the blog quebecois

Toronto Sun:

The Conservatives' new environmental platform is a "complete and total fraud" that is "designed to mislead the Canadian people," former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said yesterday.

You'll pay for that, Almer Gortry. * But before we get started, let me insert this meta tag to block the Secret Service robots:

<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX">

Stupid robots. Bwahahaha.

Now, where does the bastard live when he's not up here annoying me?

It's easy enough to find out -- just go to Google Maps and type in "Al Gore's house." (Though it does help if you're looking at Nashville or at least Tennessee at the time.)

Hmmm hmmm. Street address and directions. Let's switch to satellite view so we can get a view of the environs:

I'll be damned. He does use 20 times more electricity than the average American.

* I was so proud of this, really I was. It was a play on Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis' 1927 novel about a corrupt preacher. Then a few days ago I googled it. Naturally, one other person had thought of it earlier.

Curse you, Mark Steyn.

At The Torch, Damian Brooks takes a look at gadfly UBC professor (and heretofore undisclosed by our ever-so-conscientious media: NDP advisor; NDP financial contributor; and NDP convention delegate) Michael Byers, who has been running around of late, trying to get Canadian soldiers and (Conservative) politicians indicted as war criminals. (But of course, they "support the troops.")

One paragraph I found especially interesting. I've highlighted a particular phrase that leapt out at me:

Byers closed the night with an anecdote. His friend, Dawn Black, an NDP Member of Parliament, was recently named by NDP leader, Jack Layton, as the party’s defense critic. Apparently, Dawn knows nothing about defense but was named just because she is the smartest cookie in the NDP caucus. So Dawn phones up her pal, Professor Michael Byers, to ask him what she needs to know. "All I know is that peace is good and war is bad," says Dawn. Byers fawningly replies: "Dawn, you’ll be just fine."

Dawn Black? Dawn "Big Guns! HUGE GUNS!!!" Black is the intellectual motor behind the NDP?

It would explain so much.

Via SDA

are being noted south of the border, too.

Investor's Business Daily:

Gore flew over to Canada last week and loudly blasted the Canadian government for its rejection of the Kyoto Treaty as "a complete and total fraud."

Speaking at a Toronto screening of his movie "An Inconvenient Truth," he announced that the Canadian government's new, more realistic plan to reduce greenhouse gases "is designed to mislead the Canadian people."

Not only did he offer an opinion of global warming, he offered an opinion about the Canadian government, too - as if his Oscar for his error-filled documentary had gone to his head and he suddenly confused himself with the ruler of the world.

[. . .]

An outsider like Gore has no idea why Canadians elected the government he attacked. But in the Internet age that hasn't stopped him from helping himself to all the privileges of political participation - without the responsibility.

Canada's environment minister, John Baird, in fact said Gore didn't seem to have read Canada's climate plan at all.

If the media are any indication, Canadians were not impressed: Canadian editorials had titles like: "Time to Muffle Al Gore's Exhaust Pipe."

Shane Doan has three goals (so far -- the third period has just started) at the IIHF World Championship game against Belarus today. Maybe that's why he's the captain?

BBC:

A layer of artificial mucus has been found to improve the ability of an "electronic nose" to precisely sniff out aromas in foods and perfumes.

Coating the accurate sensors with a mixture of polymers allowed the nose to pick out a diverse range of smells.

The synthetic mucus mimics that found in human noses and controls the rate at which different odours bombard sensors.

Electronic noses have been used for many years in the food and beverage industry for quality control.

The new enhanced nose had found smells such as bananas and milk challenging but it is now able to tell them apart.

"Our artificial mucus not only offers improved odour discrimination for electronic noses it also offers much shorter analysis times than conventional techniques," said Professor Julian Gardner of the University of Warwick and one of the team behind the work.

This isn't a game so much as an interactive art thingy. Move your cursor over the picture (at the site, not here). When it changes to a small pointing finger, you can click on that object. When three arrows appear beside it, click anywhere and you'll go to the next room. It's all very linear: There's only one way through the "maze" and the interactivity puzzles aren't very difficult.

That said, it's beautifully done. It seems to have been shot at an abandoned industrial building, with the graffiti and other objects added digitally (some of it is animated), and it successfully conveys a sinister, menacing atmosphere.

Not to worry, though -- this isn't one of those "screamers." There's one room (the 26th) that might make you jump (well, it startled me). If you're not sure about what you're getting into, it's discussed in this thread.

Warning: Music and sound effects.

