Now, admittedly, this concept might be better if more of the people in the blog’s photos actually said what they were doing to help the 99%, besides writing statements on paper. But the spirit ain’t bad.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has its share of problems, namely, the lack of any coherent demands, the lack of focus, and the general sense of a movement with lots of gripes but few answers. But they’re not wrong to point out the negative consequences of large income disparity in the US. And while the income gap isn’t nearly as dramatic in Canada, there’s a strong sense that we’re moving in that direction.

The fact is, while these people claim to be in the so-called 1% of Americans, and most of us aren’t, we’re pretty much ALL of us part of the luckiest 0.00001% in the world – we hit the mother of all jackpots just by being born here in Canada, having enough food to eat, a roof over our heads, security and safety and education and healthcare and the chance to grow to be an adult. It’s worth it for all of us to think about how we can do more to give something back.

(Not for nothing, but this goes back to my long-standing call for Quebec to raise university tuition for those who can afford it and increase bursaries and financial aid for those who can’t. More access to opportunity benefits everyone. Just sayin’.)

After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.

If there is a god, he’s probably applauding this decision. Though not for the reasons that Palin might have assumed.

Tina Fey, on the other hand, must be disappointed.

The full speech is available to watch on video here.

Or, you can read the text of the speech here.

First, there was his speech at the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner, where Obama held the floor like a seasoned comedian and managed to get his digs in at Donald Trump while he was at it:

Does he have the Colbert Report’s writers on his speechwriting staff? Because that was one brilliant piece of satire.

Then, tonight, his address to the nation on the death of Osama Bin Laden struck all the right notes, inspiring some Canadians to comment on my Twitter feed that they wished they could vote for him tomorrow instead of one of our guys:

Say what you will about the man, but he certainly has the gift of oratory. Why can’t any of our politicians give speeches like that?

Bin Laden’s death may not mean much in the grand scheme of the so-called “war on terror” in practical terms. But cynically speaking, it’s likely to give Obama’s re-election chances a big boost.

Dozens of terrorist attacks, including Istanbul, Madrid, London, and last week in Marrakech, later.

2,340 coalition casualties in Afghanistan, including 155 Canadians, later.

Thousands of Afghan civilian casualties – too many for any body or organization to properly count – later.

Osama bin Laden is dead, says the President. It’s been almost ten years since the September 11th attacks, and since the world’s largest manhunt was launched for the man responsible. In those ten years, the world has changed so much that it’s almost unrecognizable.

Ten years ago, bin Laden’s death might have actually struck a body blow at the terrorist infrastructure. Today, it will probably make little more than a dent. After all, they’ve had ten years to reorganize and restructure, to recruit and train. Ten years during which Osama was little more than a figurehead, and the network has decentralized. Ten years for other international terror groups to “step up” and grow up.

(Oh, and ten years for the US to invade Iraq, for there to be civil war – and now reconciliation – in the Palestinian territories, for governments to change hands in western nations and for massive rounds of civilian unrest and protest across the middle east. A lot can happen in ten years.)

At best, this announcement will give Obama a temporary bump in the polls as he kicks off his 2012 re-election campaign. At worst, it will make bin Laden into a martyr among his followers and trigger additional attacks. In all likelihood, it will make very little practical difference.

It does feel like the end of an era, in a way.

BMO’s survey compared 11 items, including golf balls, Blu-ray movies, running shoes and cars.

There is no denying Canada is smaller and that means less competition, which in turn means higher prices.

But Michael Mulvey, marketing professor at the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management, also noted some of the biggest difference in prices between the U.S. and Canada are in the areas where there isn’t free trade, such as telecomunications.

I’ve ranted about the higher telecommunications prices before. Those are due to price-fixing by the corrupt CRTC — something not mentioned in this study.

But for consumer goods where actual competition exists, how do we explain the price gap?

Taxes, for one thing. The study is comparing pre-tax prices, so you might think that’s not a factor. But there are taxes all the way down the chain of distribution, not just at the end-consumer point. That 15% you pay in combined GST and QST is merely the tip of the iceberg. The higher taxes down the line help pay for our essential social programs, like medicare, but they do make things more expensive.

Another factor that is mentioned by the study is the size of the country, and the fact that distribution and shipping is more expensive when you have a sparser population in a less concentrated area. This helps explain why prices would be more in, say, Yellowknife. It doesn’t explain why something retails in downtown Toronto for 20% more than it does across the border in Buffalo, NY.

The rapid rise of the dollar is another factor. When the Canadian dollar was worth 60 cents US, we understood the price gap. Now that it’s above par, it’s frustrating to see this gap. But the price adjustment period takes longer to catch up than the loonie takes to rise in the first place. The gap is closing somewhat — just more slowly than we might like.

But the main reason is merely supply and demand. In a market economy, prices are less about what something costs to produce and more about what the market will bear. We pay more because we pay more because we pay more. It’s circular. If people stopped buying things that were too expensive, the prices on them would drop. They would have to.

Lots of people would like to complain, protest or mobilize to correct this. What they don’t understand is that these prices aren’t being fixed by the government, and the economy cannot – and should not – be centrally managed in order to make people happy.

We do have choices. We can drive down to Burlington or Plattsburgh, shop in lower US dollars, and come back across the border — and pay duty (or not, as every good Canadian knows the tricks of how to avoid that at some point. Not that I’m endorsing that, mind you.) We can order online and pay the extra shipping charges, though the vast majority of US online retailers won’t ship to Canada, frustratingly enough.

Finally, a little perspective: Prices are higher in Canada than they are in the USA, but they’re lower here than they are in a lot of other places in the world, including South America, most of Europe, some places in Asia, or Australia. We constantly compare to the Americans because we’re so close; it’s hard not to get jealous and feel like the outsider with our face pressed to the glass when we get American ads on TV, radio or digital media splashing prices around that are inaccessible to us. But if you saw what people were paying elsewhere for the same items, you might appreciate our prices a bit more.

But before Obama panics too much, he might want to consult this list of Midterm study strategies, compiled by me back in the eighth grade:

• Eliminate distractions. Minesweeper, SuperNES, listening to your mom fight with your sister down the hall, trying to mediate a mideast peace settlement… all these are distracting to the study process.

• Prioritize the material. Midterm exam questions are usually about things that have been covered recently on the curriculum, and are therefore foremost in the minds of teachers – er – voters. Spend more time on recent issues like the tea party, and less time on the stuff that was covered at the start of the term and that everyone’s forgotten about by now anyway, like, y’know, healthcare.

• Plan your time. Midterms take place in the middle of the term, as their name suggests. While you’re studying for them, you also have to juggle other assignments and a social life. Oh, and national security and economic concerns, too. Make a schedule and stick to it. Use whatever tools work for you, like an agenda book or, if you prefer, a highly-paid team of executive secretaries.

• Find the right study buddies. Pick people who are smarter than you and copy their notes, or arrange a cram session with them in the library. If you can get them to write your speeches for you, too, all the better.

• Remember that it’s not worth as much as the final. Even a bad grade on a midterm can be made up for with a strong final exam, which is usually worth a bigger percentage of your overall grade. Time to put it behind you and focus on what’s important: Beating Sarah Palin in 2012.

For actual news about the US midterm election, in case anyone’s interested, check out the CBC’s interactive maps.

Oh yeah. Here.

Let’s compare the two. Here’s Obama:

“That month makes a difference,” the president said. “It means that kids are losing a lot of what they learn during the school year during the summer. It’s especially severe for poorer kids who may not see as many books in the house during the summers, aren’t getting as many educational opportunities.”

[ . . . ]

“We have got to identify teachers who are doing well. Teachers who are not doing well, we have got to give them the support and the training to do well. And if some teachers aren’t doing a good job, they’ve got to go,” Obama said.

And here’s his fictional model, Congressman Matthew Santos, played by Jimmy Smits on the West Wing, circa 2005:

“America is 49th in the world in literacy. That’s down 18 spots in the last four years. Why? Well, for starters, the 180-day school year, that’s based on the agrarian calendar. But we’re in a global economy now. Japan’s at 243 days; Germany’s at 240. ”

[ . . . ]

“… which is why we need to end teacher tenure and get rid of failing teachers.”

Life imitating art? In the case of Santos/Obama, it’s certainly not the first time.

A Kentucky man accused of strangling his wife is poised to claim excessive caffeine from sodas, energy drinks and diet pills left him so mentally unstable he couldn’t have knowingly killed her, his lawyer has notified a court.

Crazy as it may seem, this defence has apparently worked at least once before. Because, after all, it is America, the land where personal responsibility is a dirty word and where everything is somebody else’s fault.

But this was the kicker in the article:

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — published by the American Psychiatric Association showing standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders — defines overdose as more than 300 mg. That’s about three cups of coffee.

Wow. I guess that means that everyone who works in the ad biz is crazy. Then again, we kind of already knew that.

1. Idiots are their own worst PR nightmare. Let ‘em talk long enough, they’ll shoot themselves in the foot. No need to do it for them.

2. Laziness is an addition, just like alcoholism. And it has enablers. Don’t be one. Next time someone asks you a question instead of looking it up themselves, send them this link: http://www.justfuckinggoogleit.com.

3. It seems to me that people are much less shutter-happy than they were a few years ago, and are more likely to put away the camera. Has the novelty of digital allowing us to take thousands of photos worn off? Do we have photo fatigue?

4. Food really does taste better on pretty new dishes.

5. I used to think that writers were just being hyperbolic when they talked about sirens “screaming”. Now I know better. They mean it literally.

6. Summer’s not over yet. There’s still almost a month to go until NHL Preseason begins.

Americans increasingly are convinced — incorrectly — that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and a growing number are thoroughly confused about his religion. Nearly one in five people, or 18 per cent, said they think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 per cent who said so in March 2009, according to a poll released Thursday. The proportion who correctly say he is a Christian is down to just 34 per cent.

