Jonathan Ross Asks:

"Why do you think that [Stephane Dion and Bob Rae] can beat Stephen Harper's Tory government, who for the most part have very few weaknesses?"

Instead of bothering to answer a loaded question, I'll ask one in return:

"Why do you think that Michael Ignatieff's policies won't drive every left-leaning Canadian either away from the polls or into the arms of the NDP?"

His supporters may apologize over and over again, but the fact remains: Ignatieff has irrevocably associated himself with Bush's disastrous war in Iraq, Israel's disastrous war in Lebanon, and the disastrous idea that torture is effective. (Ignatieff's professed distaste notwithstanding.)

Any Canadian that looks beyond the borders of Canada and sees something more than bad guys to be clubbed into submission is going to be very, very leery of the man.

(Yes, I'm aware of the North Korean situation. I'll get to that in a bit. First thing's first though: yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as international law, and it does serve a role. If it didn't, there wouldn't be an international economy.)

"Outing" Pages

I realize I belabour the point a bit, but once again, we can see damned good reasons to keep one's self to oneself.

The FBI is investigating a possible threat against the north Louisiana teenager who was on the receiving end of suggestive e-mails from disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley, a Louisiana congressman said Tuesday.

Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman, said Tuesday that the young man's life wasn't threatened, "but close to it."

"There are people out there who feel like he is the one who (accused) Foley," Alexander said. "There are some bloggers out there who sent him some ugly stuff." (emphasis added)

Naturally, the guiding lights of the right, Insty and Roger Simon, were only too happy to aid those desperate to find the page and "learn 'im" a little.

Yes, this is very real, it's endemic on the right (including, no doubt, the supporters of Warren Kinsella's new bestest friend), and they see it as perfectly justified. Witness this rant from a comment posted on the above site:

BWAHAHAHAHAH!!! the left talkinga bout intimidating and trying to destroy witnesses and victims….hahahaha!!! oh you young, dumb Liberals.

You little one’s seem to forget that the Clinton administration would destroy the life and reputation of any woman who dare come out in public and say that Clinton had raped her or taken advantage of her.

The Liberal hypocrisy is beyond pathetic!!! You fake outrage is laughable at best!

As usual, the “pro-law” liberals want to pass verdict and sentence on people they hate with a passion without giving them a trial. How typical of left wing communists who hate the law and our Constitution.

What Foley did is disgusting and he should be punished to the full extend of the law IF he broke the law. We will find out if he broke the law after the FBI investigation is over and if the Justice Department decides to take this to court. Until then, remember Liberals who hate our Constitution, in the United States of America you are innocent until proven guilty. I know, i know, you guys hate that part of our laws as much as the 2nd Amendment.

Do you honestly think that a movement that embraces shit like this--especially the Killer Klinton stuff, the subject of dozens of books that were lavishly praised by all the right wing's glitterati--is going to balk at doing whatever's necessary to ensure that something like the Foley scandal doesn't put the Dems in power?

Me neither. And, as Stevie is probably aware (even if Warren ain't), where the Republican party goes, the Conservatives are going soon after.

Liberals, whether Canadian Liberals or American liberals, should remember that freedom of speech doesn't come with ID cards.

Wells and Ignatieff

Apropo of my earlier analysis of the Canadian Liberal leadership results, Paul Wells believes that Ignatieff will take it, and argues as such in a recent blog entry.

(That an Ignatieff win would be an indirect bonanza to the Canadian right, who would get to shift the whole discourse rightward, was not discussed. Man's gotta eat, and Whyte runs the store.)

(Saying otherwise might also screw up his good friend Warren Kinsella's bizarre mission to help Stephen Harper in any way, shape, or form that he can, despite what would supposedly be ideological differences.)

(Anyway...)

(Edit: In comments, "Ben" points out that Wells did say something that might fit along this line:

I suspect Ignatieff will face Stephen Harper at the next election. Which means the NDP will have room to thrive; the new Liberal leader will stand offside his party's base on the central foreign-policy issue of the moment; and no attack against Stephen Harper for militarism or coziness with the Bush White House will hold water.

I didn't read this as having much, if anything, to do with conservatism as a whole. At least upon first reading, it struck me as more a tactical comment than one about the ideological discourse. An Iggy win would validate the center-right in the Liberal party, and it is precisely due to the inability to attack on militarism et al that things would skew rightward- Iggy would have to try to exploit that lack of difference to try to bleed away soft Conservative votes, and more importantly, all the conservatives that aren't part and parcel of a political party would crow about how left-liberals and the NDP are out of touch.

It's those conservatives who aren't partisan operatives, such as Wells' boss, that would reap the biggest benefit from an Ignatieff win, and it's those conservatives and those effects that struck me as being ignored in the piece.)