George Orwell, in December of 1944:

We are told that it is only people’s objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort, are ‘objectively’ aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once. The same argument is applied to Trotskyism. Trotskyists are often credited, at any rate by Communists, with being active and conscious agents of Hitler; but when you point out the many and obvious reasons why this is unlikely to be true, the ‘objectively’ line of talk is brought forward again. To criticize the Soviet Union helps Hitler: therefore ‘Trotskyism is Fascism’. And when this has been established, the accusation of conscious treachery is usually repeated.

This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people’s motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions. For there are occasions when even the most misguided person can see the results of what he is doing. Here is a crude but quite possible illustration. A pacifist is working in some job which gives him access to important military information, and is approached by a German secret agent. In those circumstances his subjective feelings do make a difference. If he is subjectively pro-Nazi he will sell his country, and if he isn’t, he won’t. And situations essentially similar though less dramatic are constantly arising.

National Post:

Canadian activists were out in force at a recent conference in Cairo that sought to forge closer links between the international anti-war movement and Islamic resistance groups, including several on Canada's terrorism list.

About 20 Canadians attended the March 29 to April 1 Cairo Conference, the largest delegation from Canada in the event's five-year history. According to one report, it was also one of the largest delegations from outside the Middle East.

In total, as many as 1,500 delegates from the Middle East, Europe, South Korea and the Americas attended. Many of the Canadian delegates were from the Canadian Peace Alliance, the country's largest umbrella peace organization, and some of its 150 affiliated groups, said peace alliance coordinator Sid Lacombe, who attended the conference.

Groups that sent delegates include the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, the Canadian Arab Federation, the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Artists Against War, the Venezuela We Are With You Coalition, the Toronto-Haiti Action Committee, the Toronto- Egypt Solidarity Campaign and Not In Our Name -- Jews Against Israel's Wars. The conference attracted representatives of at least four organizations that appear on Canada's list of terrorist organizations -- Hamas, Hezbollah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Jamaat al-Islamiya.

I hate to intrude on Mr. Lacombe's fantasies of revolution; but we are in a war, and he and his co-rebels have clearly chosen their side.

Wars have consequences, and they extend to people who play footsie with the enemy. Let's imagine that Sid Lacombe's dreams come to fruition; the West's armies quit the field, and the Jihadi have time and space to refocus their attacks. Emboldened in no small part by the likes of Lacombe and his smelly friends, the battles will continue in the Toronto subway and any and every other target where defenceless people gather.

For someone who makes a fetish of civil liberties and your heroic (and imaginary) struggle for them, you don't seem to have thought the problem through.

What do you imagine the state of human rights in this society will be following a Beslan-style massacre? Two or three of them? Or if your technically-challenged buddies actually manage to touch off a nuke in D.C. or Boston?

You expect that the basic decency of your fellow citizens and the rule of law that you fight against will protect you then? You'd better hope that the police find you first -- they might have some residual attachment to procedure and process, and you might even get a fair trial out of it. I don't think that the people you've betrayed will be quite so sentimental. Whether you know it or not, you're on The List.

And when the balloon goes up, payback's going to be a bitch.

I have no idea what the story behind this picture is. It was taken in Australia, as far as I know.

Joel at Proud To Be Canadian has dug up a lot of information on Jeff Monaghan, the self-styled "anarchist" (I'll put it in quotes, as he denied the description tonight on the CBC) and Environment Canada flunky who is under investigation by the RCMP on the leaking of the government's "Green Plan."

Go here to see what he found. I'll content myself with scalping the link to Monaghan's lame-o punk band. Warning: Embedded music. And it ain't exactly The Clash.

The Mounties' preliminary interest seems to be concerning "Breach of Trust," the description of which and penalties for are specified in the Criminal Code as:

PART IV: OFFENCES AGAINST THE ADMINISTRATION OF LAW AND JUSTICE Corruption and Disobedience

Breach of trust by public officer

122. Every official who, in connection with the duties of his office, commits fraud or a breach of trust is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years, whether or not the fraud or breach of trust would be an offence if it were committed in relation to a private person.

R.S., c. C-34, s. 111.

So it's a pretty serious charge he's potentially facing. I found some additional commentary on it here:

Of all the sections addressing frauds on the government, perhaps the most general is the one aimed at preventing breaches of trust by public officers. Section 122 of the Criminal Code targets every official who, in connection with the duties of his or her office, commits fraud or a breach of trust. Section 122 does not require intent to commit fraud or a breach of trust. As a result, public officials have broader liability than private citizens who are charged under the general fraud provision, section 336 of the Criminal Code, which requires a specific intent to defraud[69]. Correspondingly, public office holders can be sentenced only to a maximum of five years in prison, whereas private citizens who engage in similar activities can face up to 14 years in jail[70].