Some of this could be considered backlash for Obama’s apparent cardinal sin in promoting the principle of freedom of religion with respect to the plans to build a mosque in downtown NYC, near the World Trade Center site. Because everyone knows that the US is a Christian theocracy, and the Constitution be damned. And of course, freedom of religion simply means freedom to practice the “right” religion.

But between the conspiracy theorists who don’t believe Obama is American, the racists who question whether he’s black, white or purple, and now the growing segment of Americans who want to make an issue of his religion, you have to wonder where the percentage of Americans are who would honestly say that they do not care.

Why should Americans be so afraid of electing a non-Christian anyway?

It’s an obvious fallout of a culture that emphasizes that the personal is political, and that not only tolerates but expects its leaders to put personal religious conviction ahead of public interest when making decisions. The arguments haven’t changed much since Kennedy – a Catholic (gasp!) was elected in 1960. Separation of Church and State? Hogwash. They want a leader who is seen going to church and quoting the bible in speeches. Which is why any hint, suggestion or misconception about Obama is such a big story.

Us Canadians, in contrast, have a stronger tradition of making the distinction between the personal and the political. Jean Chrétien was a Catholic prime minister who refused to bow to religious pressure when passing legislation for same-sex marriage, for example. We expect our politicians to have personal lives that are just that – personal.

Barack Obama is Christian, not Muslim. But it would be nice to think that maybe one day, Americans would be happy to elect a Muslim president. Or a Jewish one. Or a Buddhist one. Or – imagine – an atheist one. Oh, the horror!

Of course, with fifty million potential gunshot wound victims without health insurance, one would think that the Founding Fathers might have anticipated the need for a universal right to healthcare in the Constitution too, no?

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has apologized to the American Jewish community for ’stigmatizing Israel’ and asked for forgiveness for his actions, the JTA reported on Monday.

“We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel,” Carter wrote in a letter to the JTA.

“As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so,” Carter wrote, referring to the prayer said on Yom Kippur in which Jews ask God for forgiveness for any sins.

That’s all very well and nice but it’s tough not to be skeptical. And I’m not the only one who feels that way. Here’s Meryl’s take on the whole thing:

 The Jimmy Carter apology is deeply suspicious and seems utterly insincere. In order for a person to receive forgiveness for his actions, he needs to atone for them. There is no atonement, as can be seen in his anti-Israel op-ed in the Guardian two days after he offered the “apology.” And the timing of the open letter is very suspicious. It coincides with his grandson’s run for office in Atlanta (though Carter denies this has anything to do with it), but it’s also nothing to do with Hanukkah.

[ . . . ]

It sounds to me like it’s an apology of expedience, nothing more. Once again: Apology not accepted. I still think Carter’s problem with Israel is that there are Jews in it.

I’m inclined to agree with Meryl. Actions speak louder than words, and Carter’s have spoken pretty loudly.

Texas’ gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

“This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”

Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively “eliminates marriage in Texas,” including common-law marriages.

There’s some sort of metaphor here about how bigots who live in glass houses shouldn’t try to circumvent people’s rights or something. Rather than try to find the words for it, I think I’ll just have a good laugh.

Sometimes, the greatest ideas are the most obvious. (Hat tip: Matt).

When Barack Obama steps up to the podium to deliver his inaugural address, one man standing anonymously in the crowd will be paying especially close attention. With his cropped hair, five o’clock shadow and boyish face, he might look out of place among the dignitaries, though as co-author of the speech this man has more claim than most to be a witness to this moment of history.

Jon Favreau, 27, is, as Obama himself puts it, the president’s mind reader. He is the youngest chief speechwriter on record in the White House, and, despite such youth, was at the centre of discussions of the content of today’s speech, one which has so much riding on it.

The full text of the inauguration speech is available here.

With the imminent departure of President George W. Bush, the creators and producers of the Tony-winning musical Avenue Q launched a contest to replace a lyric in the musical’s final song, “For Now,” that states, “George Bush!” is only “for now.”

Over 2,000 entries were received, and the judging panel — including Q creators Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty and the show’s producers — have selected four possibilities that will be tested over several performances to “gauge the response and audience reaction, and determine which lyric emerges as the most satisfying,” according to a press statement.

The contest lyrics that will be tested follow:

“Recession”
“Prop 8″
“This show”
“Your mother-in-law”

Avenue Q is, of course, no stranger to political satire. In 2004, it held its own version of the Bush-Kerry presidential debate… with song, dance and puppets.

I’m normally a cynic, but even I’m finding it difficult not to be a little idealistic today. Obama has a real gift for oratory and for inspiration, and you could feel the change in the air watching the whole thing.

Sure, expectations for Obama are so high that he has nowhere to go but down. And sure, the US and indeed the world are in messes from which it’s going to take an awfully long time to climb out from.

But the much-maligned, misunderestimated Dubya was perhaps the most hated, divisive president of modern times. Obama’s inauguration today was met with a worldwide sigh of relief, and of optimism for things to come.

That’s Sarah Palin, laughing as she digs her own grave, getting prank called by CKOI’s Les Justiciers Masqués. It’s kind of like watching a car wreck; equal parts entertaining and horrifying.

When Obama wins on Tuesday, as is expected, Montreal will have played its part.

I’ll be traveling during the election, so there won’t be any commentary on the results on this blog for a couple of weeks. That said, to all Americans out there, make sure to exercise your civic duty and vote!

The bad news from this scenario? We won’t be able to make fun of Sarah Palin anymore. Really, Joe Biden isn’t nearly as much fun to mock.

Meanwhile, the assholes are at it again. Why aren’t these investigations kept under wraps to prevent media hype and asshole copycats?

Except that it seems he’s not really a plumber. And he’s not really an undecided voter. And he’s not really named Joe. (It’s his middle name). Oh yeah, and for a guy supposedly so concerned about taxes, he hasn’t quite paid his own.

So, lies, cheating and misrepresentation… Hey, sounds like a politician to me. Joe the Plumber for President in 2012? Why not? As Jon Stewart pointed out, he’s already given more interviews than Sarah Palin.

The Canadian debate is obviously more relevant to us as Canadians. But for sheer entertainment value alone, the US VP debate is likely to be much more exciting. Start exercising that channel flipping thumb; you may need it.

Sarah Silverman’s The Great Schlep is a movement to encourage Jewish (and other) Americans to travel to Florida to visit their grandparents and encourage them to vote for Barack Obama:

(Warning: NSFW).

Palin is a true-blue representative of her party. She is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and against gay marriage. Her opposition to abortion extends to cases of rape and incest. The women who backed Hillary Clinton’s historic run for the nomination for presidency don’t generally ascribe to those values.

[ . . . ]

Tokenism is an insult, an insidious one whose effects are difficult to erase over time. People will forget that there were other options on the Republican table, capable, long-serving, proven women like Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas – and that McCain ignored them in favour of doing something headline-grabbing. That effect is already starting to wear off. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll this week found, “Three quarters of all voters think McCain chose a female running mate specifically because he thought adding a woman to the Republican ticket would help him win in November.”

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with the otherwise politically-savvy selection of Palin. Choosing a candidate solely because she’s a woman is no better than systematically denying opportunities to qualified people because they are women.

And while McCain no doubt sees Palin’s stance on issues like abortion and gun control as qualifications, not drawbacks, given the socially conservative voters he’s trying to attract, the fact remains that Palin is much less qualified than the myriad other choices that McCain had – of both genders. She was chosen for her youth (to contrast McCain’s age) and her gender, proving that tokenism is no better than discrimination, after all.

It does, however, beg the question of how many Americans won’t vote for McCain just because he sounds like a French freedom fry?

Maybe that low standard is the reason why this year’s field of primary candidates – both Democrat and Republican – seems almost more devoid than ever of anyone worth voting for. It’s not as though I’m naive enough to expect inspiration, integrity or brilliance. I’d just like to see some real choices, for a change. And I certainly don’t envy the choices of our neighbours to the south. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel that Stephen Colbert would have made a better president than any of the “real” candidates currently running? (The Democrats missed a golden opportunity for media coverage on that one…)

Anyway, this is just my time to revive my election pledge from the last election: No election coverage until next September. None, nada, zilch.

That means no daily analysis of the primaries, no odds-making, and no commentary on Hillary Clinton’s hair. (Though if something really out-there happens, I reserve the right to mention it.)

I hope you’ll, once again, find it a better blog because of it.

U.S. Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has been trying to burnish his foreign policy credentials. So it didn’t help when he called Canada’s leader a “president” during a debate Tuesday.

Asked what he’d do about the North American trade deal, Obama said it needs changes, so he’d “immediately call the president of Mexico (and) the president of Canada.”

A mistake worthy of… Dubya Bush.

To some people, this might indicate that Obama should spend more time reading up on the governmental systems of the different countries of the world, particularly the US’s neighbours.

To me, it just indicates that he clearly hasn’t heard Joe’s rant.

Of course, this has been the headline news of the last couple of days, so there is no shortage of reaction, finger-pointing, and laying blame.

…in my view, the problem with responding to news of tragedy with policy ideas right away is that we tend not to realize in such situations how often our “proposals” are really expressions of psychological need. It’s human nature to respond to tragedy by fitting it into our preexisting worldviews; we instinctively restore order by construing the tragic event as a confirmation of our sense of the world rather than a threat to it.

This means that often we won’t pay a lot of attention to the details of tragedies and what caused them. We’ll just know deep down inside what happened, and what caused it, and how to stop it next time. Take [yesterday's] tragic events at VA Tech. If you’re committed to gun control, the tragedy probably proves to you that there are too many guns; if you’re against gun control, the tragedy probably proves the exact opposite. Given that people will tend to see in events what they want to see, turning to policy right away will come off as rudely “playing politics” to those who don’t share your worldview. And obviously this doesn’t foster a helpful environment for policymaking, either.

(Via Damian P., who points out that “the responsibility rests with one man”).

This pretty much echoes what I wrote after the shooting at Dawson last September. It’s tragic enough as-is; the finger-pointing and agenda pushing only makes it worse.