(Anyway, again...)

He points out that with the various and sundry non-elected delegates that are backing Ignatieff, Ignatieff has about 32% of the delegates backing him, and that means he only needs about 18% to win. Paul's argument is that it ain't that tricky for him to do so, because supporters WILL break off.

So Ignatieff needs 18 points' growth to win. That's just a shade more than one-quarter of delegates who vote for someone else on the first ballot.

So Ignatieff doesn't need anyone's endorsement; he just needs support to bleed to him at the rate of one delegate in four. And he's been getting that all through this piece: when Hedy Fry and Carolyn Bennett went to Bob Rae, they failed to bring all their support with them. In the normal course of events, Ignatieff can expect to lure one previously unsympathetic delegate in four. Which means he can expect to win this.

The only way to stop him is to interrupt the normal course of events.

One of the second-tier candidates (Rae Kennedy Dion) would have to turn this race into a referendum on whether it is acceptable for Michael Ignatieff to become the Liberals' next leader. And the only way to demonstrate that the whole campaign should turn on that single question would be to pull out of the race immediately and throw to another second-tier candidate.

Ok, we've already run into our first problem here. Paul seems to have forgotten that, yes, the race has become about whether Ignatieff is acceptable as the Liberals' next leader. As I pointed out, that's the reason why we haven't seen any kind of snowball effect behind the leading candidate, when we damned well should have at this point.

Wells is forgetting (or not mentioning) that thanks to his positions on torture, Iraq, and the Israel-Lebanon conflict, Ignatieff has now associated himself not with the Canadian right, but with the American right, most specifically with George W. Bush. Kinsella dodged around that reality by stating that Ignatieff was just obsessed with the Kurds; the fact is, though, that Bush is deeply, deeply unpopular with Canadians, and even more so with Canadian liberals, and the 30% showing reveals that this does indeed matter.

(I'll leave aside the folderol about who finished where in each province. It's inside baseball, more a function of organizing and exploiting the membership rules than electioneering. If you think Kennedy couldn't win ANY seats in Quebec, you're dreaming.)

So the first problem is that people are very much aware of the necessity of stopping Iggy, and appear to have already made that decision. Second problem- will a quarter break for Ignatieff over Dion/Rae/Kennedy? Why would they? You can't haul a number out of some dark, smelly crevasse like Wells just did and say "oops, clearly he's going to win"- you have to justify it. The delegates are human beings, a mix of party hands (who will stick with whichever candidate is likely to benefit them, and that candidate is NOT Ignatieff, bloated as he is with organizational supporters), partisan idealists (so long, George W. Iggy) and representatives of multicultural communities (who tend to be extraordinarily loyal to their organizers, and you get back to the "benefits" problem for the organizers.) Why would a Dion supporter throw to Ignatieff, precisely, when he has no financial or moral incentive to do so? Is he just going to throw up his hands and say "well, what the heck?" Hardly.

Third problem is simpler- why is it that Ignatieff keeps ALL of his delegates, and nobody else does? If a quarter of Ignatieff's people melt away, everything's evened out. If it's even half that, all of a sudden things start looking better for, say, Rae, or any other anti-Iggy.

Fourth, there's no good reason to pull out of the race in order to turn things into a "referendum", and in fact, Wells should be aware of that. Stop and think about it, Paul. If a candidate pulls out now, his supporters are just as free as they are during the second ballot at the convention. Their names are known, and they're easily contacted them. By pulling out, all you ensure is that the Ignatieff team is going to be working them for months, while your direction to go to various candidates loses any and all credibility with time. If you want control, you keep them until the convention.

And, as this lowly, pseudonymous, yet game-theory-cognizant blogger pointed out a little while ago, bleeding an inordinate amount of delegates would be absolutely disastrous for the candidates' future careers. They're not going to do that. Instead, they'll try to mitigate the bleed by directing their supporters to go to whoever they were generally going to go to anyway, and the group-think that you know will be in effect will take care of those who might relent. Ignatieff is not that candidate. It is, I believe, either Rae or Dion, unless Kennedy gets over the Quebec thing.

So the question is not whether they stay in the race (they must, and have absolutely no good reason not to), but how and whether they choose someone amongst themselves to be the Anti-Iggs. That'll probably be whomever Findlay, Volpe, Brison and Dryden pick, as the combination of the four will put any of the three second-tier candidates over the amount needed to start the momentum.

(Well, that said, Brison might throw to Ignatieff, and Volpe's mostly useful because his loyal base absolutely guarantees that you won't need more than about 45% to beat Ignatieff. So it's mostly Dryden.)