For a public office holder to be convicted of breach of trust, it is sufficient that the accused be an official, that the act in question was committed in the general context of the execution of his or her duties, and that the act constitute fraud or breach of trust[71]. For a breach of trust to have occurred, the public official must have committed the act contrary to a duty imposed on him or her by law, and the act must have produced a personal benefit[72]. It is not necessary that the public official have dishonest or corrupt intentions.

Did the act produce a "personal benefit"? I don't know. Presumably he had in mind scoring with anarchist chicks. Not much of a prize, if you ask me, but to each his own. Certainly being in the band wasn't going to do it.

Unless it means going to jail. In which case he will be the one auditioning for the role of "anarchist chick."

It's a long story, but I was trying to install an embedded game. Needless to say it wasn't this stupid puzzle, but it's what showed up, so deal with it.

You remove pegs by jumping over them. If you get down to one peg, you win. Sounds exciting, huh?

Well, it isn't. But it's all I got tonight.

Update: If this wasn't embarrassing enough, the "Reset Puzzle" button doesn't work. You'll have to reload or refresh the page.

OTOH, this could boost my page views.

Thank you. I'll be here all week. Please do not steal the flatware. Thank you.

In the early 70s, the two entered Cardozo High School in Bayside, NY. Tenet and Jeremy (who's real last name is Hyatt) played on the soccer team together.

Now we can begin to understand the unlikely career of porn star Ron Jeremy: A furious overcompensation for his miserable time in high school. Unless looking like a drowned ferret was all the rage back then, I'm thinking he didn't see a lot of hot girly action.

Not so with future Director of the CIA George Tenet, whose swave, studly unibrow must have driven the ladies into a frenzy. You can just imagine them combing through it with their fingers.

Via grow-a-brain

Brutal torture at Guantanamo Bay:

An accused enemy combatant held at Guantanamo Bay told a military hearing he was physically as well as mentally tortured there by having to read a newsletter full of 'crap,' being forced to use unscented deodorant and shampoo and having to play sports with a ball that would not bounce.

Majid Khan of Pakistan denied any connection to Al Qaeda and said he was tortured and his family hounded by U.S. authorities, according to a redacted transcript released Tuesday by the Pentagon.

Khan told an April 15 hearing called to determine whether he was rightly classified as an "enemy combatant" that he also had his baby pictures taken from him, that cleaners left marks on his cell walls and that detainees have no DVD players or other entertainment.

At one point, Kan said he wrote on his walls, "stop torturing me, I need my mails, newspaper and my lawyer."

Khan was captured in Pakistan in 2003. The military says he has provided support to Al Qaeda and has expressed a desire to assassinate Pakistan's President Pervez Musharaff. U.S. government authorities have said that Khan was also involved in plots to blow up American gas stations and poison U.S. reservoirs. The April 15 hearing is the first step in possible war crimes charges against him.

[. . .]

He said he has been unable to see his daughter, was denied communal recreation for 11 weeks, went four weeks without sunlight and fresh air, was deprived of basic or comfort items for three weeks, had his beard shaved twice and was forced to wear a protective suicide prevention smock.

And he complained that he was only given cheap unscented soap and shampoo, and that in the recreation room there is "no weight lifting machine, no toilet, no sink, ho hoops, and even balls them self have little air in them; they hardly bounce."

"They know my weaknesses - what drive me crazy and what doesn't," he said.

Apparently it doesn't take much. No doubt they decided that waterboarding this one wasn't worth the effort.

In an apparently more-civilized age, the Kentucky congressman and senator Henry Clay was once asked if the death of a political foe pleased him. He replied (this might be a paraphrase, as I was unable to find the quote):

No. When God puts His hand on a man's shoulder, I take mine off.

What triggered this memory was the recent death of Jerry Falwell. The nutroots responded with their usual unbounded glee:

Jerry Falwell collapsed in his office this morning, and he’s in the hospital, and he’s "gravely unresponsive."

At a time like this, people deserve sympathy and good wishes ... except for Falwell, who is an evil sonofabitch.

I didn't have much time for Falwell; but I had even less for one of his main antagonists, Larry Flynt, publisher of the repulsive Hustler. So it was a bit of a surprise to read this statement from Flynt today:

The Reverend Jerry Falwell and I were arch enemies for fifteen years. We became involved in a lawsuit concerning First Amendment rights and Hustler magazine. Without question, this was my most important battle -- the l988 Hustler Magazine, Inc., v. Jerry Falwell case, where after millions of dollars and much deliberation, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in my favor.