In Ohio, snow and ice combined to cause traffic nightmares, travel delays, and the death of a 9-year-old girl.

Meanwhile in Chicago, they got a whopping 8.8 inches of snow… and freaked out. In Oswego, they refer to this as “summer”. It’s all relative.

Here in Montreal, we had temporary amnesia that we’re actually Montrealers, and people massively overreacted to the threat of a snowstorm. Maybe people were afraid we’d get 11 feet of snow, like in Oswego? In any case, the amount of people cancelling plans, closing schools, and panicking over the mere few inches of snow we received is just shameful. It’s just snow, people. We get it every winter. Life goes on.

The skiing should be good this weekend, anyway.

It’s still early for analysis, but this piece in The Independent has an interesting – if perhaps a bit optimistic – perspective on how things might play out.

While waiting for a downtown Manhattan train, Autrey saw Cameron Hollopeter, a 19-year-old film student, suffering from some kind of medical episode. After stumbling down the platform, Hollopeter, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks with a train on its way into the station.

Autrey, traveling with his two young daughters, knew he had to do something.

“If I let him stay there by himself, he’s going to be dismembered,” the Navy veteran remembered thinking.

He jumped down to the tracks, a few feet below platform level, and rolled with the young man into a drainage trough — cold, wet and more than a little unpleasant smelling — between the rails as the southbound No. 1 train came into the 137th Street/City College station.

The train’s operator saw someone on the tracks and put the emergency brakes on. Some train cars passed over Autrey and Hollopeter with only a couple of inches to spare, but neither man suffered any harm from the incident.

Hollopeter was taken to a nearby hospital; Autrey refused medical attention — and then went to work.

According to bystanders, Autrey had time to shout to people to take care of his daughters before the train came. I can’t imagine what was going through his mind when he did it, but he was probably acting more on instinct than anything else:

Meanwhile, Autrey said the impact of the risky rescue was sinking in.

“It’s all hitting me now,” Autrey said. “I’m looking, and these trains are coming in now. … Wow, you did something pretty stupid.”

Perhaps, but it worked out well for him. It’s really nice to know that, with all the bad news out there, some people still care about others.

Happy 2007, all.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

[ . . . ]

While Stein said Reyes is “not a stupid guy,” his lack of knowledge said it could hamper Reyes’ ability to provide effective oversight of the intelligence community, Stein believes.

“If you don’t have the basics, how do you effectively question the administration?” he asked. “You don’t know who is on first.”

Aside from not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shi’ite, there’s no evidence that Reyes is a bad guy or anything . . . but I’m tempted to apply my basic Bush-rule here: if you can’t pronounce nuclear, you shouldn’t be allowed to have your finger on the button.

The intelligence level of elected members of government – from both parties – is frighteningly low. Is anyone else more than a little scared that these are the people making the big decisions?

But never mind those clowns. Personally I think the winner should’ve been Meryl Yourish.

• Constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage won approval in South Carolina, Tenessee, Virginia and Wisconsin, with similar amendments on the ballot in 4 other states also expected to pass once the votes are tallied. This would mean that a total of 28 states – more than half – will have banned gay marriage in the U.S., delivering a serious blow to the hopes of people in favour of equality and civil rights.
• Arizona passed measures against illegal immigrants, including making English the state’s official language.

On the other hand:

• Missouri passed a measure to guarantee stem cell research would be permitted.
• South Dakota’s voters rejected an attempt to restrict abortion in the form of proposed legislation.

Some analysts have further noted that, though Democrats made significant gains, they may have done so at the expense of ideology, since many of the newly-elected Democrats are much more moderate than Liberal while many of the defeated Republican incumbents were on their party’s more moderate wing. So the House (and possibly the Senate) may have shifted to the left, but both parties actually shifted to the right in the process.

What will it all mean? Your guess is as good as mine.

But, for the sake of the United States, I hope that drunkenness subsides soon, or else all they’ll be left with is a giant hangover.

All of the planets aligned for the Democrats right now. Increased frustration at Bush’s policies – namely, the war in Iraq – combined with ill-timed sex scandals and a lot of general weariness led to a sort of protest vote against Republicans as proxies for Bush. But Democrats would do well to note that there’s still two long years until 2008. That’s enough time to either put up or shut up, so to speak.

It’s easy to gain popularity by pointing fingers in opposition (well, for everyone but John Kerry, anyway). It’s a lot harder to make excuses once you’re in the hot seat. A lot of eyes will be on the Democrats now, looking to see what they do with these two years of limited power, in order to decide what to do about 2008. If tonight’s vote was against Bush, the next presidential election will be about some sort of vision for the country… and despite the Democrats’ victories tonight, they haven’t conclusively demonstrated that they have one.

The Democrats, therefore, have a choice to make. They can either spend the next two years dragging the country down into myriad scandal investigations, handing out subpoenas like tissues and clamouring for time on TV. That’s door number one, and it leads to a path of increased cynicism, frustration and disillusionment with politics in general.

Or, they can take the tougher road and start taking a stand on issues and trying to once again define a voice for the party. Door number two means taking whatever limited power you’ve been handed and trying to actually do something with it. Agree or disagree, voters will generally have a lot more respect for someone who leads than for someone who blames. This is what the Democrats didn’t figure out in 2004, and from many of the interviews I’m seeing tonight with key Democrats, I don’t think they’ve figured it out in 2006 either.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the Democrats weren’t the big winners tonight. Not because a serious backlash could still result in a resounding Republican victory when it counts, in 2008’s Presidential election – though it’s certainly possible. But because we haven’t seen anyone try to raise the standard of debate with this election. It’s the same old corruption scandals, negative campaigning, negative issues, finger-pointing about Iraq and threatening of congressional investigations that we’ve seen a million times before. And it’s coming from all sides.

In reality, there may be no true winners in tonight’s election, only losers: the American people.

• Congress: Democrats take control with a projected 16-seat gain.
• Senate: Still too close to call, but looks like the Republicans will narrowly hang on.
• Hockey: Habs 3-2 over Oilers in a shootout.

Everyone knows which one of those is the most important in my book, of course.

If the Democrats take control of the House (somewhat likely) and/or the Senate (highly unlikely) tomorrow, will that mean Bush will be relegated to lame duck status? Is tomorrow’s vote pivotal for gays/women/minorities/Iraq, or will it really not change very much? If the Democrats win some power, will they use it to legislate, or will they use it to launch a bunch of costly and pointless probes and investigations into Republican behaviour that will make voters sigh and roll their eyes at the endless scandal circus?

What will the results spell for 2008? Will it scare Republicans into a voter backlash, or will it energize the Democrats and give them momentum?

Personally, I hope that the Democrats gain control of Congress at least, not because I’m particularly disposed to favour one side or the other (I’ve already spelled out my objections to the giant either-or wedge in American politics numerous times) but because, on principle, I believe that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I’ve seen what happens too many times with the lack of a strong enough opposition. The Canadian Liberals, for instance. Even my years at Concordia were instrumental in demonstrating the pitfalls of having too much power concentrated in too few hands. The Bush administration has had a blank cheque for quite some time now, and it’s time to instill some checks and balances in the form of a more powerful opposition.

Basically, what it boils down to is my belief that the more handcuffed a government is, the less it will be able to do… and, hence, the less harm it will be able to do. Like doctors, government officials ought to be required to swear an oath of office that begins with “first, do no harm”. But, since they don’t, the next best option is to limit their power as much as possible.

Buffalo lay all but paralyzed Friday after a record-breaking early snowstorm whited-out the brilliant colors of fall, buried pumpkins and apples and caught this city world-famous for its wintry weather flat-flooted. At least three deaths were blamed on the storm.

The heavy, wet snow snapped tree limbs all over western New York, leaving some 350,000 homes and businesses without power.

A state of emergency was in effect across the region, banning all nonessential travel. Branches and power lines lay draped across cars and houses, and normally busy downtown streets were still, blanketed by up to two feet of snow.

It’s really rare to get any snow at all in October, and when it happens, it hardly ever does more than dust the ground before melting quickly away. And that’s Montreal I’m talking about; for Buffalo, it’s even weirder. For a massive snowstorm of this scale to hit Buffalo at any time of winter is pretty extraordinary, but in mid-October?

I blame Friday the 13th. Hey, it’s as good an explanation as any.

Now, National Geographic has conducted a new survey. Like the last one, you can test yourself.

Any improvements in the results? Well, judge for yourself.

Update: For a well-placed joke, this rumour’s sure making the rounds.

Update #2: Apparently the rumours made the front page of yesterday’s New York Times. Wow, where have I been?

How could any of us have known, at that moment, that life would forever be defined as “before” and “after” that moment? How could we have realized the impact that this event would have?

Now, five years later, the world certainly isn’t any safer. Maybe we’ve opened our eyes to what we were willfully ignoring before. Maybe things have really gotten a whole lot worse. Maybe it’s both. In any case, terrorism has become part of our collective language, part of the daily discourse, an almost-expected part of the news cycle. And I look around and see a war that has no end in sight and no marked progress being made.

This is the world we live in now. A world that is much less innocent, much less naive. A world filled with scary things. Will Iran get nuclear weapons and launch them at Israel or the West? Will North Korea go renegade? Where in the world will Al-Qua’eda strike next? What major disaster will befall us next?

But I also see a world with so much potential, a world where extraordinary people are accomplishing amazing things every day. A world worth fighting for.

After five years, maybe it is finally appropriate to put aside this chapter of mourning and focus on our collective potential?

Flight 5191, a Canadair CRJ-100 bound for Atlanta, apparently ran off the end of a 3,500-foot-long runway designed for use by smaller planes, instead of the 7,000-foot runway suited for commercial flights, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board said.

There’s so far no word as to why the plane tried to take off from the shorter runway, instead of the longer one it was approved for. But there are no indications of terrorism, and as such, this crash will probably be quickly forgotten by the media. Unless, of course, the pilot turns out to be Muslim… in which case we’ll probably never hear the end of the conspiracy theories.

This crash was a tragedy, and the families of all those killed have my deepest sympathies.

