Canadawide

Remember Stockwell Day?

Here is just a little reminder of who lead the Alliance Party before Stephen Harper. From http://www.flora.org/mai/forum/21111

On whether his moral views should play a role in governing, part one: ".we often hear that 'moral' questions have no place in modern
politics. But political discourse itself is essentially a series of moral questions." Speech to Civitas Conference, April 28, 2000

On whether his moral views should play a role in governing, part two: "[It is not] possible to demand that the convictions I express on
Sunday should have nothing to do with the way I live my life the other six days of the week." Speech to Civitas Conference, April 28, 2000

On urging an Alberta cabinet colleague to cancel a museum grant to study gay history: "We all make mistakes, and they make a mistake in
pursuing a project which purports to reflect choices of one per cent of the population." Red Deer Advocate, August 15, 1997

On using governmental powers to curtail a woman's access to abortion, part one: "Women who become pregnant through rape or incest should not
qualify for government-funded abortions unless their pregnancy is life-threatening." Edmonton Journal, June 9, 1995

On using governmental powers to curtail a woman's access to abortion, part two: "We need to analyze the legal and medical aspects of it.also the moral implications." Stockwell Day - His life and politics, Claire
Hoy, Stoddart, 2000, p.54

On why he opposed, while in cabinet, offering gays some human rights protection: "[It] legitimizes a lifestyle choice that doesn't deserve this kind of attention." Edmonton Journal, August 20, 1997

On his attempts, as a cabinet minister, to drop abortion from medically-insured services: "The medical evidence is clear that abortions are not medically required, and therefore this is worth looking at." Calgary Herald, February 15, 1995

On supporting a call to use the law to ban books, or edit out "profane" language: "When you're talking about school children, you have to respect the fact that most Canadians profess to be of the Christian faith and they're sending their kids to school.They don't
need to be exposed to the name of Jesus Christ being taken in a blasphemous sense." Calgary Herald, March 3, 1994

On opposing measures to prevent discrimination against gays and lesbians: "The freedom for homosexuals to choose their lifestyle is there. But when I'm asked to legislate, in some way, approval of their choice, then I have a problem.How can I do this without a
mandate to alter in public policy a centuries-old definition of what a natural family is?" Calgary Herald, April 9, 1998

On the introduction of the leaders of gay groups to the Alberta Legislature: "[It was an] offence to the Lord." Calgary Herald, July
5, 1986

On how AIDS is God's punishment for gays:
"I believe that everybody has the freedom to make their own choices on how they're going to live.My personal belief in scripture leads me to believe there are negative consequences incurred when we engage in activities the Bible warns us of our engaging in." Calgary Herald,
July 5, 1986

On the links between abortion and child abuse:
"The thinking is, if you can cut a child to pieces or burn them alive with salt solution while they're still in the womb, what's wrong with knocking them around a little when they're outside the womb?"
Edmonton Journal, March 10, 2000

On bars that feature nude dancers: "It wouldn't bother me at all to see them closed down." Stockwell Day - His life and politics, Claire Hoy, Stoddart, 2000, p.54

On living common law: "Clearly, something has gone awry in our culture to have caused these
escalating social problems. More and more children are being brought up in common law unions." Speech to Civitas Conference, April 28, 2000

On whether gays and lesbians are even discriminated against: "You know what? People miss this, but people are not being fired because they are homosexual." Calgary Herald, April 9, 1998

On official bilingualism:"[We] frankly are bothered that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on a policy over the last number of years that has, among
other things, increased the number of people who claim on their census forms to be bilingual." Transcript, Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on a Renewed Canada, January 22, 1992

On the Playboy Channel being "fine for Canadian airwaves:"The path we have been pursuing over the past thirty years has not been to promote or respect.institutions, but to undermine them at
every turn.It is policies like these that have helped lead to this weakening of our social fabric." Speech to Civitas Conference, April 8, 2000

On single parents and their children, part one
"[T]he percentage of single parent households with children between the ages of 12 and 20 is significantly associated with rates of both violent crime and burglary." Alberta Legislature Hansard, May 3, 1991

On single parents and their children, part two
"Kids who have.been raised by single parents are statistically more susceptible to social problems, emotional problems, behavioural problems.That can lead, in some cases, to juvenile crime. It can also
lead to drug and substance abuse. That's the statistical reality." Calgary Herald, June 1, 1992

On his father, who calls gays "sodomites" and opposes immigrants who do not "look like us:" "He's got whatever right to say whatever he
likes." Globe and Mail, February 25, 1999

On the mental stability of gays
"Homosexuality is a mental disorder that can be cured through counselling." Alberta Report, February 3, 1992

On what his 1982 campaign literature says about his motivations: "[My life] is based on the supremacy of God and strong biblical principles." Edmonton Journal, April 2, 2000

On his bid to use the law to restrict sex education:
"We've all heard the figures that say sex education leads to fewer teenage births. That is quite true, but it's also misleading. There are fewer births because, in fact, there are more abortions." Edmonton
Journal, April 2, 2000

On using his ministerial powers to restrict sex education:
"I am pleased the Premier has agreed we should have fences around certain types of legislation so that certain things are protected. I think people need the right to say 'no' to sex education programs that would include homosexual material." Edmonton Journal, April 10, 1998