My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends. He would visit me in California and we would debate together on college campuses. I always appreciated his sincerity even though I knew what he was selling and he knew what I was selling.

A graceful and -- dare I say it? -- almost Christian rememberance.

The more observant of my readers will have surely noticed that I've had nothing to say about the imminent incarceration of Paris Hilton. I haven't done a search of the blog, but I don't think I've ever written anything about her.

Part of it is that I can't work up the required schadenfreude. (The other part is that all the hot-chicks-behind-bars jokes are already taken.)

But give her credit where it's due. She's parlayed her modest talents into a modest career in acting and singing and into accessories like clothes and perfume. She's a shrewd-enough businesswoman that she realizes that celebrity for its own sake has a short shelf-life.

Also, she's refrained from inflicting her (no doubt moronic) political opinions on the rest of us. For that, she gets bonus points.

Entirely by accident, I recently came across a page that compared another beautiful, famous woman to Paris Hilton. (Alas, the page is down now, so I had to find other sources.)

She stands to inherit more money than Miss Hilton could ever dream of; but instead of hitting the Eurotrash party circuit she went to school, majoring in drama and eventually becoming well-known in improv comedy circles. She's never been a major target of the tabloids, probably because she's been happily (as far as I know) married since 1987, with two kids.

She went on to become one of the stars of an iconic TV show, the residuals from which alone should ensure that she'll never need a penny of Daddy's money.

And she's refrained from inflicting her (probably moronic -- hey, she's in showbiz after all, and her husband definitely qualifies as a moonbat) political opinions on the rest of us.

Who is she, you ask? You ask, I deliver.

(More information on her at Wikipedia.)

As you might know, the longest and most savage feud in the Canadian blogosphere is between me and Bruce Gottfred (or, as I refer to him, spit Gottfred! spit) of Autonomous Source for traffic bragging rights. As with university politics, the essential worthlessness of the prize makes the fight all the more vicious.

spit Gottfred! spit has certain unfair advantages; namely, two cute kids whose pictures he posts at every opportunity. As I have no kids, cute or otherwise, this is unfair.

Anyway, I think I've got him beat on this one. Click on over to his site and look at the right sidebar. You'll see that he's installed a Marble Madness-type game. But do not attempt to play it. I've tried every key combination I can think of, and I can't get the ball to move. So come back here and click on the play button above. Behold, a working copy of Marble Madness (or something like it.)

Use the arrow keys to steer (to the golden square). There's no sound, but as I'm unable to get past the first level, I can't guarantee anything after that.

I said that the game works. Me, not so much.

I had to shrink the game somewhat to fit my format. If you'd like to play the larger version, go here.

Here's a little diversion for you. MorphThing merges the faces of famous (and infamous) people. That's Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein at the right. Looks like Mel Gibson to me.

Click on the picture to go to the site: I haven't counted, but there's hundreds of choices (click on Start Morphing! at the top of the page to select your own). You're not restricted to just two faces -- you can add as many more to the mix as you like. If you know which names you want to use, you can type them in, which spares you having to scroll through the list.

Salon: (You need a "site pass" -- by clicking on the featured ad -- to read the article in full.)

Free from handcuffs, but under the watchful eye of guards, the two brides wore street clothes during the ceremony, which was performed by a minister. The Mrs. and Mrs. inmates' names were not released, but one is serving a 34-month sentence for breaking and entering, assault with a weapon and aggravated assault, while the other has been doing six years hard time for manslaughter, assault and assaulting a peace officer. The wedding night was reportedly chaste, since the prisoners must continue to sleep in separate cells. But both brides are scheduled to be released by the end of this year, on Nov. 18 and Dec. 6, respectively.

Not everyone involved in the wedding shed tears of joy. The Canadian prison guards' union opposed the match. "It's the value and ethics of getting married in jail while they're serving time together in the same institution," said Kevin Grabowsky, president of the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers. "It's not Club Fed, where you go and meet your spouse." He raised the concern that the union might cause security problems; for instance, if the couple had a "marital spat," or if one spouse had a dispute with a guard, the other might try to exact revenge. Talk about a killjoy. C'mon, Grabowsky, lighten up, it's a wedding! Also, haven't you ever heard the one about how love will find a way? [emphasis mine]

Edmonton Sun:

Two female inmates, who married in a quiet ceremony in January at the Edmonton prison - the first time a same-sex marriage was held inside a women's prison - have endured a stormy relationship right from the very beginning, said Grabowsky.