A woman was killed and five other women were wounded on Friday when a gunman opened fire at a Jewish organization in downtown Seattle that last weekend organized a rally in support of Israel.

A Seattle police spokesman said the gunman, who was thought to be acting alone, had been taken into custody but that authorities were “taking every precaution” in searching for explosives and additional suspects.

Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle Vice President Amy Wasser-Simpson told the Seattle Times in a story on its Web site that a man got through security at the building and shouted, “I’m a Muslim American; I’m angry at Israel,” then began shooting.

Police did not confirm the report and offered no immediate motive for the shooting. It was not clear if the shooter was specifically targeting women.

The whole thing is absolutely sickening.

There’s going to be a lot of talk about how this was “terrorism”, which, I suppose technically it was, but it doesn’t appear to be the work of any organized terror cell. Rather, it looks like it was a deranged lone gunman using politics as an excuse. Won’t make a difference to any of the shooting victims, of course. But before the facts of the story get lost in the coming media frenzy, let’s just take a deep breath and remember that.

Sadly, there will be those who celebrate this nutjob as a hero. That’s the sickest part of all.

“Syria is ready for dialogue with the United States based on respect and mutual interest,” Mekdad told Reuters in an interview. He said the solution to the crisis lies in an immediate ceasefire brokered by international powers, followed by diplomacy.

The United States hasn’t lifted a finger here, but Syria has to be dismayed at the severe ass-kicking that its proxy, Hezbollah, is receiving at the hands of the Israelis.

Syria will posture and bluster a lot about “international powers” and try to get the U.S. to commit to a deal that will benefit nobody but Syria. Nobody’s expecting much to come of this.

But none of that matters. Syria is blinking first.

Israel was never prepared to launch another war with Syria, and the United States isn’t too keen on getting entangled in another military conflict. But Baby Assad is obviously taking Bush’s rhetoric seriously enough to call for dialogue. If this has been a giant bluff, it’s clearly working – at least as far as Syria is concerned.

Iran? I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Bush replied: “See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.”

Gee, you think?

Some people find Bush’s candor refreshing. Others seem to have a more realistic take:

No one in the media seems to notice (or maybe they notice but they don’t care) that this isn’t candid, frank or dramatic. It’s the kind of simplistic blowhard chitchat my relatives exchange during ‘NFL Today’ commercials. You know… just git ‘em to do it. Git someone to git ‘em to do it.

Is that the best Bush can do?

My question exactly.

There’s been a long-running debate among observers of Dubya as to whether he really is that dumb, or if his “plain-spokenness” is partly an act to help him win votes. Certainly his aversion to words with more than two syllables is nothing new.

But if, even off-camera, Bush’s understanding about the political situation in the mideast really is that oversimplified, then I think we all ought to be more than a bit concerned. Even if he was, in this case, perfectly right in what he said, it still has that “duh” quality to it that’s so pervasive in so much of what Bush says even publicly.

Writer and musician Kinky Friedman, who once sang “They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore,” may include the name by which he is best known on the ballot to choose Texas’ next governor in November, the state’s top election official said on Monday.

Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams said Friedman’s nickname was not a slogan and thus did not violate state law. His name will appear on election ballots as Richard “Kinky” Friedman.

But Williams, a Republican, said Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who is also running as an independent against incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry, cannot include “Grandma” as a nickname on the ballot.

Strayhorn’s campaign advertising calls her “One Tough Grandma.”

Well, say what you will, but Kinky is certainly no Dubya:

“I support gay marriage,” Friedman said in 2005. “I believe they have a right to be as miserable as the rest of us.”

Let’s hear it for equality!

“Night” was required reading in high school French class (though I seem to remember most of us cheating by picking up the English translation from the library). It’s a powerful book and Wiesel emerged as one of the key voices of conscience on the Holocaust. There was a time when Wiesel’s word would have carried more weight than Oprah’s.

Then again, with Holocaust-denial on the rise (from the usual suspects and the Left and the Arab world), and with the generation of survivors slowly disappearing, perhaps this was the right time to push the book back into the spotlight.

I’ve been to London during an Underground strike, to Barcelona during a public bus strike, and to Venice during a public boat strike. All of those were, er, interesting experiences, to say the least.

But nothing can compare to the havoc being wreaked in New York City thanks to a massive MTA strike:

During the morning rush hour, police set up checkpoints at bridge and tunnel entrances, turning away cars carrying fewer than four people to avoid gridlock in Manhattan.

Drivers desperate to fill their cars invited strangers to get in, while cyclists streamed over bridges into the city.

Vehicles were backed up to get into Manhattan, where morning traffic moved relatively freely because so many cars were refused entry. People packed onto commuter buses as well as the suburban trains and ferries that were still running.

The strike is illegal and the union is being fined a million dollars each day it goes on. There’s simply no way any settlement they hope to get out of this will compensate for that. And so, the union workers lose, the city loses, and the commuters lose. Nobody wins. That’s the idiocy of a mass transit strike.

Instapundit has more, including comments left by irate commuters on the unofficial transit union’s blog (via Damian Penny).

Damian was, of course, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial. However, I think the quote is a good one, and it popped into my head when I read about today’s ruling against teaching creationism in schools:

A federal judge on Tuesday banned the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution by Pennsylvania’s Dover Area School District, saying the practice violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

[ . . . ]

The school district was sued by a group of 11 parents who claimed teaching intelligent design was unconstitutional and unscientific and had no place in high school biology classrooms.

Before you jump down my throat, I’m in no way implying that Holocaust denial is comparable to creationism. What I am saying, however, is that there’s a clear difference between fact and invention – as in the case of Holocaust denial – which I think we all recognize fairly easily. What many people fail to recognize, however, is that we must also make a clear distinction between fact and belief.

Evolution is a scientific fact. Creationism (repackaged as “intelligent design” or whatever you rename it) is a belief. It is based on faith, not evidence, and cannot be proven for the simple reason that it cannot be disproven.

Today’s ruling banned the teaching of creationism because it violates the separation of church and state. I think the real reason it ought to be banned from science curricula is because it isn’t science. After all, there is no constitutional ban on teaching Holocaust denial in history class, and yet I’m sure we would all call for the dismissal of any teacher who tried, simply on the grounds that it’s wrong.

I have no objection to the teaching of creationist theory in a course about religion, humanities, or cultural studies. But high school biology teachers who teach creationism as scientific fact are muddling fact and belief. People are entitled to hold a belief, but when teaching science, they need to stick to facts.

And so, to restate Damian’s point, everyone is entitled to his own beliefs, but not his own facts.

• New Yorkers complain about the cold even more than Montrealers do, or at least it seems that way.
• Fifth Avenue is pretty with all the lights.
• Stuck for a gift idea? No problem. There’s a street vendor at 73rd and Broadway selling Christmas sweaters for $2.
• Lots of tall buildings arranged perpendicularly in a grid create massive wind tunnels. Ugh.
• Most of the subway station platforms aren’t heated. The subway trains are, though.
• Winter, spring, summer or fall… it’s just as impossible to get a cab from downtown Manhattan to the airport at rush hour.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s a random snapshot of Rockefeller Center all decorated for the holidays:

The candidates threw out the debate rules and went after each other on issues including gun control, healthcare, education, immigration and even the word “liberal”. Why can’t real political debates be like that?

After all, politicians have essentially been actors for years. And I’m not just talking about Reagan or Schwarzenegger. Most of them are reading off rehearsed scripts, playing a part, saying their lines. So why don’t their lines ever sound so good in real life?

Now, the show has an obvious liberal bias, with Martin Sheen having played the fictional Democratic President Josiah Bartlett for the last 6 seasons. The show’s audience is over 75% Democrat, and its cast includes some of the most outspoken liberal actors in Hollywood. An online poll on the show’s site as to who won the fake debate is running 65% for Santos. In fact, an independent poll – yes, a real pollster actually ran a poll about fictional candidates, in a bizarre twist – surveyed an equal number of Democrats and Republicans and found that 59% favour Santos. It’s virtually pre-ordained that Smits is going to emerge the winner.

But Alda’s character is fighting a serious campaign. They’ve scripted Senator Vinick as a centrist, pro-choice Republican from California, with just enough centrist appeal that he could – theoretically – win the television presidency. An anti-Bush, in other words. And I must admit, if it were a real debate, he would have nearly wiped the floor with Matthew Santos… despite the fact that there were clearly lines he – presumably a Democrat in real life – nearly choked on while having to speak. Hell, I figure I’d be a Democrat if I were American, and even I woulda voted for him.

Wouldn’t it be gutsy of the show’s producers if they wrote a Vinick victory and let the Republicans take office on the show? Of course, it would be a Democrat’s funhouse version of the Republican party… but it would sure be more interesting than the assumed outcome. I’d love to see them try.

And you know what else would be really neat? If this debate inspired some real political debates to follow a similar format, allowing candidates to actually debate issues for a change. I’m willing to bet a lot more people would watch – and consequently, a lot more people would vote.

Update: I admit, I was curious about the fact that the debate was going to air twice – once on the east coast and once on the west. So I tuned into NBC Seattle and was rather shocked to notice that, though the script was nearly identical, the actors’ tones had changed dramatically. In debate #2, Santos seemed to be the clear winner, scoring definitive points over Vinick on nearly every issue. I wonder if the actors were coached in the interim to make a pre-determined Santos victory seem more plausible? At any rate, it’s amazing how the same lines could have such a different effect when spoken with slightly different pauses, tones and facial expressions. Food for thought.

Well, it seems the US has forgotten all about it:

“Our views on Hamas are well known. Hamas is a terrorist organization. We will not deal with a terrorist organization. However, we believe that it’s up to the Palestinians to determine who will participate in their election,” the senior administration official said.

Their explanation is equally winning:

U.S. officials and diplomats have said that any shift in policy was pragmatic: Hamas-funded social services are popular with many Palestinians; it is winning local races and could make a strong showing in the parliamentary elections. Some Hamas-backed politicians and affiliates are seen as moderates.