On homosexuality generally: "[It is] not condoned by God." Edmonton Journal, April 2, 2000

On where adopted children belong:
"I feel that's what's best for children, to be placed in natural families." Alberta Report, August 11, 1997

On what to call children born outside of marriage:
"Our social policies have not adequately supported marriage and have led to an increase in illegitimacy." Speech to Civitas Conference, April 28, 2000

On the threat posed by sex education:
"The bottom line is there is a growing body of literature suggesting that, as sex education becomes more comprehensive, there is a corresponding increase in sexual activity." Stockwell Day - His life
and politics, Claire Hoy, Stoddart, 2000, p.60

On a Bentley Christian school teaching that democracy was "totally alien to God's word," evolution was "depravity and sinfulness" and francophone settlers were "immoral:" "God's law is clear.[s]tandards
of education are not set by the government, but by God, the Bible, the home and the school. If we ask for [the education minister's] approval, we are recognizing his authority." Edmonton Journal, April
2, 2000

On whether, in the year 2000, he regrets his 1984 statement about the Bentley school: "I was working with that school, that was their position, and I certainly did believe that." Edmonton Journal, April
2, 2000

On what he believed in 1984 about the education of children: "We can't allow them [government] to be the ones in authority when it comes to educating children." Edmonton Journal, April 2, 2000

"Yes I am pro-life, yes I believe that life begins at conception, yes I believe that these are issues that citizens want to talk about. They can bring forward those issues ... and I will never say to any group of citizens or to any individual that I don't want to bring that forward because it could hurt us politically." Said he would
"undertake measures that will allow MPs and private citizens to bring forward legislative measures [on abortion] through free votes and citizens' initiated referenda." (Ottawa Citizen, June 10, 2000)

Alliance/Conservative party Homophobic?: You Decide

Stephen Harper MP: "When Mr. Harper rose to blast the Liberal government for "shameful" conduct and alluded to newspaper "mug shots" of four Liberal ministers. He remarked that the pictures could be posted "in most of the police stations in the country."

When Mr. Robinson rose to complain about the unparliamentary language, Mr. Harper retorted: "Mr. Speaker, I am sure the picture of the honourable member of the NDP is posted in much more wonderful places than just police stations."


Stockwell Day, MP: “God, as a God of love, warns us about things that can be detrimental to us. One of those things is sodomy.”

Myron Thompson, MP: “I want the whole world to know that I do not condone homosexuals. I hate homosexuality.”

Garry Breitkreuz, MP: "If this Bill passes, the institution of marriage will be the next casualty of gay and lesbian lobby groups and weak-kneed politicians. In the 1950s, buggery was a criminal offence, now it’s a requirement to receive benefits from the federal government.”

John Williams, MP:“Going back to the dawn of history and even before, society has organized its way in solid, committed unions between men and women. That is the way in which every society in the world has organized itself. There must be something in it.”

Lee Morrison, MP: “I frankly do not care how homosexuals choose to organize their lives, but to treat their unions as de facto marriages is downright silly. Not too many years ago, if anyone had suggested that homosexual couples living together under the same roof should be awarded the same social benefits as married people, they would have been laughed out of town. It would have been considered hilarious. Yet here we are. Is this progress? I doubt it.”

Reed Elley, MP:“By the mid-1960s we were in the midst of a sexual revolution. The feminist movement started a strident campaign to bring women into the 20th century. They wanted vengeance and retribution. A gradual blurring of the sexes occurred that gave young men growing up in many female dominated, single parent homes an identity crisis. This led to a rise in militant homosexuality The things that had been considered improper went looking for a desperate legitimacy.

In my view, no government can make legitimate any behaviour that has for centuries by tradition, custom, faith and the social contract been seen as destructive to family life If this bill passes without the amendments we have suggested, it will be a sad day for Canada and I, for one, would never want to be a part of that kind of country.”

Robert Ringma MP: Said in May, 1996, he would fire a black or gay person or move them "to the back of the shop" if their presence offended bigoted customers. Mr. Ringma quit as Reform party whip.

David Chatters MP: Echoed Mr. Ringma's remarks about gays and said a private religious college would be justified in firing an openly gay teacher. The Alberta MP was temporarily suspended from caucus.

Grant Hill MP: Alberta doctor described homosexuality as an "unhealthy lifestyle" in making references to certain illnesses more common among gays. He has repeated the remarks, even while running for party leader five years after first making them in 1996.

Cheryl Gallant MP: In April, 2002, the Ontario MP shouted "ask your boyfriend" at Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham in Question Period. Ms. Gallant denied making the comment, telling local reporters she was a victim of a "smear campaign" by the national media. She later apologized.

Larry Spencer MP: Said homosexuality should be illegal and alleged that a conspiracy to promote it includes the infiltration of North America's judiciary, schools and governments. The Saskatchewan MP was suspended from caucus.