In any case, the sequence seems pretty clear. The lower-tier people choose. Ignatieff stays well under 50%- probably about 45% or so, as only Brison would possibly throw to him, and he'll lose some people too. Then the second tier guys have a chat, and decide on their man. The guy who wasn't going to win anyway--but wants to avoid the ignominious fate of directing his people to go to Ignatieff and having them tell him where to shove it--throws to the leading anti-Iggy, and his followers cheerfully follow suit. That leading anti-Iggy scoops up the next lowest guy, and it's a two-man race.

And, although I rag on the guy, I agree with Cherniak on what would happen on the final ballot if Ignatieff were up against a single candidate (Dion, naturally, in the eyes of Cherniak.) He'd get beaten, quite handily, because the other candidates' supporters don't want him and have made that perfectly clear. That's the hurdle that Ignatieff faces that Wells ignores- if he doesn't win by the fourth ballot, he's not going to, because the anti-Ignatieff leader will be decided, and he'll quite probably win. And I really, really don't think he'll get enough bleed to win by the fourth ballot.

The only way this doesn't happen is if a candidate has an inordinate amount of control over his delegates AND wants to throw to Iggy. I know I acknowledged that possibility, but who the hell IS that, exactly? Rae would never do so. Kennedy would lose enough of his delegates to look like a laughingstock. Dion is probably a little of both.

It just doesn't seem likely, so it's probably fourth or nothing, Ignatieff.

It's still quite possible he'll win, but Wells is being far, far too forthright on far too little evidence, and a whole swath of dubious suppositions. Here's hoping his new "Steve-o's gonna be the next Reagan!" book is a bit better thought out.

(Any regular readers wish to take bets on Paul's glib comment-thread reply? My money's on something to the order of "mmm, Ken's store has the best fresh sourdough" or some such thing. I always kind of hope that Paul's response is going to be "well, guess I'll have to ask my employers to do what seemingly every other publication does, and open up a comments box on my blog", but I suppose he's going to get sued by whoeverthehell is going to sue Warren for comments that clearly aren't his own, yet NOT club him over the head for being eponymous and glib. Pity, that.)

(Edit: Ok, I do have to admit that as descriptors go, "Eponymous and glib" ain't bad.)

First you get a monopoly, then you put the screws to 'em

Happens just as much in the job market as any other. Just ask Wal-Mart, who are now apparently putting the screws to their workforce.

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, is pushing to create a cheaper, more flexible work force by capping wages, using more part-time workers and scheduling more workers on nights and weekends.

Wal-Mart executives say they have embraced new policies for a large number of their 1.3 million workers to better serve their customers, especially at busy shopping times — and point out that competitors like Sears and Target have made some of these moves, too.

But some Wal-Mart workers say the changes are further reducing their already modest incomes and putting a serious strain on their child-rearing and personal lives. Current and former Wal-Mart workers say some managers have insisted that they make themselves available around the clock, and assert that the company is making changes with an eye to forcing out longtime higher-wage workers to make way for lower-wage part-time employees.

Investment analysts and store managers say Wal-Mart executives have told them the company wants to transform its work force to 40 percent part-time from 20 percent. Wal-Mart denies it has a goal of 40 percent part-time workers, although company officials say that part-timers now make up 25 percent to 30 percent of workers, up from 20 percent last October.

They do, of course, claim that investment analysts and the like are strongly encouraging them to do so. That make be true, but they're Wal-Mart- they aren't in the same position is many (or any) of their competitors. They're often an important if not vital source of jobs in many communities, making things like this unacceptable:

In the confidential memo sent to Wal-Mart’s board last year, M. Susan Chambers, who was recently promoted to be Wal-Mart’s executive vice president in charge of human resources, questioned whether it was cost-efficient to employ longtime workers. “Given the impact of tenure on wages and benefits,” she wrote, “the cost of an associate with 7 years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of an associate with 1 year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity.”

The memo said, “the shift to more part-time associates will lower Wal-Mart’s health-care enrollment” even though Wal-Mart was reducing the amount of time to one year, from two, that part-time workers would have to wait to qualify for health insurance.

Workers say there is some evidence that the goals outlined in Ms. Chambers’ memo are being put into practice. At several stores in Florida, employees said, managers have suddenly barred older employees with back or leg problems from sitting on stools after using them for years while working as cashiers, store greeters or fitting-room attendants. Wal-Mart said it had no companywide policy on stool use and did not have enough information to comment.

Of course, that last bit about taking away stools for people with back or leg problems is downright evil. The sentiment of "kick out the people who've been here long enough to get benefits" isn't much better, though- I've seen what it does to other retail operations, and it ain't pretty. Wal-Mart makes their margin from the fact that they don't play by the same rules as everybody else- they're too big to work like an ordinary retailer. Where they go, the country follows.