European allies, including Britain and France, have been pushing behind the scenes for Washington to drop its call to dismantle Hamas completely.

Anyone who thought that the EU would be a helpful or neutral party in the peace process should pretty much end that notion with the last statement.

Tropical Storm Wilma is the 21st named storm of the 2005 season and is expected to become a hurricane before heading to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and possibly the battered U.S. Gulf coast by the end of the week.

The last time this many storms formed since record-keeping began 154 years ago was in 1933.

Am I the only one who finds it a bit anachronistic that insurance companies still refer to “acts of God” in those words in their policies?

Still, I bet the religious nuts – the ones who believe that the end of the world is imminent – are having a field day this year. Hurricanes, tropical storms, earthquakes, tsunamis… it’s all way too biblical for my taste.

Sparked by fears of price hikes due to Rita, and by a few stations who started raising prices in anticipation, people began panicking, and topping up and hoarding gas. Traffic was a nightmare on the way home, as people lined up by the dozens at every gas station where the price was still reasonable, causing gridlock and – paradoxically – the consumption of even more gas. Even as I type this, a symphony of honking is ringing in my ears, from cars who are stuck on my street because of a lineup for a gas station two blocks away.

Ironically, today was car-free day in Montreal.

Seriously, though, here’s hoping and praying for the safety of everyone in the affected areas, and that Rita doesn’t cause the kind of devastation that Katrina did.

WASHINGTON, DC — In a press conference Monday, President Bush named a 72-day-old gestating fetus as his nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat that opened following the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

“Already, this experienced and capable embryo has demonstrated during his or her in utero existence a deep commitment to the core principles of the Constitution,” Bush said. “It is with great pride that I nominate this unborn American patriot to the highest court in the land.”

If confirmed by Congress, the bean-sized vertebrate would be the nation’s first prenatal Supreme Court justice.

I bet if Bush could find a way to do it, he would.

However, Bush might want to consider this: there’s a world of difference between the embezzlement of a few billion dollars and the loss of a few thousand lives.

I don’t think it’s right to directly blame Bush for the disaster that has emerged in Katrina’s wake. That’s reserved for people who want to politicize everything.

However, a true leader recognizes that the buck stops with him. In that sense, Bush’s move is the right one. That said, I suspect his words will ring hollow to the people who have lost their homes, families, communities, livelihood, and loved ones.

It’s hard to believe that four years have gone by. In many ways, it feels like just yesterday when I woke up to the radio and took a few minutes to process that it was saying something about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I don’t think anyone realized, at that moment, just how much was about to change.

The images are what persist the most strongly, after this time. The plane flying into the second tower. The collapse of the towers. The people running from the rubble.

September 11th changed the world. But fundamentally I don’t think it changed people. As with other catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina, people have a tendency to spin and interpret events in a way that best suits their preconceived notions anyway. But while I don’t think people truly changed, I think they did become more polarized.

Anyway, I don’t really have that much to say that hasn’t already been said by a zillion people already. It feels strange to think that only five years ago today, September 11th went by on the calendar without so much as a blink.

Rehnquist was a conservative, so it’s not as though Bush is replacing a liberal with a conservative. Still, by some accounts, Roberts is much less moderate than Rehnquist was, and his confirmation could spell the end of an era in U.S. judicial policies:

Everything known about Roberts suggests he would join with the most conservative justices to change the law in a conservative direction. As deputy U.S. solicitor general, Roberts coauthored briefs expressly urging the court to overrule Roe vs. Wade. As an attorney in the Justice Department, Roberts drafted an article arguing that there is no constitutional protection for privacy.

Other opinions are less doomsday-ish:

Roberts is not Scalia or Thomas. He is not a right-wing judicial activist eager to chisel away the liberal expansion of the Constitution in recent decades in order to restore some halcyon original intent on the part of the Constitution’s authors.

That’s a bit too chaotic for Roberts, who seems to revere the law’s ability to provide society with a sense of order and predictability. The most-parsed statement by Roberts came in his 2003 confirmation hearing to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, when he said that the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling establishing a constitutional right to an abortion based on the right to privacy is “the settled law of the land.” Critics say he will think it’s less settled when he is in a position to overturn it, but that seems implausible. In fact, send me a self-addressed envelope within a week and I will mail you $1 (and pay for postage) if Justice Roberts votes to overturn Roe.

All of that is speculation at this point. All we really know is that Bush is stacking the court with two more staunch conservatives, and that certain hard-won rights and liberties may – may be in jeopardy. Depending on what side of the aisle you’re on, I guess this is either a golden opportunity or the greatest catastrophe imaginable.

Even the so-called safeguard of confirmation hearings that exists in the U.S. and not here in Canada (and is often advocated in Canada to avoid political appointees here) can’t curb the power of a President to pick political appointees when his party also has a Senate majority. Here’s hoping that Roberts is a lot more moderate than he seems, because a Chief Justice will continue to influence a country long after any given president is long out of office and busily engaged in book tours.

And then of course, there are the stories that will never be told. Far too many of them.

Update: Most official estimates say hundreds of people have likely been killed as a result of Katrina. The mayor of New Orleans fears that the death toll may run into the thousands as the city prepares to evacuate tens of thousands of residents to Houston. Estimates are that most of New Orleans will be uninhabitable for months.

Update #2: At least two radio stations have decided to pull the song I’ve been ironically humming for days off the air for the moment:

Ottawa’s rock radio stations The Bear 106.9 and CHEZ 106.1 have both decided to pull The Tragically Hip classic New Orleans is Sinking from their playlists at least until Hurricane Katrina abates and the Louisiana city gets back on its feet.

Am I the only one who finds the song suddenly more appropriate?

A statement from the National Weather Service in Slidell, near New Orleans, Louisiana, warned that much of the affected area “will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer.”

With highways out of the city jammed and people seeking refuge in the Superdome, things are certain to be a mess there for a while. I guess that’s what happens when you build a city below sea level. Here’s hoping that everyone stays safe.

“I will be speaking to the president when the timing is appropriate,” Martin said in Regina. “It’s very important as far as I’m concerned that that phone call take place when it is right for Canada to have it take place, and that will be quite soon.”

Translation: the White House hasn’t returned the call from the Prime Minister’s Office.

In any event, it’s not the kind of problem that can be resolved with a phone call. It takes a relationship, and Martin has gone out of his way not to establish one with Bush.

The problem is, Martin wants it both ways. He wants to be seen as anti-American when it’s convenient, but when he wants the U.S. to respect Canada, he is unwilling to reap the consequences.

Like the CBC’s labour dispute, the biggest risk in Canada playing trade harball with the U.S. is that they’ll realize how easy it is to ignore us. Carolyn Parrish can go on stomping on Bush dolls if she wants; it’s pretty obvious that the real Bush doesn’t really care much.

New York’s random searches began on July 22 after a second set of bomb attacks on the London transit system.

“The policy of searching thousands of subway riders daily without any suspicion that they have done anything wrong is unprecedented, unproductive and unconstitutional,” said NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman, whose organization filed the suit on behalf of five New York city subway riders.

The searches – which seemed to be voluntary, based on what I saw in New York last weekend – were intended as reassuring, not invasive. To be sure, the chances of thwarting a terrorist attack with random bag searches is pretty slim. The point seemed to be more to make people feel better. Nobody objected much.

Can someone please explain to me why it’s not an invasion of civil liberties to have a bag searched at an airport, but it is in a subway?

“He’s very difficult to deal with because he won’t agree to things that he doesn’t believe he can deliver, although that is very frustrating and annoying and infuriating,” Bono told reporters while standing next to Martin.

Canada currently spends the equivalent of 0.26 percent of GDP on foreign aid. Martin says he would rather commit to small increases he knows he can afford than make long-term promises.

Bono, I love your music and the video for Where The Streets Have No Name kicks ass. So I mean this with all due respect: shut up!

Martin may be a weak political leader who waffles more than an Eggo, but at least he’s a political leader. Who elected Bono leader of anything?

This is just part of a larger rant that I have about celebrities and politics. We used to have economists talking about the economy, international relations experts discussing international relations, political analysts talking politics… Agree or disagree, the people leading the discourse usually actually knew something about their topic and had solid credentials in their field.

Since when did “#1 on the Billboard rock charts” become a credential for discussing world trade or poverty?

This is not a new phenomenon. It’s been going on for years, and has been encouraged by the fact that stars get publicity for their political action, and are under a large amount of pressure to pretend to care about causes bigger than themselves. Some actually do care. I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is this notion that we’re supposed to listen to them because they’re celebrities. In a debate about world trade, if you put a Ph.D. in global economics at a table with Jeanine Garofalo, why should we assume that they’re on equal footing to discuss the issues? I won’t give much weight to Paul Martin’s opinion on rock music, so why should I care so much what Bono thinks about politics?

In last year’s American election, in which we had Springsteen singing for Kerry and Britney Spears cheering for Bush, I couldn’t help but wonder whether anyone was actually basing their vote on what celebrities were saying. And if so, what does that say about the electorate?

That’s my issue with Live 8 in general. International aid and third-world poverty are serious issues, and nobody elected Roger Waters or Dave Matthews to decide how best to spend our tax dollars to deal with them.

Celebrities are human beings – often with good hearts and fat bank accounts. If they want to do charity work or get involved in worthy causes, more power to them. But when they use their charity work as a publicity stunt, it cheapens them and their cause.

It also creates issues among fans who respect celebrities for their art but dislike their politics. Should I refuse to watch Sean Penn’s movies because I don’t like his soapbox political views? No, that’s mixing issues, isn’t it? But by suggesting that his celebrity status lends credence to his politics, the celebrities themselves have mixed those issues, leaving someone like me to either have to avoid art because of politics, or wonder if I’m implicitly supporting politics because of art. When I go to an Our Lady Peace concert and, in the midst of screaming and cheering, Raine Maida shouts that we should “send a message to Bush to stay out of Iraq”, it puts a sour taste in my mouth. Regardless of his message (I’d feel the same way if Raine said the opposite), suddenly I’m no longer at a rock concert, but at a political rally. It didn’t say that on my ticket. I didn’t pay for that. All it did was to make me feel manipulated and used.