Spencer's apology:

"I wish to apologize completely and without reservation for the personal comments I made in an interview yesterday with Peter O'Neil of the Vancouver Sun.
"I retract the statement I made indicating I would support a bill to criminalize homosexuality. I do not believe that homosexual behaviour should be criminalized or that homosexuals should be persecuted.
"I apologize for linking the homosexual community with pedophilia. I was wrong to draw such an inference.
"I apologize to my colleague Svend Robinson. I have the utmost respect for Mr. Robinson as both an individual and as a parliamentarian.
"Lastly, I apologize to Stephen Harper, the Canadian Alliance Caucus and supporters of the soon-to-be formed Conservative Party of Canada.
"I take full responsibility for my comments.
"They do not, in any way, reflect the views of my leader nor my party.
"This is why I volunteered to withdraw from the Canadian Alliance Caucus.
"I will not be making any further public comments on this issue."

Stephen Harper and Ted White

Harper stated goal has been to lower Canadian taxes to such an extent that they lower than what they are in the US. At the same time, he promises to blance the budget. Under his “legislated taxpayer protection plan” he plans to make deficits illegal! I will let you figure out where that leaves Canada's social programs. This all seems to be part of the plan. For Harper taxes cuts are a means of rolling back social programs. Indeed for 5 years Harper help head the National Citizens Coalition, three years as president and 2 years as VP. Founded in 1967 to fight public healthcare, the NCC raison d’ etat was succinctly put up in 1996 by then president David Somerville. “The fact of the matter is, we have stood since 1967 for more freedom through less government and we have promoted that philosophy in a number of different ways, through (public advocacy of) privatization, tax cuts, spending cuts and opposing gag laws. We’ve been consistent for almost 30 years.” If all this sounds familer, it is because the Heritage Foundation in the States is devoted to exactly the same end. Grover Norquist expressed the same idea in slightly different terms. He said that he wanted to so weaken the State by straving it of its life blood (i.e., tax revenue), that he could take it into a washroom and drown it in the bathtub.

There is more. In a 1994 speech to the NCC, Harper addressed possibility of Quebec separation.

“Whether Canada ends up as one national government or two national governments or several national governments, or some other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly, secondary in my opinion,” said Harper, who was at the time constitutional affairs critic for Reform. “What matters and should matter to politicians and people who believe in the kind of values that I believe the National Citizens’ Coalition share and the Reform Party share is not whether the Canadian state prospers, but whether the Canadian people and the land we call Canada prosper. “Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be.”

In other words, for Harper cutting the government down to size is more important then that the country surives

While I am at it, I might mention what a gem Conservative MP Ted White is and how puzzling it was that some people, in the lead up to the 1997 election did not like Kinsella digging up White's past. Why is this irksome? Kinsella pointed out that Ted White had a past relationship with Doug Christie. Doug Christie is not exactly a fine upstanding citizen and Kinsella was right to bring up that Ted White once belonged to the Western separatist party that Christie heads, viz., the Western Canada Concept. For those who do not know, Doug Christie is a Victoria lawyer who has made a name for himself by defending Canada’s most notorious Neo Nazis and Holocaust deniers. Among others, Christie has defended Ernst Zundel, Terry Long, former leader of the Aryan Nations of Canada and James Keegstra. It not that he defends these people; it is that he sympathizes with them. In 1985, Vancouver broadcaster Gary Bannerman said "Doug Christie has aligned himself so many times with these perverted monsters that he has to be viewed as one himself." Christie sued Bannerman for libel and lost. He appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, and lost again. Quotes like the following kind of gave away his facist leanings and the fact that he was frequently spotted with these guys at various meetings did not help either. "Spiritual revitalization (requires) the manifestation of a heroic role model for the European male. The leader is always the source of such a model. The leader must always epitomize the ideal of the nation."

There is a whole lot more that should be pointed out about Ted White. His outrageous claim he made in the house March 31 of last year comes to mind. "At least 40 per cent of all the Iranians living there (North Vancouver) are refugee claimants”. "Most of them are bogus." Equally disturbing is that he one of two Alliance MPs that refused to condemn ex Alliance family issues critic Larry Spencer homophobic comments. Spencer said that homosexuality should be illegal and that there is a secret homosexual conspiracy to bring children into their ranks. Oh well, what can you expect from a candidate whose leader said back in 2001 that "west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent immigrants or recent migrants from eastern Canada: people who live in ghettoes and who are not integrated into western Canadian society.”

There is one more thing that should be said about White. Namely, he is anti-intellectual. "I cannot conceive of any way in which research in the fields of fine arts, classical studies, philosophy, anthropology, modern languages and literature, or medieval studies, which together accounted for over $5.3 million in grants from SSHRC in the last fiscal year, contributes to any ‘understanding of Canadian society of the challenges we face as we enter the 21st century.’ Research into such fields, as far as my constituents are concerned, constitutes a personal past-time, and has no benefit to Canadian taxpayers. As their representative, I cannot justify funding such activities with their tax dollars."

Dr. Laura Moss, a professor of Canadian and World literature at the University of Manitoba, feels that White's attack on federally funded research itself undermines the mandate of the SSHRC.

"The list of topics that MP Ted White finds questionable may be roughly broken into five categories: those based on gender norms and critiquing gender roles in Canadian society, those based on race, those based on youth culture, those based on studies of 'foreign' cultures, and those based on reassessing history," Moss explained.