If this takes place, the labourers of the country are going to become a very restive bunch indeed.

Rice: "I don't recall"

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she cannot recall then-CIA chief George Tenet warning her of an impending al-Qaida attack in the United States, as a new book claims he did two months before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

''What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible,'' Rice said.

Rice was President Bush's national security adviser in 2001, when Bob Woodward's book ''State of Denial'' outlines a July 10 meeting among Rice, Tenet and the CIA's top counterterror officer.

''I don't know that this meeting took place, but what I really don't know, what I'm quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told there was an impending attack and I refused to respond,'' Rice said.

Hah! If this were a cartoon, she'd have been saying "er, ah, um, well, y'see" and yanking her collar around. Funny stuff.

(Or, well, it would be, were it not for the subject matter. Damned Republican arrogance.)

Meanwhile, in South America

Lula's in trouble.

The "Super Weekend" and the Prisoner's Dilemma. Plus- What This Says About Liberalism

Well, this isn't totally unexpected, but it IS fascinating. According to the online breakdown of delegates, the number of delegates runs roughly as follows:

29.9% Ignatieff
19.8% Rae
16.9% Kennedy
16.6% Dion
4.6% Dryden
4.4% Volpe
3.9% Brison
1% Hall Findlay
2.8% Undeclared

With most of the meetings reported in. Assuming this ratio holds, we end up with pretty much everybody but Ignatieff in a classic prisoner's dilemma position. See, any of the three post-Iggy candidates can easily become Liberal leader, by absorbing the support of their fellows and the candidates like Dryden, Volpe, and Brison. (Who, seperate or together, don't have QUITE enough support to be kingmakers.) All Ignatieff needs to do is absorb the supporters of any of the three, and he's got it won, provided that he can scoop up Brison and Findlay.

(Volpe is out of the question- his bloc is pretty much totally unavailable to Ignatieff, so chalk that 4-5% up to "whoever is the Not Iggy candidate.")

If they band together, they can take Ignatieff down. BUT, if even one defects, Ignatieff will probably end up with enough support to be leader. Whoever defects will become a minister and his various supporters will be welcomed into the new regime, whereas those who DON'T defect will likely get frozen out, except for the most high-profile supporters. (Ignatieff will bring them in to "reach out", but the rest will be out in the cold.) Yet if more than one defects, or ALL defect to crown him, there will be little in the way of spoils.

So the classic prisoner's dilemma logic would suggest that at least one, if not two, will defect to Ignatieff, while insisting to their fellows that they won't. That makes Ignatieff (groan) the likely new leader of the Liberal party.

(Warm up the thumbscrews and start pumping that waterboard water.)

But... things get MORE complicated, because after the first ballot, supporters aren't necessarily going to go where they're told, and they'll know as much as anybody else that if everybody backs Ignatieff, nobody benefits, and if somebody else DOES pull it off, Rae/Dion/Kennedy will rise to power with a hell of a lot less people that Ignatieff to hand out spoils to. Plus, thanks to the "Volpe 5", you really only need about 45%, because Volpe will direct his (likely intensely loyal, considering their support existing despite the negative press) delegates to vote for whoever is the non-Iggy candidate, as payback for dropping the paid membership bomb on him right before delegate selection. That may be made up for by Brison breaking for Ignatieff, but might not.

Thus, they both have a smaller hurdle to jump than Ignatieff does, and stand the significant possibility that they might lose too many delegates to the non-Iggy alternative to be the kingmaker. That would be disastrous, as it would mean a non-Iggy candidate will probably win, and they will have played no part in that win. A lot of the Liberal left, quite simply, will not support Ignatieff. That has to be kept in mind.

So the question is, then, whether Dion, Rae and Kennedy can sit down and agree amongst each other, before the convention starts about how things are going to work. If they can come to terms, considering they know how difficult it will be holding on to delegates, then the one they choose amongst each other will likely overcome Ignatieff's initial advantage.

(A Classic prisoner's dilemma solution- work it out beforehand. Hence the famous Mafia code of silence and loyalty, among other things.)

If these negotiations break down, though, then whichever thinks that his followers won't break will likely try to back Ignatieff. Then it comes down TO said delegates- if they go with him, Ignatieff probably wins, but if they don't, the precedent will be set and the OTHER guy will likely win, thanks to the Volpe anti-Iggy bump.

(So if somebody blinks and has loyal supporters, they'll likely split and give Iggy the win, but if everybody is either not sure about the support and/or resolute in their anti-Ignatieff position, he loses.)