The most reasonable point I’ve ever heard from a celebrity on the issue of celebs in politics comes from Alice Cooper:

“To me, that’s treason. I call it treason against rock-and-roll, because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics. If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.”

Cooper’s comments were made in the context of last year’s US election campaign, but they’re equally valid for issues like foreign aid and world trade.

So let Bono think that Paul Martin is “infuriating”. That’s fine. I don’t really care. I may disagree with Martin an awful lot, but here he is being eminently reasonable, refusing to make lavish promises he can’t keep and instead sticking to more immediate, gradual commitments. Foreign aid in itself won’t solve African poverty overnight. And, despite what he may think, Bob Geldof is not uniquely qualified to tell us how to think.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe – just maybe – if Bono were Canadian and had actually voted for Martin, then his criticism might be a bit more valid. In the meantime, please stick to rock music and let the politicians stick to politics.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that putting framed copies of the Ten Commandments in county courthouses violated church-state separation, but it allowed a commandments monument in a larger display on a state Capitol grounds.

The two 5-4 rulings on the politically charged issue of displaying the Ten Commandments on government property came in a pair of cases regarded as the most important of the court term concerning constitutional separation of church and state.

Display issues aside, I can’t help but wonder what the Ten Commandments are even doing in a courthouse in the first place. To quote the West Wing episode:

Sam: There is a town in Alabama that wants to abolish all laws except the Ten Commandments.
Tobey: That’s odd.
Sam: Well they’re going to have a problem.
Tobey: Because the Constitution prohibits religious activity in any form connected to government?
[ . . . ]
Sam: I just mean, some of those Commandments are pretty hard to enforce [...] Coveting thy neighbor’s wife, for example. How are you going to enforce that one?

Yeah, I’m not sure how a court of law would prove coveting. Do you get witnesses to comment on longing glances?

Contrary to the widespread impression of a nation only divided into two unified “red” and “blue” camps, our latest survey finds important cleavages on values and basic attitudes within each party. As a result, both parties face internal challenges as well as opportunities to expand their constituencies.

Anyway, the quiz stubbornly insists that I’m an “enterpriser”, which it classifies as Republican, Conservative, rich and male. Er… not exactly accurate. I tried to tell it that I was against government meddling in religion or morality, in favour of gay rights, and that I probably would’ve voted for Kerry if I were American, but it didn’t listen. I guess I have to win the lottery and get a sex change operation now.

Then again, reading the 9 categories I have to conclude that I don’t fit any of the descriptions. “Canadian”, unfortunately, was not one of the choices.

(Via Mike Silverman, who the quiz didn’t listen to either).

The site is run by a group that seems to be a thinly-disguised cover for the meat industry. Despite this, it is actually good for a laugh. In particular, see the lawsuit fabricator game and the cartoons page.

Someone should let them know about International Eat an Animal for PETA Day.

Amnesty singles out the United States for shirking its responsibility to set a better global example for human rights protection.

“The U.S.A., as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide,” said Secretary General Irene Khan in the foreword to Amnesty’s annual report.

The report calls the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay — which holds some 540 prisoners from about 40 countries — “the gulag of our times.” Detainees were being held there, some for more than three years, without access to legal representation.

Pictures of abuse of Iraqi detainees at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison are also cited in the report. Amnesty says the photos were never adequately investigated.

“When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity,” said Khan.

The report talks about violations by the worst offenders, including North Korea, Zimbabwe and China. But these are mentioned in the same breath as free, democratic countries like the United States and Australia… and of course, Israel.

Amnesty claims that human rights should be universal, and the same standards ought to apply to everyone. Its mission states clearly that:

AI’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards.

Sure, equal and consistent standards, right? Except when they’re countries they dislike, such as the U.S. and Israel. Then, the standards are different.

Anyone who can call Guantanamo Bay the “gulag of our times” with a straight face, while essentially ignoring the true gulags of our times in places like North Korea, has squandered all credibility. Amnesty International lost theirs a long time ago.

Update: As if that wasn’t bad enough, Lynn has more on Amnesty’s seemingly incurable obsession with targeting Israel.

Newsweek magazine said on Sunday it erred in a May 9 report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article.

Editor Mark Whitaker said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.

The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza. In the past week it was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League.

On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States.

But… I thought the media was all controlled by an international Zionist conspiracy. Why would the Arab world trust it in the first place?

But watching the media circus surrounding her last days, I have to pause to express my disgust.

The whole thing is so sad. This was a family battle, between a husband who claims he was just trying to let his wife die in dignity, and parents who have been in denial about their daughter’s condition for fifteen years and just wanted her back like she was, realistic or no.

It should have remained a private matter. Instead, it turned into a Democrat-versus-Republican, knock-down, drag-out media circus. The fact that the top story on Entertainment Tonight was the Schiavo case and the reaction of celebrities should say everything there is to say about what’s wrong with this whole thing. A private tragedy should not be our entertainment – tonight or any other night.

Lynn said it better than I could, as usual. To that, I’ll just add that, working in the direct mail fundraising field, this doesn’t surprise me much.

An immigration board ruled that Jeremy Hinzman had not convinced its members he would face persecution or cruel and unusual punishment if returned to the United States.

Seven other American military personnel have applied for refugee status, and Hinzman’s lawyer estimated dozens of others are in hiding in Canada waiting to see how the government ruled.

I can understand fleeing a draft when you don’t support a war. But if you volunteer for the army, then that’s a whole different ball game.

I don’t bear Hinzman any ill will. If he goes to Iraq, I hope no harm befalls him or any other American soldier. If he chooses to object, he can serve his sentence for desertion. But the US army isn’t just an education finance program, and Hinzman should have understood that and known the risks when he signed up. And it’s refreshing to see Canada recognize this instead of revert to our typical “Bush is wrong and America sucks” attitude.

Del. Algie T. Howell Jr., a Democrat, has filed legislation that would levy a $50 fine on anyone who “exposes his below-waist undergarments in an offensive manner.”

Cause, you know, all them new-fangled fashion trends are really confusing and all, so let’s ban the younger generation cause everyone knows that fashion reached its pinnacle fifty years ago. No new trends allowed or we’ll sic the fashion police on you.

Isn’t America supposed to be the “land of the free”? Not, apparently, when it comes to fashion.

Powerful religious groups in the United States are quietly sending money and support to allies in Canada fighting same-sex marriage.

Moreover, some U.S. groups say they are prepared to spend whatever it takes to ensure same-sex marriage does not become legal north of the border.

This plays into everyone’s stereotypes. If you’re on the left, it’s only too obvious that those bible-thumping, gun-totin’ rednecks from evil America would be trying to circumvent our precious Canadian human rights. If you’re on the right, then the Americans are the only ones willing to protect the precious institution of marriage, and us Canadians should observe and learn something from the red states. And if you’re Stephen Harper, you might as well kiss your hopes of leading Canada goodbye.

Really, the hype about this is somewhat nonsensical. Gay marriage will pass in Canada, no matter where the funding for its opponents is coming from. Intolerance is intolerance on both sides of the border. And the religious groups do have a right to their opinion, whatever that may be. There’s still freedom of expression in this country.

But sheesh, if groups against gay marriage need to resort to funding from American interest groups, their support here in Canada must be even lower than I thought.

But in case those reasons don’t seem quite cynical enough for you, if you’re American, Dubya has a selfish reason to give:

President Bush (news – web sites) said U.S. aid efforts following Asia’s killer tsunami would improve America’s image in the Muslim world.

[ . . . ]

“In … responding to the tsunami, many in the Muslim world have seen a great compassion in the American people,” Bush said in an interview with ABC News to be aired on Friday.

The president, initially criticized for a slow and limited U.S. response to the tsunami, said he was “very impressed … by how quickly we have responded” to deploy military equipment and personnel for the international relief effort.

“I’ve got to tell you, our military is making a significant difference,” he said.

Bush has been accused of many things, but genius has never been one of them. Nevertheless, you’d think at least someone on his senior staff might realize that it doesn’t look so good to use a natural disaster that has killed over a hundred and fifty thousand people as a PR opportunity.

Sheesh.

Prosecutors say a stabbing on a local college campus is a hate crime.

Police say Philip Robertson, 22, stabbed Jordyn Lavin behind a dorm at Plattsburgh State University in September.

According to court papers, Robertson went after Lavin because Lavin is Jewish.

Robertson is charged with attempted murder and assault as hate crimes, and is being held on $10,000 bail.

More details can be found in a campus report:

Plattsburgh State student Jordyn Lavin remembers walking behind Wilson Hall to smoke marijuana with his roommate, then feeling a knife pierce his back.

During a preliminary hearing Friday in Plattsburgh City Court, Lavin testified that his then roommate, Philip Robertson, accompanied him to a wooded area near the Saranac River the afternoon of Sept. 1.

Robertson handed Lavin a pipe and gave him permission to take the first hit, according to Lavin’s testimony.

“He walked behind me, and I felt pain,” Lavin said. “I could see the knife was in me.”

After that first stab wound, Robertson allegedly asked Lavin if he is Jewish, saying Lavin sounds like a Jewish last name.

Lavin replied that he is not Jewish.

Lavin and Robertson were apparently roommates and friends, so it’s hard to say what truly motivated this attack. Was this a symptom of the increasing virulent anti-Jewish sentiment on many college campuses, or an isolated incident of an unbalanced individual? Details are too sketchy to say at this point. But it’s certainly worth watching carefully.

As I scrolled the online album of swastika posters, antisemitic and racist statements, and just plain idiocies, it occurred to me that anyone both reasonable and against Bush’s policies had two choices yesterday: To join forces with the wingnuts, or to stay home.

No wonder most of them stayed home.

