the blog quebecois

The New Yorker:

Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six, which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU.

Probably the most comprehensive look at the raid on Abbottabad. And contrary to the spin the White House and others tried to put on it, the SEALs didn't seem terribly interested in taking him alive. Good call.

James Taranto:

Remember a few weeks ago when President Obama reportedly said to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor: "Eric, don't call my bluff"? Lots of commentators said that this was a "tell"--that by referring to "my bluff," Obama was admitting he was bluffing.

Actually, his play was even worse than that. A bluff is a pretense. The bluffer knows he has a weak hand but bets as if he has a strong one in order to induce his opponents to fold. Obama had a weak hand but thought he had a strong one. His next words to Cantor, according to Politico, were a vow to "take his case 'to the American people.' " He actually believed--for all we know, he still believes--all that World's Greatest Orator nonsense.

OK, so he's not exactly a card sharp -- but let me tell you, friend: Obama's not just playing Chinese Checkers; he's playing four-dimensional Chinese Checkers. I'd explain it to you, but it's way, way more than your poor brains can handle.

Ace Of Spades HQ:

You can ask your average person: Do you wish people would exercise more? Take more of an interest in their health? Stop eating too much? Stop smoking? Stop drinking so much? Stop gambling away their kids' college funds?

Of course the answer is "yes" to all of these (for most respondents).

But again that's just the sales pitch, not the actual offer.

Give them the actual offer and most will say No. Because the actual offer is:

Do you wish to empower a cadre of busybody bureaucrats, who frankly are largely mediocrities at best, but believe themselves to be chosen for greatness, to boss you around your whole life, in order to make sure some other people aren't eating french fries and having a cigarette?

The real answer is "NO!," because the real answer is, "Look, sure I want other people to live better lives, but frankly, I don't care very much about that and I'm sure not paying for my own personal censor to scold me for making "bad" choices."

And why you get that occasional creepy feeling . . . but hey, it's science.

A report from the U.S. Department of Transportation confirmed Thursday that at any one time, the average American city bus is occupied by at least four fully erect penises. "This persistent level of physical arousal remains a mystery, as we have found no link between these erections and either the attractiveness of fellow passengers or the intensity of vehicle vibrations," the report read in part, also noting that when one of the four engorged penises goes flaccid, another immediately hardens, as if to take its place.

My cousin's song. We were a bit too close to the situation to appreciate it, but we were steadily getting better by this point. There were still some issues with the rhythm and the occasional misplaced emphasis; but for the most part we were playing all the pretty little notes in their pretty little order. What they all sounded like in their totality is entirely another matter, of course -- but that's what music critics are for.

Previous: Tell Me The Time

Hillbuzz comments on the spate of racist black attacks on whites:

They accept the Center’s invitation to use the place as a clubhouse…and organize into gangs that then hunt white people in Boystown, robbing, beating, stabbing, and burglarizing them.

Since these are black “youth” organized and deliberately hunting whites, a Leftist controlled city like Chicago insists it’s racist to talk about the reality of what’s going on.

If these were white kids organizing to head into the Southside to specifically target and attack blacks, there would be a national uproar over this, led no doubt by Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Henry Gates, and Barack Obama himself.

But, the Left doesn’t consider it a “hate crime” when it’s blacks organizing to prey on white people. Hate crimes apparently work only the other way around.

Only blacks can be victims, and everyone else has to be the victimizers. When black “youth” are rampaging through Boystown or the state fair in Wisconsin, the Left immediately apologizes for them and insists there are “reasons” for this behavior, that they are misunderstood, that they just have no place to act-out in their own neighborhoods so when they happen upon a place like Boystown or the fair, they don’t know how to behave.

And a commenter provides a site that tracks these mob attacks. There are over a hundred listed. Canada has only two mentions, including the Vancouver hockey riot, which had no racial aspects that I can see. Still, look at the frequency of the incidents, which have exploded over the last two years. I expect they will reach a crescendo next year when Obama goes down to ignomonious defeat.

Via Blazing Cat Fur

Walter Russell Mead on yesterday's topic, as well as the (sporadic) media coverage of it:

The American Interest:

"Philadelphia – While out of town last week, I suddenly started receiving urgent long-distance messages about young black people in Milwaukee acting crazy.

Again.

Last time it happened, I was on vacation during the Fourth of July weekend when a bunch of misbehaving young black people ransacked a gas station convenience store and attacked residents in a park.

This time, I was in my hometown of Philadelphia attending the National Association of Black Journalists convention when my BlackBerry started blowing up with news about what happened Thursday night at the Wisconsin State Fair.

According to reports, it was similar to what happened in Riverwest last month, but on a much more brutal – and scarier – scale.

When people start reporting they were being beaten by black people for no other reason than being white people at the State Fair, that’s pretty disturbing."

[. . .]

The Christian Science Monitor adds Washington and Las Vegas to the list of cities experiencing this phenomenon and discusses another pastime: “a game called ‘Knockout King,’ played primarily by black teenagers, where the point is to approach and quickly strike a stranger, often whites or immigrants, in an attempt to knock them unconscious with the first punch.”