As for what this says about Canadian liberalism? Too soon to say yet, although the enormous success of the Rae campaign, despite the grumblings about the on-the-ground machine, suggests that the leftward shift that I'd been perceiving is very much real. No, Rae isn't a social democrat, or at least not anymore- but he does carry that aura, whether he wants it or not. The millstone around Ignatieff's neck that is foreign policy is likely to have hurt him too, and turned this from a coronation into a real race. The fact that Ignatieff is far ahead (which would seem to mean that he'd attract a majority from a "nothing succeeds like success" perspective) but hasn't attracted over 50%, and the sheer number of other credible candidates, suggests that liberals want a candidate who represents progressive, non-Americanized foreign policy- Ignatieff's other policies simply don't differ enough from his counterparts to explain it.

This is fairly similar to what's going on in the United States. I believe it reaffirms the idea that liberalism is becoming about more than simply intra-state economic divisions and structures. It's about the actions of of a country as a whole on the world stage- those sticky questions of shared values and identity that a laser-focus on economics often misses. It's also going to be a serious problem for Ignatieff, should he win. He is NOT in step with his party on foreign policy, and once the self-interested apologias by his backers become unnecessary, he'll probably start hearing it more.

Whether he watches his left flank disintegrate and get absorbed by the NDP depends entirely on how he reacts.

"The Only Way He'd Lose His Seat Is If He Were Found in Bed With a Dead Girl or a Live Boy"

Never thought it'd actually come to pass- but not only has it, but it looks like the Republican leadership kept the whole thing under wraps.

(It wasn't actually "relations", but an "overfriendly" email between a congressman and a page. Still.)

Best part?

They "kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday."

Er, yeah. I know that IOKIYAR is still in effect, but this seems to be pushing it somewhat.

Dems Suck, But They're Better That the Alternative

So, essentially, says Glenn Greenwald, who points out that although the actions of the Dems who voted for the Torture bill were cowardly, control of Congress by the Dems as a whole is a far better option than continued Republican rule.

I can't say I disagree. The Dems should win in November, and I think we're starting to hit the point where they must win if the Union has even the faintest hope of recovering its faded prestige.

What this shows is the same thing that Connecticut showed- that it's as important to get involved at the Primary level as it is in the general. Even if Lieberman wins, he's arguably the hardest target in the entire party to take down- well know, former vice-presidential candidate, and (no doubt) backed by every barrel in AIPAC's arsenal... not to mention the still-friendly media, and the ability to hop on board the Republicans' national security message machine.

Other candidates won't have those advantages, and they might be next. They need to remember that. They need to be reminded of that, particularly the Terrible Twelve in the Senate that voted for this abomination.

The Democratic "centrists" are always prattling on about how you need to "keep your powder dry". For once, they're actually right. Don't punish right now, but don't forget either. 2008 is coming.

Harper Hates Women and Trees?

Honestly, the Liberals' job SHOULD be easy, leadership aside. Take a look at two of the upcoming budget cuts"

Status of Women Canada, $5 million
This agency, established under prime minister Pierre Trudeau in the early 1970s, funds groups, research and seeks gender equity with its $23 million annual budget. Conservative supporters have urged the government to axe the agency. The $5 million cut to the agency in Baird's announcement was described as "administrative savings."

Fighting the pine beetle, $11.7 million
The government says it will cut unused funding that was set aside to fight the mountain pine beetle. The move comes just days after a government report said the infestation, which has destroyed millions of hectares of lodgepole pine in B.C., is spreading. Baird says the funding is from a Liberal program and that the government will launch its own approach.

The first one is bad enough, but the latter cut is insane. There's been a trend in the Conservatives where they ditch perfectly good programs and plans that happen to have come to being under the Liberals.

Does nobody in that Godforsaken party remember that it was that attitude that arguably set the United States up for 9/11? Now that we know that the memo was very much real and that it had a variety of recommendations that Bush didn't even touch, and considering just how America-friendly Harper's supposed to be, you think that he'd learn from that disaster. Apparently not.

I'm not against partisanship. Far from it. Adversarial government works. This, however, is just stupid.

They're Coming to Take Me Away, Haha?

The blogger punkass marc points out an unsavory side effect of the torture bill:

(huge quote, but it's worth it

Much as I like to celebrate the wingnut administration calling itself a moron, Echidne points out the troublesome inclusion of the term “leftist terrorist” in the NIE report. They’ve advanced the theory that the left could start going all right-wing and bombing shit like, say, a federal building in Oklahoma or something.