The wingnuts do these protests a vast disservice. It’s one thing to be against Bush. Hell, I’m not exactly his #1 fan either. But it’s quite another to associate with people who wrap the American flag in swastikas and who hold signs depicting Sharon and Bush as monkeys. There are plenty of good arguments for protesting against the US’s foreign policies, but I really hope that most Canadians are still turned off by yesterday’s kind of displays.

Following on Concordia University’s decision last month to call off a speech by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, the Universite du Quebec a Montreal yesterday cancelled an address by the U.S. ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci.

Cellucci was to have spoken at 2 p.m. yesterday at a conference organized by the Raoul Dandurand chair in strategic and diplomatic studies.

[ . . . ]

Nobody was able to say what the nature of the security risk was, but this week a group calling itself Bloquez l’empire (Block the Empire) sent out a statement by e-mail urging Montrealers to rally to “stop Cellucci from speaking.”

The University claimed that RCMP and US Security Officials recommended cancellation. But spokespeople from both deny that claim, and say the decision was made by the University.

The violence-rules contingent is crowing over their success:

Cellucci represents a regime whose ambitions to political and economic domination are expressed ruthlessly, but have the merit, at least, of being openly acknowledged. His legitimacy, especially after the concerns raised about election fraud in the US, should not be recognised. The only place Cellucci should be allowed to speak is before a tribunal, trying him for complicity with crimes against humanity.

The cancellation is a minor victory, and a little indication of what can be done – especially around the coming visit of Bush to Ottawa (30 November-1 December).

If this keeps up, it will kill free speech everywhere. Mob rule is being permitted far too much success. Eventually, only one viewpoint will be represented: that of the groups willing to resort to violence to suppress all speech besides theirs.

Concordia has set a very dangerous precedent. What people need to realize is that yesterday, it was an Israeli former PM who wasn’t allowed to speak. Today, it was a US ambassador. Tomorrow, it may be your speech that’s suppressed.

This is an issue that affects us all.

Republican senator who has questioned whether an abortion opponent could win approval to the U.S. Supreme Court must agree to back President Bush’s nominees if he is to head the committee acting on those nominations, the Senate’s Republican leader said.

Bush has four years to fill Supreme Court seats with basically no opposition. He doesn’t have to think about future re-election anymore. He has a majority in both houses and a huge debt to the far-right conservative Christian groups. Stacking the court to overturn Roe v. Wade may be only the beginning.

Members of Grantsburg’s school board believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum “should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory,” said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin.

One of the key problems with many religions is their inability to accept natural facts and explain them. The Catholic Church maintained the Earth was flat long after it was proved that it was round, and that the sun revolved around the Earth long after the opposite was proved to be true. Millions of people today equate science and faith, believing them to be simply “alternate theories” of the same event.

This discounts the whole basis of science: proof, verifiable data, and a willingness to change theories in the face of new evidence. None of these are present in faith, which is a personal matter that has no place in public schools.

I think part of the problem in the evolution versus creationism debate is the word “theory” in scientific circles. A scientific “theory” is not just a guess. Science uses the term “theory” on the assumption that there is no such thing as fact, because new evidence could always emerge. But a theory is as rock-solid as it gets in science; it’s a conclusion drawn after experiments and supporting research. This leads many religious people to falsely assume that a scientific theory has equal validity to a faith-based one.

Personally, I don’t believe that these Wisconsin students will never understand that. I was educated in a religious school where creationism was taught over evolution, and I got over it. That doesn’t mean it’s right to mislead and falsely educate students just because of politics. Especially in public schools. It’s one thing for students to be taught that many people believe in creationism. It’s quite another for them to be taught that it’s as valid a theory as evolution. The politicos who made this decision should be ashamed of themselves.

No one can say whether a northward exodus of liberal Americans will materialize. After the dust of this hotly contested election settles, they will reflect on other priorities, including home, employment and family. But an influx of left-leaning Yankees might well invigorate the Canadian political scene. After all, if they became citizens, they would probably be natural Conservatives.

Meanwhile, Damian is amused by the idea that some of them could claim refugee status. Like him, I’d love to see them try.

But could she really win? Could she capture more votes than John Kerry did last night? Certainly she’s more charismatic. She’s a proven campaigner and she was probably the brains behind any good decisions that Clinton made during his term. And both she and her husband are evidently still hugely popular.

But would it be enough?

I can’t help but think that… god damn, this election is just barely over! Can we give it a rest for a while before we start campaigning for the next one???

The trouble is, the combination of results that have given the Republicans another four years in the White House, significant gains in Congress and a virtual lock on the Senate all at the same time. That means that one side pretty much dominates all three houses – as opposed to the tenuous hold they had last term. And no matter what side the power is concentrated on, that is too much power for one team in a nation that is very much bitterly divided.

The GOP doesn’t have much to hold them back now. Despite the fact that nearly half the country didn’t vote for them, they have a popular vote win, a win on “their” issues in many direct questions, and pretty much a free rein to move the country even further to the right for the next four years – and, with Supreme Court appointments, for a long time after that.

Gay marriage is not an issue that should be decided by popular vote – because a majority shouldn’t get to decide to deny rights to a minority. But look for the Republicans to push ahead for a nationwide constitutional ban on gay marriage, for no good reason other than because many people find the idea distasteful. In fact, this issue probably helped Bush win the election, by encouraging Conservatives to go cast a vote. Similarly, abortion is once again in trouble. We can probably expect a woman’s right to choose being gradually chipped away in the next few years.

Many Kerry supporters are disappointed because they fear another four years of what they perceive to be devastating international policies by the Bush team. Personally, I’m much more concerned about the domestic American scene. In fact, the Democrats most likely lost this election by assuming Iraq was the only issue, and failing to make a strong case for their liberal values at home.

And with so much power concentrated on the Republican side, I admit I’m worried. I’d be just as worried if all the power were concentrated on the left. Either way, too much power in one camp with too few checks and balances is a dangerous thing.

But the big question going into this election was, would they or wouldn’t they?

The Jewish vote has been heavily Democratic since time immortal. But in light of 9/11, the war on terror, the situation in Israel and the alignment of the far left with Israel’s enemies, would some lifelong Jewish Democrats shift their allegiance to Bush? Would committed Democrats react like Meryl and Lynn and vote for Bush because of international issues? Or would they act more like Allison, putting these issues aside to vote for the candidate who they still feel is best on domestic issues?

Ha’aretz is reporting that Bush picked up 22% of the Jewish vote this election. That’s up 3 percentage points from the 19% he got in 2000. So it seems that there were at least some Jewish voters who switched allegiances.

On the other hand, that’s still 78% of Jewish voters casting their ballots for Kerry. And the “why” isn’t exactly a mystery:

They predicted “anticipated conflicts” between the Republican majority on Capitol Hill and the Jewish community on issues such as separation of church and state, abortion, gay rights, and same-sex marriage – issues, one Jewish leader said Wednesday, on which “the vast majority of the Jewish community disapproves of the Republicans’ positions and views.”

The voting broke down similarly for Jews as it did for Christians, with the more secular voting for Kerry and the ultra-Orthodox religious allying more closely with Bush:

According to unconfirmed results, Bush won 75 percent of Jewish votes in two large Brooklyn voting precincts that have a substantial concentration of Orthodox Jews, compared to a 25 percent turnout for Kerry.

Ultra-Orthodox activists predicted Wednesday that the final results will prove that other voting precincts in Brooklyn with an ultra-Orthodox populace overwhelmingly supported Bush.

[ . . . ]

“In the current elections, Orthodox Jews played within the community the role of evangelicals in the general electorate,” Furst said. The difference is that evangelicals make up about 40 percent of America’s population, while the percentage of Orthodox members in the Jewish community does not exceed 10 percent.

That may be so, but it’s telling that the division line in the sand seems to be religious versus secular, not one religion versus another. (The Muslim vote, of course, is an exception. An estimated 93% of Muslims voted for Kerry.)

At any rate, the big story here hasn’t materialized the way some people thought it might. The Jewish population did not become conservative overnight, abandoning decades of liberal values in order to vote for a president whose support for Israel is – at least in part – due to his evangelical Christian beliefs. Considering that there was no Joseph Lieberman on the Democratic ticket this time around, getting only 3% less of the Jewish vote than four years ago can hardly be called a defeat for Kerry.

Kerry should have conceded hours earlier, but at least he didn’t drag this out for weeks. Now, love him or hate him, Americans at least know that Bush is their president.

But many of the networks are still labelling it “too close to call”, pointing to the slim 140,000-vote margin in Ohio for Bush that, if eradicated, could theoretically swing the election to Kerry.

Frankly, I think Ohio is still the big story because the major media networks want it to be the big story. That’s where they sent all their reporters, so that’s where they’re expecting the story. Plenty of other states have even slimmer margins and have been declared for one candidate or the other.

Bush won the popular vote convincingly this time, unlike four years ago. And he’s leading in the three states that the networks have yet to call, including the all-crucial Ohio. Very soon, Kerry’s going to come under a lot of pressure to concede. This isn’t Florida in 2000, no matter how much people were expecting it to be. This is a solid victory and Kerry should be gracious enough to admit it.

The Bush victory was pretty expected, and I don’t have much to say about it that a million other bloggers haven’t already said. Personally, I think the more telling stories were some of the direct ballot questions, particularly the issue of gay marriage. 11 states have banned gay marriage by passing constitutional amendments to disallow it. This is a serious step back for human rights in the United States, and it’s extremely sad that so many people have turned out in droves to deny even the possibility of granting rights to a minority that are already enjoyed by the majority.

I could say much more about this election, but I’m posting manually since blogger seems to be down (perhaps overloaded with election blogging?) so I’ll leave it at that… for now. More to come.

For what it’s worth, here’s my US election prediction: A narrow win for Bush, but not so narrow that it takes a month in the courts to sort out.

Why? Simply beacuse all these neck-and-neck polls for months have shown Bush slightly ahead. Kerry has never been leading at any point in this campaign.