"Paradoxically, by calling into question the value of work that deals with gender, race, multiculturalism, culture, history, and generational differences, White is reinforcing the very necessity for such work as representing some of the challenges we, as Canadians, face as we enter the 21st century,"

Harper's Law and Order Promise

During the summer, the Bushies were trying to play down the violence there. In order to convince people that things were not that bad, some staffer had the bright idea to point out that given the data they had, probably incomplete, Baghdad's murder rate was lower than New York city's. The underlying message was that things in Baghdad were just peachy. After all, as everyone knows New York's murder rate is low. Looking back on this I do not know whether to laugh or cry. Sure New York's murder rate (last I heard 7.5 per 100000 but I have heard it as low as 6) is low relative to other American cities, but it is double that of the most violent Western cities outside of the States. As for the US cities with the highest murder rates, there no other western cities that come even close to having the murder rate of say Detroit (47 per 100000) and Washington DC (48 per 100000). Murder rates in those cities are similar to crime ridden Rio and Bogotá. The main reason for such a discrepancy between the murder rate in the States and the rest of the Western world is as most criminologists will tell you differences between rich and poor are so much greater in the States than they are in other Western countries. This is why Stephen Harper’s law and order approach rings so hollow. Any tax regime that is similar to the States, Harper’s stated goal, will produce, by increasing the inequalities of wealth, far more criminals than Harper could ever dream of locking up.

Free Iraqi Forces!: Woolsey with egg on his Face

While on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, former CIA director and Neo Con thinker James Woolsey, who calls the war on terrorism World War 4, the Third World War being the Cold War, blamed the CIA and The Statement Department for the lack of troops in Iraq. Come again you say? Was it not Rummy and crew that insisted on a small force. Woolsey said that the CIA and the State Department refused to back a plan that would have provided the Department of Defence Plan with the millions needed to form an army of thousands of Iraqi ex pats, akin to De Gaulle’s Free French, led by Ahmed Chalabi. Wipe the egg from your face Mr. Woolsey. While the recent arrest of Chalabi proves that the Free French comparison was never a good one, it was however apt in one respect. Like De Gaulle, Chalabi has turned out to be a royal pain in the ass.

Canada Needs Krugman

If I was to write a letter to Krugman telling him of about the scourge that is Stephen Harper, it would go something like this.

“I am concerned that what happened in the States with George Bush will happen in Canada. A Federal Election will be held on June 28th and the person that is trying to pass himself off as a compassionate conservative is the Conservative Party's Stephen Harper. Although currently behind in the polls, the governing Liberal party is mired in Scandal and there is an outside chance that Harper could head the next government.

Harper like Bush is a committed tax cutter. Fine you say. Canadian taxes are too high to begin with. This may be true, but Harper stated goal has been to lower Canadian taxes to such an extent that they lower than what they are in the US. Such action would gut Canada’s social programs and would surely end a string of 7 straight balanced budgets. What is more, like some Republicans for Harper taxes cuts are a means of rolling back social programs. Indeed for 5 years Harper help head the National Citizens Coalition, three years as president and 2 years as VP. Founded in 1967 to fight public healthcare, the NCC raison d’ etat was succinctly put up in 1996 by then president David Somerville. “The fact of the matter is, we have stood since 1967 for more freedom through less government and we have promoted that philosophy in a number of different ways, through (public advocacy of) privatization, tax cuts, spending cuts and opposing gag laws. We’ve been consistent for almost 30 years.”

Harper has from time to time has let down his guard and shown his true colours.

2000: “Alberta and much of the rest of Canada have embarked on divergent and potentially hostile paths to defining their country.

Alberta has opted for the best of Canada's heritage -- a combination of American enterprise and individualism with the British traditions of order and co-operation. We have created an open, dynamic and prosperous society in spite of a continuously hostile federal government.

Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status, led by a second-world strongman appropriately suited for the task.

Albertans would be fatally ill-advised to view this situation as amusing or benign. Any country with Canada's insecure smugness and resentment can be dangerous. It can revel in calling its American neighbours names because they are too big and powerful to care.”

2001: “west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from Eastern Canada: People who live in ghettoes and who are not integrated into western society”

2002: “There’s unfortunately a view of too many people in Atlantic Canada that its only through government favours that there’s going to be economic progress, or that’s what you look to.” “The kind of can’t do attitude is a problem in this country but its obviously more serious in regions that have had have-not status for a long time.”

2004: On joining the coalition of the willing. Harper told fox news the following: “Outside of Quebec, I believe very strongly the silent majority of Canadians is strongly supportive.” This is a patently false statement. Not even in Alberta did a majority of people favor going to war.

Not surprisingly, the Liberals and to a lesser extent the NDP have made a lot of these quotes. However, excluding the CBC, out west they have not gotten the attention they deserve. The Canadian press is dominated by conservative Can West and out west they own every major paper. The current editor of the Vancouver Sun, Vancouver’s dominant paper, is a former member of one of Canada’s most right wing think tanks. The extent of their biases should be evident to all, but it is not. This is a paper that once led with an editorial calling for an end to the Federal Liberal's supposed anti-Americanism. To put this into perspective, Bush's approval rating nationwide is 15% and is much lower still in Vancouver."