ANYWAY, leftist terrorism is now considered a legitimate threat by the omnipotent Bush administration. Once the torture/detainee legislation passes, they can label anyone they believe has a “terrorist agenda” an enemy combatant and lock them away for torture. Remember, they don’t need cause or charges to take your rights away anymore (see Photographer, Pulitzer Prize winning). They’ll probably be able to rape you for shits and giggles, too, if they feel like it.

I’m going to put on my crazy hat for a moment. It’s the one that won’t look so crazy in another few years, once the police state comes back into full fashion again.

As Lindsay notes, decorated photographer Bilal Hussein had been a target of right wing blogs for some time. They considered his work too close to the action, too full of anti-US visuals, to be anything other than insurgent propaganda. Apparently, their cries were heard, and now he’s a torture toy.

The wingnut blogs also complain about the crazy, frothing “leftist” blogosphere. Lots of us say all kinds of mean things about the Bush administration, which, as we all know, is a gateway drug for terrorist agendas*. Before you laugh, remember that talking negatively about our efforts in Iraq has already been equated with helping the terrorists. Isn’t that the same as having a terrorist agenda?

Or suppose there actually is some random cell of people intent on doing violence, and the federal government breaks it up. What if their browser histories are littered with visits to Amanda’s site? Or Glenn Greenwald’s? The wingnut blogs have been gunning for those two for years because they’re particularly good at blowing holes in Bushchev logic. If Amanda or Glenn or anyone else is ever seen as fueling the cause of anyone who’s even written an email mentioning explosives, I see no reason they won’t be next on the hit list.

People know John Stewart, and Keith Olbermann. You couldn’t lock them up without drawing national outrage. But like Bilal Hussein, other people pave the way for Olbermann and Stewart, stirring the pot or raising issues that eventually receive their attention. Bloggers are a big part of that group, and their work is at least as dangerous as unforgiving photos — which is to say not at all, unless you mean dangerous to the cause of perpetual war.

I am no one. Punkassblog is still pretty small. But people close to me are deeply hated and feared for their uncompromising work and popularity. Every day, I get a little more worried they’ll be taken away. If you are one of the outspoken pillars of the radical left — not people like Kos who stick to the political rules, but someone really agitating for deep change** — I think you should be worried, too.

*Note: this is not true. Please do not kidnap me or frame me or torture me. Thank you.

**Non-violent change! Honest!

The only thing about pseudonymity that I regret, upon reading this, is that I fear that I may not have been paranoid enough.

For those who cry "tinfoil": I'd hasten to remind you that attacks on "leftist terrorists" and "sympathizers" by the forces of Peace and Order are far, far older than the War on Terror, or anybody who could be possibly reading this. With the right increasingly desperate over Iraq (and likely to become even more so when Iran turns out to be a disaster as well), who's to say they won't turn their ire inward?

After all, according to these folks, the liberal media lost Vietnam. Who do you think they'll blame for Iraq, Iran, and whatever disasters follow?

Atrios on Torture

It was brought up (I won't mention by who) that I should, perhaps, comment on Atrios. Ok, here's the latest piece, and a good one besides:

Memories of Joe

A hideous human being, a disgusting moralist who is morally bankrupt.

These comments came after the senators had screened a 30-second snippet in which, to quote John Burgess's report in these pages, "three black-suited assailants enter a bathroom, grab a young woman wearing a flimsy nightgown, then attach a long, hooked device to her neck to suck out blood." The clip led many of the evening's TV news reports, replete with anti-video-game-violence commentary spawned by Sen. Lieberman's earlier observations on the product: that it was set in a sorority house, where the object was to hang women on meat hooks. "These games teach a child to enjoy inflicting torture," said Lieberman.

Today Joe voted for torture. A sick and twisted man, obsessed with his own image and his desire for Tim Russert's love. One of David Broder's Wise Old Men, one who hates the constitution, human rights, and the rule of law.

The Bullshit Moose's best friend is a best friend of torture.

What more is there to say, really? Yes, the Dems may retake Congress, but they've demonstrated once again that they either have no convictions, or no interest in standing up for them. I suspect that as soon as the bill becomes law, all remaining "soft" (read: reputational and diplomatic) power that the United States enjoys will wither away with it. All that will remain is the cudgel.

That, and the desperate prayer that nobody else ever, ever becomes as powerful. After all, after this, who would weep for a fallen America?

Memo to Jame Wolcott

James:

If this is what you're into:

The reason the L & O franchise wears so well in reruns is because it doesn't try to upstage the city in which it's set...

...and you're peeved about the shift to CSI-like bombast, don't complain. Just go watch THIS.

The Wire is the answer to all your "annoyed with CSI" needs.

Edit: If nothing else, this scene justifies HBO. Very much not work safe.