I think that most Americans – whether fairly or unfairly – feel that Bush understands that there’s a war going on better than Kerry understands this. Implicitly they trust Bush over Kerry on security. And tomorrow at the polls, I think they’ll give Dubya four more years.

But hey, I could be wrong.

I’m not so naive as to think that the media is truly objective, but I do believe it ought to at least strive for objectivity. A newspaper ought to report the news, not be a propaganda vehicle for a given party or candidate. Endorsements directly negate any semblance of objectivity.

This US election, we’ve seen bloggers – large and small alike – boarding the endorsement train. Damian Penny is endorsing Bush. Andrew Sullivan has endorsed Kerry. Some blogs, like LGF for Bush and Daily Kos for Kerry, have become de facto campaign tools.

In a way, I’m much more comfortable with blogger endorsements than with media endorsements… because blogging is all about relating one’s personal opinion. People read bloggers for a certain viewpoint or perspective, not for objectivity. A blogger offering an endorsement is akin to offering his or her opinion, which, let’s face it, is the raison d’être of blogging.

But I’m not about to be presumptuous enough to offer an endorsement here. Why? Several reasons:

• First of all, my readership — all 9 of you — doesn’t really care what I think about the election, and even if you did, most of you are Canadian and can’t vote in it anyway. “Endorsement” differs from “opinion” in the grandiosity of the words. An opinion is just that — a mere opinion. An endorsement, on the other hand, implies a certain importance. And I don’t harbour any delusions of importance, nor do I really believe that anyone would — or should — be influenced by my opinion.
• Secondly, I’m not American either. And again, while I can have my opinions, the issues I’d be concerned about as a Canadian are not the same issues as American citizens have to weigh in this election.
• And finally, because I don’t think that either Bush or Kerry is worthy of endorsing in this election. I was “undecided” for a long time and now I’m in the “I don’t care, just pick a leader” camp. Of course, this is an easy cop-out, given that I’m Canadian. If I were American I’d probably have to weigh the issues and finally hold my nose and vote for one or the other, because I firmly believe that it’s extremely important for every citizen to vote, and I wouldn’t be able to justify not voting. But I don’t have to make a decision, so I won’t.

It’s a cop-out, perhaps, but I refuse to believe that the issues are as black-and-white as the Democratic and Republican campaigns are trying to make them out to be.

For example, the Republicans claim Kerry’s unfit for leadership because he flip-flops on issues. But I think that a good leader should be willing to make situational decisions, and to change a decision based on input or new information. Maybe Kerry’s more nuanced style isn’t weakness but openness. I also think that Kerry’s not foolish enough to truly compromise American security or to pull troops out of Iraq prematurely. Despite what some people claim, he knows that the US created the situation in Iraq, and that the US can’t just leave without solving it.

Similarly, I don’t think that the innuendo-based attacks on Bush are fair to him. The widespread panic about reinstating the draft is nothing more than a scare-tactic designed to turn voters away from Bush. And instead of banding together against terrorism, Democrats are blaming the Bush administration for failing to correctly interpret warning signs before 9/11 and failing to prevent the attacks. The 9/11 commission uncovered some glaring mistakes, to be certain… but if Al Gore were President, would he really have done any better? Remember, this was so far off anyone’s radar screen before 9/11 that anyone who warned about it incessantly would be accused of fear-mongering.

I’m equally torn on domestic issues. Bush has created a huge deficit and giant economic woes… but was that entirely his fault? The economy was on the verge of recession when Clinton handed him the reins, and between the tech stock crash and 9/11, economic problems were a near-certainty. Nor do I truly believe Kerry will end NAFTA, as many Canadians fear. But economy-wise, it’s hard to tell who would be better. Kerry seems disturbingly like a protectionist, while Bush has implemented tariffs. The rhetoric about “tax cuts for the wealthy” is a Kerry campaign favourite, as is the notion that Bush is subsidizing the outsourcing of American jobs, but I doubt Kerry would be able to do much about either.

The Bush team has crawled steadily to the right, pandering to interest groups who believe that guns are good, abortion and gay marriage is bad, and decisions should be made based on Christian faith. This, too, is a bit of an oversimplification; in four years in office, Bush hasn’t directly done much to threaten the separation of church and state. But I’d trust Kerry’s judgeship appointments over Bush’s, in terms of setting out a future for the country. The fact that the Republicans would use a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage as a campaign tack, even though they know it would never pass, says a lot about the types of divisions they’re aiming to create in American society.

Kerry, for his part, is more solid on these issues but his “internationalist” policies concern me. Though AIPAC’s record on Kerry shows him to be a good friend to Israel, the amount of faith he has in the United Nations concerns me. Similarly, many American allies are very concerned about Kerry because they think he’ll try to get them on board on issues that they have no intention of supporting. For them, it’s easier with Bush, because at least he won’t ask so they won’t have to refuse.

Nothing’s as simple as thirty-second campaign spots make it out to be. But ultimately, the right to vote is what’s important. My only hope for this election is that a leader is chosen quickly by the people, not by the courts.

Osama bin Laden accused President Bush of deceiving the American people and said the Sept. 11 attacks would not have been so severe if the president had been alert.

This is too funny to not be an elaborate spoof. Especially since I still believe Bin Laden’s been dead for two years. Some lookalike probably wondered if Reuters would be fooled and report this verbatim.

In any case, I bet in next week’s Onion, we’ll see the logical comeback:

Bush Accuses Bin Laden of Attacking Americans.

• Sharon’s Gaza disengagement plan was approved by the Knesset after some typically-Israeli political jockeying that’s still ongoing. Netanyahu’s threatening mutiny unless Sharon agrees to hold a referendum, but so far, Sharon’s not budging. The settler fringe is of course up in arms – somewhat literally – and on the anniversary of the Rabin assassination, some can’t help but wonder if Sharon is looking over his shoulder these days. Despite being uncomfortable with the idea of the plan being perceived by the Palestinians as a reward for terrorism, and my general overall pessimism about the whole conflict, I can’t help but think that despite the mess, Sharon will land on his feet. He always does. For more, see Allison and Jonathan.

• The CJC has Issued another statement responding to the remarks by Canadian Islamic Congress leader Mohamed Elmasry that said that all adult Israelis are ‘legitimate targets’ for terrorism. The CJC statement called the CIC marginal and irrelevant, no matter whether Elmasry resigns or not. The CIC, you will recall, likes to believe it speaks for all Canadian Muslims. I personally am waiting to hear a huge outcry from Canadian Muslims who believe that this organization does not represent them. I’m still waiting. I think I’ll be waiting a while. The police, by the way, are investigating Elmasry’s remarks as a hate crime.

• Speaking of the CIC, they’re the same group that issued an election report card urging Canadian Muslims to vote for or against specific candidates (seemingly based on how pro- or anti-Israel they are). Damian points to anti-American remarks by Liberal MP Yasmin Rantisi, the first Muslim woman elected to Parliament. Something tells me the CIC would give her an “A”.

• Arafat’s ill health continues to dominate the news. My feeling is that this is an overexaggeration designed to cause panic and an outpouring of sympathy for Arafat. Meryl’s not betting on anything but she does have an interesting idea for a Magen David Adom matching fund if any Arab dictators croak. Arafat would be included in this, it seems. MDA is one of my favourite charities and the irony just seems deliciously appropriate.

• Less than a week before the US election and it’s still too close to call. I’m thinking Tuesday might be a good time to actually get some work done, since everyone will be preoccupied with voting and watching the results. Hmmmm.

• There was a lunar eclipse tonight. I didn’t get much of a view of it but I hear that people who had clear skies and lines of sight were wowed.

• Oh yeah, and the Red Sox won the World Series, breaking an 86-year “curse”.

Everywhere I turned were political messages. The restaurants, the coffee shops… it was just inescapable. While walking down the street, the same woman asked me three times if I wanted to “help elect John Kerry”. Each time I smiled at her and said, “sorry, I’m Canadian”. By the third time I just said “still Canadian” and kept walking. She didn’t miss a beat.

Being Canadian in Washington ten days before the election is kind of like being the only sober person in a room full of drunks. By being a step or two outside the action, you can afford a sense of perspective that most people don’t have. Maybe that’s why it’s so obvious to me how bad things truly are.

The truly frightening thing to see is how people are confusing political opinion with personality. These days, you don’t just “vote” Republican or Democrat, you are a Republican or a Democrat – in a much more literal sense than ever before. People assume that if you’re on the opposing side, you’re lower than pond scum, definitely not worth speaking to or even the time of day. Everyone assumes the people they’re speaking to are on “their” side, and that their favourite pastime is to bash the other side. It frustrates them to no end when you choose not to play along.

I can’t help but wonder what will happen the day after the election. I’ve never seen people so divided. But somebody’s going to be elected, and the half of the people who didn’t vote for him will be very disappointed. Will the country be able to reunite and get over this election and move on? I wonder how long the wounds will take to heal.

A message to my American friends, if you’re reading: I realize that, despite the impact that this election may have on us as your neighbours and on the rest of the world, it’s really your election and your decision. I don’t think we have any business butting in. I realize passions are running high and you probably think that catastrophe will strike if your side loses. But please, please don’t lose sight of what’s important. Whether Bush wins, or Kerry wins, life will go on.

I’m just glad to be back home, where I can watch the rest of this boxing match from the sidelines.

This is an amazing feat for a President who has stumbled his way through these debates, doing a convincing job of making it look like he was being fed the answers from offstage. The wide-eyed surprise, the long pauses, the stumbles… sure, that’ll win him a debate.

But it has. Because Kerry has fought this entire campaign on the basis that people should elect him because he’s not Bush. That’s been fine and dandy for attracting the “we’d rather vote for Hitler than Bush” crowd… but hasn’t done much to sway the undecideds.

I’m no particular fan of Bush, but it’s looking a lot like four more years are coming up. In this, an election that the Democratic candidate should have won in a cakewalk. The Democrats will have nobody to blame for a loss but themselves.

Bush: “Kerry’s a liberal senator from Massachusetts… yadda yadda yadda.”

Yawn.