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, also praised the team, promising an award of 10,000 US dollars to every player, and 20,000 dollars to Younis Mohammed who scored the winning goal in the 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia. [...]

Tariq al-Hashemi, the country’s Sunni Arab vice president, called on the players to bring their rare show of national unity to the seat of government, where Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni lawmakers have been bickering for weeks.

"There is still hope for a unified, secure and independent Iraq where all live well. There is still an opportunity, thank God," Hashemi said.

"I call on the team and everyone who works with it to come to Baghdad to mount a peaceful demonstration in front of the Green Zone to call on Iraqi politicians to put their differences aside."

Michael Yon reports success in Baqubah, Iraq.