The Danger of Being Eponymous

Warren's comment in response to my posting on his lack of permalinks (a privilege I offer that he, apparently, thinks will get him sued for some reason) is yet another variation on the idea that potential threats to lefties don't warrent some caution.

Well, first, that goes against decades of online praxis, but other than that, I turn to the guy I called a "better blogger", Digby:

It really takes a lot of gall for the NY Post to obnoxiously ridicule Keith Olberman for calling the police when some asshole sent some white powder to his house with a note that said it was in response to his commentary against the president. The NY Post was one of the places that the original anthrax killer hit in 2001 --- and their own employees got sick.

What in the hell is wrong with these people? Jesus.

Remember when I mentioned psychotic freepers doing what freepers do best? Yeah, it was this sort of thing I'm talking about. It's already a problem in North America- in other contries, like Japan, people have had their homes burned down for saying the wrong thing in public.

And the sad part is that, as this Digby post shows, you aren't necessarily guaranteed the sympathy or support of others if this sort of thing happens.

Do I expect that anything of the sort would happen had I decided to go eponymous? No, I doubt it. Maybe back in 2002-2003 when I blogged more often and had that ongoing debate with Steven Den Beste, but not nowadays. There would certainly be more money in it.

No, the POINT, as I mentioned back in the first posting, is that I have always believed that being able to communicate, debate, and discuss pseudonymously or anonymously is as important to democracy as being able to vote anonymously. It can be annoying, especially for the eponymous who are trading on their offline "name" to gain online credibility, but it is absolutely necessary and is the very lifeblood of this new medium. It's what attracted me to blogging in the first place; why the hell would I abandon my belief in this principle just because someone like Warren, who would be completely ignored were he not Warren Kinsella, yells "coward"?

It doesn't change the fact that despite Warren using his real name, and Atrios not using his (until recently), Atrios was and is still a better read.

Warren Kinsella Doesn't Appear to Know What a Permalink Is

Check it out.

It doesn’t have those permalink things: Warren doesn’t have permalinks because (a) he is busy running a busy business (b) he is busy being father to four busy young children (c) he is busy doing a million other things and (d) he therefore couldn’t be bothered. He doesn’t have time. Besides, he believes in age-old marketing principles: why, having brought people onto his website, would he then send them somewhere else?

Um, Warren? A permalink is a link to each individual entry. What you're thinking of is a blogroll. I realize that they're easy to mix up, being completely different things that one could discern the difference between by doing thirty seconds of research (read: googling), but apparently Warren is too busy to care.

The rest of his "top ten" is basically nine different variants on "blogs are only read because they're free, there's nothing of worth there". It's a logical conclusion for an opinion columnist, as its their toes that bloggers tread on, but since most blogs have advertising, and most online newspaper outlets are also free-to-read with advertising, I'm not quite sure where he's going with this.

Oh, and he also whines about pseudonymity. Suck it up, Warren. Pseudonymity has been a feature of online discourse since before the Internet, and remains around for the same reason it always has: because while Warren doesn't have to worry about his employer finding some pretext to fire him over a political disagreement and/or Free Republic goons jumping him on the way to work, others DO.

Pseudonymity is, has been, and always will be based around a simple concept: that trading on a reputation should not be a prerequisite for being involved in a serious debate. That Warren supports his dubiously-thought-out arguments by trading on his political background may explain his position, but it doesn't grant him an iota of credibility. Digby and Atrios are far better political commentators than Warren ever was, and I haven't the foggiest idea who Digby is or who Atrios was until he "came out". Both are smart, insightful, entertaining reads...

...and both know what a permalink is.

Taking a Shot at a Classic Bit:

Shorter Steyn:

"The devastation of New Orleans was entirely the fault of black people; everybody knows Bush did everything he could. Also, I dislike rap music and black culture in general, and it is the sole cause of the plight of Black America, for it has too many jiggling booties. I also haven't the faintest idea that black alienation might predate gangster rap.

"Here's a black man who agrees with me."

(Also, bonus Shorter Barbara Amiel: "If you disagree with me about Israel, you're anti-Semitic. Please pretend I'm still relevant, like Macleans does." No need for a link- it pretty much covers all of them.)

(Honestly, Paul Wells, as annoying as he can be sometimes, can surely find better company than these drooling fools.)

Returning to Type

That's what the Canadian Conservatives seem to be up to, as they provoke no small amount of outrage through a variety of spending cuts.

Here's the weird thing, though:

"Never have Canadians seen such mean-spirited cuts at a time when Ottawa is swimming in money," said Liberal MP John McCallum. "This minority government only cares about its political base."