Sounds like fun. A twist that is also gaining popularity is the “flash rob” where a large group of young people descends on a store and loots it. As responsible journalists are always careful to say, the overall trend of youth crime in the US remains headed down, but this particular form of crime seems to be gaining steam.

Glad to see that journalists the world over are living up to their usual lofty standards:

On a trade mission to Brazil this week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reportedly engaged in some undiplomatic behavior, according to a report in Brazilian newspaper Folha.

Though diplomats in both countries denied the report, the article started conversations across North and South America.

Folha reported that Brazilian president Dilma Rouseff asked official speeches and toasts to take place after a lunch with Harper Monday. Harper, however, reportedly had a different idea. He wanted the speeches to happen before lunch, and Folha says he locked himself in the private bathroom of the foreign affairs minister until he got his way.

Harper's officials denied the report, calling it “ridiculous tabloid journalism.”

The original article, through Google's rather fractured translation:

The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has caused constraints in Brazilian diplomacy on Monday, demanding a change in the ceremony and only go to the salon for lunch with the President after Rousseff met.

The speeches and toasts are common in this type of event can be both before and after lunch. Dilma prefers it that later, but Harper made sure they were done before the guests start eating at the meeting yesterday. He did not explain why.

He had already angered aides and diplomats at the presidential palace, telling reporters that Canadians speak there, breaking the rule that such interviews always occur in the Foreign Ministry.

As the Brazilian side denied the request, Harper has reached the Foreign Ministry, for lunch, showing bad temper and demanding the reversal of the freebies. Then locked himself in a private Minister Antonio Patriota, while waiting for an answer.

Stunned, Brazilian diplomats did not know what to do if you meet a desire of the Brazilian President or surrendered to the whim of the Canadian visitors.

Only when we have confirmed that he would be met is that Harper went to Brasilia room where the banquet took place, with palm heart salad, guinea hen and "pineapple delight". Toasts are made with wines.

Although the Canadian Embassy to say surprised by this release, confirmed the story with Sheet diplomats who were at lunch and in solidarity with the grief of the ceremonial colleagues to resolve the impasse.

The lunch was scheduled for 13h, and the agenda of the next president was the possession of former Foreign Minister Celso Amorim as new defense minister, who was back in the highlands.

Yep. These ladies have got a bright, bright future with the CBC.

CBC:

An advocacy group is criticizing an unusual decision by Edmonton police to release the name and photograph of a teenager accused of having unprotected sex without disclosing that she is HIV-positive.

"It makes you really sick to your stomach because you know that this is going to be following this young woman for the rest of her life," said Shelley Williams, the interim executive director of HIV Edmonton.

Well, what's the problem then? Surely this woman is going away for a long time, right? Right?

Johnson Aziga says he’s willing to take the blame — sort of — for killing two women and infecting at least five others through HIV transmission.

Aziga, 55, made the remarks during a rambling 45-minute statement in Ontario Superior Court on Tuesday, minutes after Mr. Justice Thomas Lofchik declared him a dangerous offender.

He is believed to be the first person in Canada convicted of murder through HIV transmission. The dangerous offender designation means he could be jailed indefinitely.

[. . .] Aziga, a divorced father of three and former research analyst with the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, was found guilty in April 2009 of two counts of first-degree murder, 10 counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of attempted aggravated sexual assault. His convictions concern times he didn’t tell sexual partners he knew he carried the virus that causes AIDS before having intercourse. Five of the women became infected, with two dying of AIDS-related cancers.

But don'tcha worry, girl. The Edmonton Journal's head sob sister, Paula Simons, has got yo' back.

So should we all breathe a sigh of relief? After all, an accused serial sexual assailant is now in custody.

But this case isn’t quite so simple.

The accused in this case is a slim 17-year-old girl, a minor, a child of the streets, who, according to police, lives without a fixed address in Old Strathcona.

She isn’t accused of forcing anyone to have sex against his will.

Instead, three unnamed men, whose identities are protected by the rape shield law, have complained to police that this girl had consensual sex with them without first disclosing the fact that she was allegedly HIV positive.

Now this isn't the usual case of "woman = good/man = bad," although a casual reader of the Journal might certainly jump to that conclusion.

Nope. Simons is a Professional Journalist©​, and thus incapable of such crude stereotyping. So it must be something else that she has discovered about this man . . . something . . . some nuance that is beyond simple folks like us . ..

From The Oatmeal

Smells like teen spirit. Well, something like that.

More pictures here.

Not having a girlfriend of any description -- let alone rich -- at the time, I was forced to use my powerful narrative skills to conjure one out of whole cloth, as it were. And I threw in a drug habit at no extra charge.

The song was a bit "boomy" in the opening, until I turned the volume down. I'm not sure what I was babbling on about in the chorus, though that was nothing new.

What? Too soon? I don't even get credit for my courageous self-imposed embargo on hand-job jokes? Hmph.

It's actually a Joe Jackson cover of a 1947 R&B hit by Louis Jordan. Lyrics here.

Via Everlasting Blort (who's probably never heard of Layton).