Stephen Harper: A Money Quote

"Alberta and much of the rest of Canada have embarked on divergent and potentially hostile paths to defining their country.

Alberta has opted for the best of Canada's heritage -- a combination of American enterprise and individualism with the British traditions of order and co-operation. We have created an open, dynamic and prosperous society in spite of a continuously hostile federal government.

Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status, led by a second-world strongman appropriately suited for the task.

Albertans would be fatally ill-advised to view this situation as amusing or benign. Any country with Canada's insecure smugness and resentment can be dangerous. It can revel in calling its American neighbours names because they are too big and powerful to care."

Powell Far From Finished

Admittedly, I am little late commenting on Powell’s interview with Tim Russert last Sunday. However, better late than never. This is how the Washington Post described the incident, which happened towards the end of interview.

“Toward the end of a "Meet the Press" interview with Secretary of State Colin Powell in Jordan, the camera suddenly moved off Powell to a shot of trees in front of the water.
"You're off," State Department press aide Emily Miller was heard saying.
"I am not off," Powell insisted.
"No, they can't use it, they're editing it," Miller said.
"He's still asking the questions," Powell said.
Miller, a onetime NBC staffer who recently worked for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, also told Powell: "He was going to go for another five minutes."
Undeterred, Russert complained from Washington: "I would hope they would put you back on camera. I don't know who did that." He later said, "I think that was one of your staff, Mr. Secretary. I don't think that's appropriate."
As the delay dragged on, Powell ordered: "Emily, get out of the way. Bring the camera back please." Powell's image returned to the screen, and Russert asked his last question.
What happened was that both NBC and Fox News were using Jordanian television facilities for back-to-back Powell interviews. Russert was allotted 10 minutes and was asked to wrap when he went over by about two minutes. He said "Finally, Mr. Secretary," but abruptly lost his guest.
Russert was still puzzled afterward. "A taxpayer-paid employee interrupted an interview," he said. "Not in the United States of America, that's not supposed to go on. This is attempted news management gone berserk. Secretary Powell was really stand-up. He was a general and took charge." Powell later called the NBC anchor from his plane to apologize for the glitch.
State Department spokeswoman Julie Reside disputed Russert's characterization, saying that NBC "went considerably beyond the agreed end time. Other networks were waiting for their interviews and had satellite time booked, and we didn't want to keep them waiting."
Asked why he simply didn't edit out the awkward interlude from the taped interview, Russert said: "It's part of the story."
I am no conspiracy theorist, but I have to agree with Russert’s meek characterization of what happened as “news management gone berserk”. Not only did Emily try muzzle/censor the Sectary of Defense she was obviously watching over Powell had the behest of someone quite powerful. Guppies do not attack sharks without the protection of another shark (most likely from the Pentagon, but more on that below.)

Whoever it was, they had reason to want Powell muzzled. Picking up on an earlier quote indicating that Powell thought that the information he presented before UN was false, Russert asked Powell about the his earlier statement. This is what Powell said. “When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully; we looked at the sourcing in the case of the mobile trucks and trains. There was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate. And so I'm deeply disappointed. But I'm also comfortable that at the time that I made the presentation, it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment of the intelligence community. But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that, I am disappointed and I regret it.”

Now, some members of the press have speculated that the reason that Powell did this was to sure up his legacy that was dearly damaged by the UN speech. Perhaps. However, I do not think that Powell is so selfish as to put his own legacy ahead of the interests of the country. I think Powell’s original comments and the last sentence quoted above is just one more saga in the continuing war between the Pentagon and State Department and the CIA over the reliability of the INC. Powell essentially called INC a bunch of liars. As for that long running war, pace those people who have all but written Powell off, the arrest of some of INC people, the leaked stories about the INC being suspect for some time and decision to no longer fund them is a sure sign that the INC battle is at last over and surprise State Department and the CIA have won.

Cole and Sullivan Spat

Sullivan and Cole got into quite the spat a few days back. It all started when Sullivan, rightly, singled out the following quote for derision. "Paul Wolfowitz kept crowing last summer about how the US saved the Marsh Arabs from Saddam, but now that many of them have joined the Sadrists in Kut and Amara, Wolfowitz is having the Marsh Arabs killed just as Saddam did, and for the same reasons." Cole then took a piece that Sullivan had written a while back about Howard Raines and went to town. Not having read either Sullivan’s piece on Rains, I am not sure just how on target Cole was. From what I could gleam it was a mixed bag. For example, Cole was right to come to Scowcroft’s defense. Scowcroft motives might not have been pure, but so what. As Cole pointed out, he was right about a good deal. This is something that Sullivan still does not seem to have grasped. In answering Cole’s criticisms, he again impinged Scowcroft motives, albeit for entirely different reasons. “It is perfectly fair to notice that Brent Scowcroft might be seeking to defend his past in opposing a new Iraq war. When your policy of keeping Saddam in power led to the massacre of hundreds of thousands, you have a good reason to make the case that you were nonetheless right.” Conversely, Cole was out to lunch in thinking that in calling Powell “gun shy” Sullivan was calling him a coward. "Powell … had actually fought in a war. I suspect Sullivan has not, nor has he in all likelihood even lived in a war zone for any extended period of time. He had no standing to launch a vicious attack on the officer corps of the United States Army and Marines, accusing them of cowardice (I take it that is the meaning of "gun-shy." With justification, Sullivan jumped all over him for this. “Cole then says my description of some military brass as "gun-shy" implies I am impugning their courage. Please. I'm merely describing the U.S. military's long-held aversion to difficult conflicts.” That said, Sullivan should have taken it further. I do not ever recall one needing “standing” to make any sort of claim. Comments like these and the often repeated claim that supporters of the war are a bunch of “Chicken Hawks” are perfect examples an ad hominine attack Cole accused Sullivan of having made.