After announcing that last year's surplus was $13.2-billion Monday, the government unveiled $1-billion in spending cuts to take place over two years and announced that another $1-billion in savings over that period will be extracted through unidentified "tighter management" measures.

Thus, the spending cuts are entirely unnecessary from a budgetary point of view. They can't cry poverty, and even if they COULD, these would be penny ante.

Yet, for being penny ante, they're an odd set of choices. They're removing the GST rebate for foreign tourists, a program to reduce smoking among Aboriginal Canadians, cuts to the Canadian Tourism Commission, cut the funding for small museums, and (most bizarrely) slashed the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Really, when everybody and his dog in Ottawa and the press is complaining about Canada no longer "punching above its weight" internationally, why on earth would you cut the budget of the diplomatic corps?

The Tories defended it by saying

"We want a more robust foreign policy. But more robust does not always mean spending more money and having more people," he said.

"It's not the government's plan to go on a hiring blitz when we're trying to show the Canadian people we're being careful with their money."

Well, first, that first remark is beyond silly, unless by "robust foreign policy" you mean "soldiers with nowhere to go and no knowledge of what they need to do when they get there".

That's the thing, though. They're sitting on an absolutely massive surplus. There's no reason in the world for them to do ANY of this- it is vanishingly unlikely that they'll get credited for this sort of thing, and some of the cuts (like to the GST rebates) are going to thoroughly tick off important segments of the economy and parts of the country. The Republicans like using deficits to cut programs they don't like, sure, but there's no deficit here- even the Republicans are smarter than this. The whole thing is, well, stupid, and it's been a long time since Harper has been accused of being stupid.

Or is it stupidity? Back before he cleaned up his image and jumped on "the five priorities" (is hacking up museum funding a priority now?) he was well known for being a hardcore libertarian: a market fundamentalist of the first order, who also didn't really give a rat's ass about foreign policy. Could we be seeing a return of the old-style government-loathing Harper, with a side of "let the Americans handle our diplomacy, we'll just send the troops they tell us?" It's certainly plausible. It fits the intrinsic weirdness of cutting programs that keep Inuit from dying of cancer.

And it's an absolute GIFT to the Liberals. It reinforces the "hidden agenda" concept ("what'll he do when he has a majority?") and, more importantly for what I'm interested in here, it provides an opportunity for the Liberals to put forward a vision of liberalism that can be counterposed to Harper's mean little museum-closing ideology.

Now if only they can stop the necromancy long enough to start doing that.

Japan-China Rapprochement?

Good news, if it pans out. A lot depends on whether Abe visits Yasukuni, and whether the historical revisionists reap the conservative shift in Japanese government.

We'll see, I guess.

Excellent Piece on the Torture Bill by Digby

I'd highly suggest reading it, but it IS a little lengthy, so I'll shorten it up, along with the bill.

(To make up for all my lengthy posts in the past.)

"The United States is about to pass a bill that allows the government to declare anybody it likes an enemy combatant, remove their rights, and torture the hell out of them with the assurance that nobody will know about it or even be allowed to know about it. The bill doesn't appear to quite allow this, but has enough holes that presidential signing statements can invalidate the whole thing.

"The reason why this is going through is because both parties aren't going to oppose it. The Republicans don't give a shit, because the people being tortured are from different districts and different ethnic backgrounds than their supporters. The Republicans who aren't actually racists, that is. The Democrats are too busy being cowards, and still think masturbating over "handling of the economy" numbers and poorly-defined "triangulation" gets you seats. They can't get over persistent misreading of the Clinton victories, because it appears to justify their cowardice.

"If you're brown and to the left of Rush Limbaugh, or just a Muslim in general, you may wish to consider moving."

And that, as Colbert puts it, is "all you need to know".

Edit: Ok, not all Dems are being cowards on this. Louise Slaughter's stance was great, for instance. It's just that too many Dems are, and that's all that matters, really.

Meanwhile, back in Condoleeza's America...

Condoleeza Rice endangered the health of millions of Americans, by approving and possibly guiding that imfamous EPA "all clear" on post-9/11 air quality, when the air was actually choked with asbestos.

You know, the one that they put out because they placed the importance of a temporary economic hit over the safety of an entire American city? The one whose underlying mindset can most easily be explained using Nixon's phrase "screw 'em, they don't vote for me anyway?" Yeah, that one.

(If nothing else, the very concept of some sort of weird Jewish-Israeli conspiracy over 9/11 is invalidated by this thing. Would some fantastic Jewish conspiracy include quite possibly dooming the citizens of New York?)

So apparently Condoleeza had the final word on whether to put this thing out. She said "yes". She is, thus, very much responsible for what happens afterward.

Let the lawsuits commence.