Lawrence Martin:

For the NDP leadership there is no heir apparent. The Quebec MP Thomas Mulcair is greatly talented, but his emotional volatility worries many. Interim leader Nycole Turmel is green and saddled with controversial background ties to separatists. Ottawa MP Paul Dewar is seasoned, but does he have the gravitas?

Gravitas? You want gravitas? I got your gravit-ass, right here:

"Lib-BY! Lib-BY! Lib-BY!"

Noemie Emery:

The question this time is not just whether Texas Gov. Rick Perry is dumb -- the Left claims the obvious answer is yes -- but also whether he is as dumb as George W. Bush, or even much dumber, moronic where Bush was simply "incurious," and also much less gently bred.

Either way, few on the Left doubt that neither is, as Steve Benen says, "an intellectually curious, creative thinker, capable to examining [sic] complex issues in a sophisticated way."

Fortunately we have such a thinker, "capable to examining" things to perfection, and that is the problem: President Obama is their ideal of a thinker. He is president, and he has been -- how to put it? -- a bomb.

"Bomb," "bum" -- either will do.

Via Jack's Newswatch

Not an obscure comment on somebody's culinary talents (or lack of same) -- these were just some nonsense verses that I had kicking around until one day we decided to turn them into a song. Not too bad, if you can overlook the fact that the lyrics are somewhat . . . silly.

Robert J. Samuelson:

When it comes to energy, America is lucky to be next to Canada, whose proven oil reserves are estimated by Oil and Gas Journal at 175 billion barrels. This ranks just behind Saudi Arabia (260 billion) and Venezuela (211 billion) and ahead of Iran (137 billion) and Iraq (115 billion). True, about 97 percent of Canada’s reserves consist of Alberta’s controversial oil sands, but new technologies and high oil prices have made them economically viable. Expanded production can provide the U.S. market with a growing source of secure oil for decades.

We would be crazy to turn our back on this. In a global oil market repeatedly threatened by wars, revolutions, and natural and man-made disasters — and where government-owned oil companies control development of about three-quarters of known reserves — having dependable suppliers is no mean feat. We already import about half of our oil, and Canada is our largest supplier, with about 25 percent of imports. But its conventional fields are declining. Only oil sands can fill the gap.

Well, you'd think this would be a slam dunk; but remember, this is Barack Obama, so your guess is as good as mine. He'll probably approve it, but only on the condition that the pipeline empty into the Gulf of Mexico so he can valiantly battle the slick. Just think of the jobs he'll create!

Or something like that. I've given up trying to figure out the guy.

Frank J., of the satirical website IMAO compares President Obama to a sack of hammers, generally unfavorably:

Foreign Relations

Obama has tried to improve relations with other nations with mixed results. Some of our closest allies, such as the British, have felt snubbed at times, and despite Obama’s outreach to Muslims, America’s popularity in the Middle East has dropped. Also, Obama has done odd things like bow to foreign sovereigns, which has undermined America’s image of authority.

A sack of hammers would be extremely aloof toward foreign leaders. This might seem negative at times, but one of the best ways to assert dominance is to ignore others. In this way, many foreign leaders would probably come to respect — and perhaps slightly fear — the sack of hammers and its mysterious, unreadable attitude.

It seems unlikely that a sack of hammers would receive a Nobel Peace Prize like Obama, but who in the world knows how those people think?

JUDGMENT: Obama is slightly worse than a sack of hammers in the area [of] foreign relations.

every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

-- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, first line, Chapter 1

Salt Lake Tribune:

Raised in a $1.5 million Barrington Hills, Ill., home by their attorney father, two grown children have spent the last two years pursuing a unique lawsuit against their mom for "bad mothering" that alleges damages caused when she failed to buy toys for one and sent another a birthday card he didn’t like.

The alleged offenses include failing to take her daughter to a car show, telling her then 7-year-old son to buckle his seat belt or she would contact police, "haggling" over the amount to spend on party dresses and calling her daughter at midnight to ask that she return home from celebrating homecoming.

Last week, at which point the court record stood about a foot tall, an Illinois appeals court dismissed the case, finding that none of the mother’s conduct was "extreme or outrageous." To rule in favor of her children, the court found, "could potentially open the floodgates to subject family childrearing to ... excessive judicial scrutiny and interference."

In 2009, the children, represented by three attorneys including their father, Steven A. Miner, sued their mother, Kimberly Garrity. Steven II, now 23, and his sister Kathryn, now 20, sought more than $50,000 for "emotional distress."

Miner and Garrity were married for a decade before she filed for divorce in 1995, records show.

Among the exhibits filed in the case is a birthday card Garrity sent her son, who in his lawsuit sought damages because the card was "inappropriate" and failed to include cash or a check. He also alleged she failed to send a card for years or, while he was in college, care packages.

On the front of the American Greetings card is a picture of tomatoes spread across a table that are indistinguishable except for one in the middle with craft-store googly eyes attached.

"Son I got you this Birthday card because it’s just like you ... different from all the rest!" the card reads. On the inside Garrity wrote "Have a great day! Love & Hugs, Mom xoxoxo."

Via Ace Of Spades HQ