And when the pair get into squabbles, like the one that left one of them suffering a swollen eye, the other takes out her frustrations on the guards, he said.

Guards have had a door slammed in their face and have had profanities hurled at them, he said. The inmates have also smashed up appliances and broken windows.

CSC offered the women counselling to get through their rough patches and the warden even played Yagtzee [sic] with the pair to ease their tensions, Grabowsky said.

But nothing has seemed to work.

Not even Yahtzee? That never fails to tranquilize me. It's like Thorazine in a dice cup.

"These two feed off each other," Grabowsky said. "If one does something to piss off the other, we're the ones who take the heat."

Separating the pair by sending one to another institution would put an end to the situation, Grabowsky said.

It was when all else failed that guards at the jail hoped one of the pair would be transferred.

But when the Correctional Service of Canada balked, 14 of 15 guards at the jail asked for transfers out of the maximum security cell block where the female inmates live in different cells.

I had seen this picture of Jayne Mansfield before, but it was cropped to show her alone. Maybe because an unamused Sophia Loren, Evil Eye ablaze (I hope I, or rather Google, got the translation right), detracted from her charms.

Doing a bit of research, I found it was taken in 1957, at the Romanoff restaurant in Beverly Hills. Apparently Mansfield was notorious for these publicity stunts. At left, another photo from the same encounter.

The Star:

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepared to arrive in war-torn Afghanistan, the orders from his security detail to reporters were clear - don't get between the Prime Minister and his team of bodyguards.

In other words, don't get inside the bubble.

When Harper goes on the road these days, that's never a problem - reporters are rarely allowed inside the bubble.

Harper, who has steered clear of holding Ottawa news conferences, has taken that style on the road, preferring carefully staged photo ops and speeches over real interactions with reporters who fork out thousands of dollars to accompany him. [emphasis mine]

Oh, man, am I delighted to pass this along to you, Bruce. You can charge all the costs back to The Star!

No, really. Check with your office. You were probably driving the accountants nuts trying to figure out why you weren't expensing out your trips.

Who knows? You might even start to make a profit doing it this way!

Ananova:

Jeremy Clarkson has been rapped for calling a car 'gay'.

The Top Gear presenter said the Daihatsu Copen was "a bit gay" and "a bit ginger beer" - rhyming slang for 'queer', reports the Daily Mail.

Ofcom [the broadcast regulator in the UK, similar to the CRTC or FCC, and apparently just as useful] said use of the word "gay" was not necessarily offensive, citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word as "foolish, stupid and occasionally inappropriate, disapproved of and lame".

But Ofcom added: "In this edition of Top Gear, the presenter's use of a Cockney rhyming phrase made clear he intended to give a particular meaning to use of the word gay . . . ie, not to restrict its meaning simply to foolish or stupid, but clearly linking the reference to homosexual people.

"This, in Ofcom's opinion, meant that the use of the word became capable of giving offence. In the context, there was no justification for using the word in this way."

Now, I'm not an expert on cars like Jeremy Clarkson, so I have to defer to his opinion, though some might find it harsh.

I will only say that I would expect to see great numbers of Daihatsu Copen in the parking lot of the local Judy Garland Film Festival.

On Sunday I had the TV on CNN's Late Edition. I wasn't paying a lot of attention but my ears perked up during an exchange between moderator Wolf Blitzer and Democrat Charlie Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. They were discussing a fence on the Mexican border. I thought I heard Rangel say something preposterous. And so he did:

BLITZER: Well, let me ask Congressman Rangel, he's the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Is this American taxpayer money well-spent to go ahead and spend hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more, on a new fence, a border fence, between the United States and Mexico?

RANGEL: The problem that Duncan Hunter has when he's president is whether or not he's going to use illegal immigrants to build the fence because there is a shortage of labor. No, they say that the American Ladder, since he's built the fence, has really had 100 percent in profits. They got these 50-foot fences and 55-foot ladders.

It's absolutely ridiculous in a great democracy like the United States of America should be known like Germany was when the Russians put up a fence to keep people out.

I have no idea what he was trying to say in that first paragraph. In the second, the portly gasbag apparently believes the Soviet claim that the Berlin Wall was built to stop greedy Westerners from streaming into the workers paradise of East Germany. I guess that explains all those people shot in the back in the attempt.

Even the East Germans weren't that gullible.

He's put a lot into it, and it's all very tasteful, except the stripper poles.

There's a new house on the market.

More pictures here.

Via grow-a-brain

Al Gore hard at work saving the planet from his home office. I think he needs more monitors. Also a maid.