Conservative war Backers No Longer Plagued by Bad faith over Bush's mishandling of the War
Andrew Sullivan:

"THE INEXCUSABLE: The one anti-war argument that, in retrospect, I did not take seriously enough was a simple one. It was that this war was noble and defensible but that this administration was simply too incompetent and arrogant to carry it out effectively. I dismissed this as facile Bush-bashing at the time. I was wrong. I sensed the hubris of this administration after the fall of Baghdad, but I didn't sense how they would grotesquely under-man the post-war occupation, bungle the maintenance of security, short-change an absolutely vital mission, dismiss constructive criticism, ignore even their allies (like the Brits), and fail to shift swiftly enough when events span out of control. This was never going to be an easy venture; and we shouldn't expect perfection. There were bound to be revolts and terrorist infractions. The job is immense; and many of us have rallied to the administration's defense in difficult times, aware of the immense difficulties involved. But to have allowed the situation to slide into where we now are, to have a military so poorly managed and under-staffed that what we have seen out of Abu Ghraib was either the result of a) chaos, b) policy or c) some awful combination of the two, is inexcusable. It is a betrayal of all those soldiers who have done amazing work, who are genuine heroes, of all those Iraqis who have risked their lives for our and their future, of ordinary Americans who trusted their president and defense secretary to get this right. To have humiliated the United States by presenting false and misleading intelligence and then to have allowed something like Abu Ghraib to happen - after a year of other, compounded errors - is unforgivable. By refusing to hold anyone accountable, the president has also shown he is not really in control. We are at war; and our war leaders have given the enemy their biggest propaganda coup imaginable, while refusing to acknowledge their own palpable errors and misjudgments. They have, alas, scant credibility left and must be called to account. Shock has now led - and should lead - to anger. And those of us who support the war should, in many ways, be angrier than those who opposed it."

Fareed Zakaria:

"On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq—troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani—Washington's assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world."

David Brooks:

"We still face a world of threats, but we're much less confident about our own power. We still know we can roll over hostile armies, but we cannot roll over problems. We get dragged down into them. We can topple tyrants, but we don't seem to be very good at administering nations. Our intelligence agencies have made horrible mistakes. Our diplomacy vis-à-vis Western Europe has been inept. We have a military filled with heroes, but the atrocities of a few have eclipsed the nobility of the many.

In short, we are on the verge of a crisis of confidence.

.... It's hard not to be appalled by the Pentagon's blindness to the psychological catastrophe these photos were bound to create. Even yesterday, months after the atrocities were first known, Rumsfeld and company were incapable of answering the most elemental questions from John McCain, Lindsey Graham and others about who was in charge of the prison, and why the photos weren't immediately seen as weapons of mass morale destruction. If Rumsfeld had held a conference and pre-emptively presented these photos to the world, with his response already set, things would not look nearly as bad as they do now."

George Will

" Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice."

Robert Kagan and William Kristol

"The shortage of troops in Iraq is the product of a string of bad calculations and a hefty dose of wishful thinking. Above all, it is the product of Rumsfeld's fixation on high-tech military "transformation," his hostility to manpower-intensive nation-building in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and his refusal to increase the overall size of the military in the first place."

BC "Liberal" party goes too far by empossing a Retroactive wage Cut

For some time now the BC Liberal party has wanted to undermine the public sector unions. Since coming to power they have imposed contracts on the teachers, doctors, nurses and transit workers. They are now going after hospital support staff. Now, whatever side of the issue you come down on, I think it safe to say that they really bungled this most recent battle. Not only did they impose a 15% wage roll back and pave the way to privatization, they, get this, made the wage roll back retroactive. What this means is just as these employees have submitted their income tax returns, the government has demanded that these support staff pay a de facto tax on past earnings. When asked why the government imposed the retroactive roll back finance minister Colin Hanson said “because I felt like it.” The response of some other MLAs was equally stupefying. A few even admitted that if they had they known about the retroactive clause they would never have voted for the Bill. In other words, they admitted to not reading all or part of the bill.

In response, to Premier Campbell’s ham fisted tactics teachers are planning to defy an order designating them essential service employees, hospital workers are going to defy back to work legislation and transit workers are walking off the job.

Three years ago, Campbell was given an overwhelming mandate, taking 77 of 79 seats. Through deeds like these he finds himself behind to the polls and the pendulum that is BC politics threatens to swing the other way yet again. In BC we do not actually vote for a party, we vote against them. Last time there around there was a huge protest vote against the NDP. Next time there will be a large protest vote against the Liberals. Although I am not exactly what you call an avid supporter of the provincial NDP, I am going be part of the backlash. I am going to vote for the NDP. Retroactive roll backs, introducing a “training wage” read a reduction in the minimum wage, neutering the workers compensation board, lowering the age at which children can start working to 12!, all of this is just going to far.

The Fallujah Pull out

Personally, I think the US has made a huge mistake by pulling out of Fallujah. Sure, a case can be made that this type of model can work in certain instances. However, now is not the time. First crush the rebellion and then you can go ahead with such an arrangement. By pulling out the way they did, they not only crushed the moral of their own troops, they gave the defenders of Fallujah a moral victory. In the days leading up to the pull out, the press droned on ad nauseam about how they would only stir up more resistance by going in and the defenders of Fallujah would be celebrated as martyrs in respect. I think this mantra was not closely examined. The insurgents at Fallujah were not lauded for standing by to the Americans they were lauded because “Arab street” was still holding on to the prospect that they could get the Americans to back down. The Americans should look what happened in the war itself. Believing the rhetoric of comical Ali, the “Arab street” was up in Arms. However, when their dreams of American defeat were shown to be nothing but an illusion things quickly quieted down. Another thing they US should have looked at is what happened in Somali. I do not blame Clinton one bit for leaving the country, but the optics of an American pull out without dealing a blow to Aidid was terrible. Somali helped Bin Laden gain a great deal of street credibility.

All the tough talk coming out of Washington the week before, only served to magnify insurgents perceived victory. Republican bravado politicking might work well at home, but there is nothing worse in Foreign policy than talking loudly and carrying a small stick.

All and all, I think the timing of the pictures coming out might have had something to do with “pull back”.

Speaking of which, they have handled the issue particularly poorly. If there ever was time for spin, it is now. What I would say is this: it was not Al Jazzera that broke the story, nor was it any other Arab network. It was CBS, one of the major US networks. This is what a free press does. It calls attention to the misdeeds of those in the employ of the government and demands that the state do something about it. I only hope that Al Jazzera will hold the governments of the Arab world to the same standards that CBS does ours.

As for the mistreatment, we condemn it and those that committed these acts will be brought to justice. That said, I hope the Iraq people and the Arab world generally does not tar all Americans with the same brush. The American people have the good sense to see that Bin Laden is not representative Arabs or Muslims and they also have the good sense to see that the Fallujahian thugs, who mutilated the bodies of civilian contractors, are not typical Iraqis. I hope the Iraqi people will have the good sense to put their emotions aside and see that these criminals are not representative of the 150,000 Americans in Iraq.

Moving on, the question I want to know is what self righteous whistler blower or egotistic profiteer would sell these pictures to a major news network? Whoever he is should be taken out back on shot. American blood and now British will flow because of this.

Is "only the fittest survive" a tautology?: A Wittgensteinian Take

“One of the best documented examples of natural selection in modern times is the English Peppered Moth. Typically, this moth is whitish with black speckles and spots all over its wings. During the daytime, Peppered moths are well-camouflaged as they rest on the speckled lichens on tree trunks. Occasionally a very few moths have a genetic mutation which causes them to be all black, so they are said to be melanistic. Black moths resting on light-colored, speckled lichens are not very well camouflaged, and so are easy prey for any moth-eating birds that happen by. Thus, these melanistic moths never get to reproduce and pass on their genes for black color. However, an interesting thing happened to these moths in the 1800s. With the Industrial Revolution, many factories and homes in British cities started burning coal, both for heat and to power all those newly-invented machines. Coal does not burn cleanly, and creates a lot of black soot and pollution. Since lichens are extremely sensitive to air pollution, this caused all the lichens on city trees to die. Also, as the soot settled out everywhere, this turned the tree trunks (and everything else) black. This enabled the occasional black moths to be well-camouflaged so they could live long enough to reproduce, while the “normal” speckled moths were gobbled up. Studies done in the earlier 1900s showed that while in the country, the speckled moths were still the predominant form, in the cities, they were almost non-existant. Nearly all the moths in the cities were the black form. It was evident to the researchers studying these moths that the black city moths were breeding primarily with other black city moths while speckled country moths were breeding primarily with other speckled country moths. Because of this, any new genetic mutations in one or the other of those populations would only be passed on within that population and not throughout the whole moth population. Additionally, because the city and country environments were different, there were different selective pressures on city vs. country moths that could potentially drive the evolution of these two populations of moths in different directions. The researchers pointed out that if this were to continue for a long enough time, the city and country moths could become so genetically different that they could no longer interbreed with each other, and thus would be considered distinct species. In this case, what actually happened is that the people of England decided they didn’t like breathing and living in all that coal pollution, thus found ways to clean things up. As the air became cleaner, lichens started growing on city trees again, thus the direction of the selective pressure (birds) was once again in favor of the speckled moths. By now, English cities, as well as countrysides, all have speckled moths, and all are interbreeding at random, thus were not separated for long enough to develop into separate species.”

Let us suppose that contrary to all expectations after the trees of Northern England were no longer covered in soot the black coloured moths continued to thrive at the expensive of the speckled coloured moths. Some have implied that this would be a strike against Darwinian Theory; the theory would have predicted a falsehood, viz., only the fittest survive. I think they are mistaken. Only the fittest survive is not proposition and as such true or false. Rather, survivability is a built in criterion of fitness.

Back tracking a bit, I think we can agree that the reason the speckled coloured moth was expected to resume its original predominance was that it was presumed to be better suited to its environment. In other words, it was presumed to be fitter. Here in lies the problem for opponents of my view. By holding that “only the fittest survive” is like any old proposition they unwittingly run two empirical propositions together, viz., the notion that only the fittest survive and the notion that speckled colouring confers fitness. As a result, they render both unfalsifiable. Indeed, faced with such contradictory evidence one can always insolate one proposition by rejecting the other. Either, the speckled coloured month’s colouring did confer fitness and Darwinian maximum is wrong, or the moths colouring did not confer fitness and the Darwinian maximum still holds.

Conversely, in accordance with what I said above about “only the fittest survive” being a criterion of fitness, I would say that the hypothesis that the speckled coloured moth’s colouring gave it a selective advantage is false. This is also the conclusion I think scientists would draw. By holding out survival as a criterion of fitness we are able to test our predications as to who we think is fit in present day populations (e.g. a population of moths). I suppose we could do something similar using complex computer programs for past populations. Feeding all the information we have about old environments into computer simulation program, we could test various adaptationist explanations.

Before I am dismissed as an adherent of the view that the Darwinian maximum reduces to completely vacuous “only survivors survive”, let me say this. Populations change from generation to generation and often in a particular direction. This is denied by no sane person. The rub for scientists has always been how to account for these changes. There have been many ill fated attempts. Lamarck’s theory of acquired characteristics being passed down to the next generation being the most well known. Darwinians say that “natural selection” can explain at least some of these changes in populations and most people, even creationists, have no trouble conceding that it can (e.g., as in the moth example quoted at the beginning). Darwinian Theory fits with our understanding of genetics and there are powerful mathematical models that explain how selective pressures can change the distribution of any one gene in a given population and at can explain at what rate that change occur. (Of course, these models also explain why artificial selection works) All in all, Darwin has offered up the most coherent and popular theory to date. Where they part ways with many lay people, at least in the States, is that Darwinians believe, as any believer in evolution does, that these changes can eventually lead to speciation.

All that being said, it seems outrageous to say that the success of Darwinian Theory rests on some slight of hand. There is good reason for this. When you really get down to it what Darwinians do is to come up with just so adaptationist stories for why this or that trait or behavior evolved and make predications about survival rates based upon what who they think is fit. As noted, there is nothing suspicious about the latter. As for the former, many are admittedly speculative. However, they are no more mysterious, or on a less academically sure footing than many other historically based fields of endeavor. Moreover, many of the best known evolutionary theorists (e.g., Stephen Jay Gould) reputations rest or rested on their willingness to rein in those who went beyond the available evidence.

Another fundamental misunderstanding concerns the nature of the maximum itself. A statement is tautological in so far as the meaning of the terms are defined by means of each other. In this case, so the argument goes the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed the fittest. With regards to the famous Darwinian maximum this is false. It only makes sense to talk about fitness in terms of populations that have undergone or are undergoing selective pressures. A segment of the population is fit relative only to another segment of the population that is unfit. If one invokes another mechanism to explain some trait’s dominance, then strictly speaking there is no segment of the parent population that is fitter than any other and consequently it would be inappropriate to describe the offspring (i.e., survivors) of that population undergoing, for example, genetic drift as being fit or not. To think it otherwise leads to the strange conclusion that any Darwinian who wanted to stay true to the maximum would have to avoid ever adopting another evolutionary mechanism.

In coming to this conclusion about the nature of Darwinian maximum, I did not draw my inspiration, Popper, who at one time thought the Darwinian maximum to be a tautology, but rather Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein rejected the Logical Positivist mantra that some propositions are true by definition (e.g. “All bachelors are unmarried men” is true by virtue of the meaning of “bachelor” and “unmarried men”). However, Wittgenstein thought the positivists like so many before them were right to think so called analytic statements were special. He thought, though, they were wrong to think them propositions. According to Wittgenstein such statements are, rather, explicit rules for how to use words (e.g., “All bachelors are unmarried men” rules out the use of word bachelor in the following sentence. “She was a lifelong bachelor.”) Wittgenstein likens these explicit rules to the hum drum rules of grammar. Indeed, he deems them as being part of grammar proper. Like the everyday rules of grammar, they help constitute the bounds of what is sensible and unlike propositions are neither true nor false.

Wittgenstein thought that not all grammatical statements were so easy to pick out. In fact he held that people frequently mistake some grammatical rules as normal propositions (e.g., Sensations are private) When that happens he said, “language goes on a holiday” and the only way “to shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle” is to investigate, hence the title Philosophical Investigations, the relationships between the offending rule and others parts of language. In Wittgenstein’s case, what such a typical investigation involved was Wittgenstein showing how treating a particular grammatical rule as a proposition leads to absurd conclusions. If successful a cloud of philosophy would be condensed into a droplet of grammar.

If I had to classify “only the fittest survive”, I would say it was a grammatical statement and the absurd conclusion that is avoided by treating it as such is the possibility that sometimes the weakest survive.