Paranoid Or Full Of Myself?

Oh, my droogies, the fatigue runs deep. I'm off to India for a month on Wednesday and have a hundred things to get done before then. I will be exploring the cities of the world's biggest democracy, and even giving a book reading at Jawarlahal Nehru University in New Delhi. Yes, I will try to blog from the field, but no promises.

Back when I was living in Washington, DC, in the early days of the "War On Terror" I'd often comment that I suspected the feds had a file on me. I wasn't joking. Some friends took this as yet another sign of my expanding ego, but my feeling had less to do with my inflated sense of self-importance and more to do with what was an unmistakable growing sense of totalitarian Big Brotherness, wherein anyone the least bit outspoken against any policies of the government would be at least casually watched. (I was sure there was a file somewhere on me because I had published my political views, had travelled to several Communist countries, including China and Cuba, had twice obtained secret clearance with the Canadian feds, thus necessitating the opening of files in several offices, and had consorted with "known Communists" --hey, Commie chicks are easy.)

(Aside: Is it a sign of my overbearing ego that I parenthetically announce to you that there's an entry on me in the Dictionary of Famous People?)

Well, maybe I was being paranoid and self-important, who knows. But looky looky. The revelations about BushCo's domestic spying operation are now showing that the spooks weren't so much investigating terror suspects, but rather were keeping tabs on domestic political opponents, specifically anyone who publically expressed discontentment with the policies --any policies-- of the Bush administration. All you had to do to get a file opened was disagree with Bush. This includes animal rights activists and vegans who, of course, are too weak from lack of protein to ever be a threat.

Well, what will happen as a result of all this? My bet is nothing. Nothing will happen. If there were true justice in the world, this would be cause for more than just impeachment. Heck, Clinton gets impeached for getting a hummer. But Bush gets an attaboy for torture, lying his way into war, bankrupting the treasury and for breaking inernational and federal laws. Land of the free, indeed.

Now is indeed the time to be judging this monkey man by the terms he himself had set out for himself. The defender of freedom? Whose freedom? Many have noted that the new Iraqi constitution technically gives Iraqis more rights than Americans now enjoy under Bush. The author of a new, revolutionary doctrine for world security? Okay, let's deal with that one...

In Israel/Palestine last week, a remarkable thing happened. Hamas, known in the West mostly has a militant group, was elected to Palestinian legislature with an astounding majority. Now, in the rest of the world, Hamas is also known for providing a great many social services. In fact, they won largely on their platform of public works, street security and hygiene: services that the ruling Fatah types were not providing efficiently enough. But Hamas nonetheless has an armed wing that has declared that Israel should not exist, thus the election is being seen by many as a step backwards in the Middle East's peace process. Certainly, it would be foolish not to have some concern over Hamas's history of, shall we say, undiplomatic methods.

A few points need to be made here. First, historically when terrorists rise to legitimate power, good government is the result. Nelson Mandela's ANC was, according to some, a terror group that admittedly employed torture as a tool in its war. Israel itself has been led by two Prime Ministers who were themselves terrorists before the official founding of modern Israel. George Washington and other early American leaders were technically illegal militants when they rebelled against the British; the Boston tea partiers were definitely terrorists. History has chosen to re-imagine these characters as heroes who bent extant moral codes to achieve a grander good. Who is to say that Hamas won't transform in the same manner? (I know, I know, there are a lot of variables at work here. But play along, okay?)

Second, it is my belief that Hamas had no desire to acquire legislative power. They revel in providing criticism and shaking their fists and rifles. Their goal was to be the secondary power in Palestine, the alternative voice of the street; in other words, a perennial opposition party. Now that real representative power has been thrust upon them, they must rise to the challenge with real ideas, reasoned policies and --most importantly-- new blood that is not, um, bathed in blood. I think they might just succeed, unless some moron decides to buy a nuke.

What does this have to do with evaluating Bush? Well, the election of Hamas is the classic test of one pillar of the Bush doctrine, which is the prime prima facia rationalization for all neocon aggression, i.e. that the imposition of democracy is in itself an end goal that will result in world security. Well, the Palestinians elected Hamas, fair and square, and now Bush has to deal with them. There's nothing in the Bush Doctrine that says a populace has to elect a government the West likes. In fact, true democracy in most of the world's hot spots would result in governments decidedly lukewarm toward American and Western interests.

Well, except Iran, I think. As so well phrased in the movie Syriana, the Iranian people are natural allies of the United States. I really wonder what kind of government the Persian people would elect in absence of the hyper-conservative clerical caste. Speaking of Iran, I leave you with this priceless quote from Charley Reese:

"The Iranians are just as sensible and levelheaded as anyone else. Don't buy the propaganda that they are all a bunch of crazies. They've been around a lot longer than we have. I would trust them with nuclear weapons as much as --perhaps even a hair more than-- I trust Bush. Americans must stop allowing politicians and propagandists to scare them into reckless behavior."

UPDATE: Eric Margolis has just written a summary of the potential --and impending-- NATO/US/Israeli military action against Iran. All terrifying and not unlikely stuff. It's worth pointing out that Iran would never launch a first nuclear strike against Israel; in the words of Richard Gwynn, a few second later Iran would cease to exist. The real fear, of course, is that Iran would provide a terrorist group with a nuclear device, and let them do the dirty delivery work. With Hamas in Palestine and the growing Shiite power in Iraq both funded by the current administration in Iran, there does seem to be an uavoidable prize fight, in some form or another, about to be fought between the two regional superpowers Iran and Israel. As this blog noted years ago, the one certain result of American aggression in Iraq is that it leaves Iran as the biggest kid on the block, and thus necessarily a default gathering point for Islamist forces, despite the largely secular and Westernized outlook of the Persian middle class. In other words, much of this mess was predictable and avoidable.

The Winds of Global Change

Good morning, my droogies. It's 4:AM and I'm procrastinating doing real work by finally updating this blog. Let me start by saying that I, like Cousin Ajay, should have bought stock in Chipotle, my favourite US faux Mexican fast food place. I crave their burritos, crave them! I even once considered buying a franchise for Toronto! Their stock price opened big.

Got back to Ottawa Thursday morning after ensuring that my father is on the road to recovery after his heart surgery, and found a city unsure of what to think after a change in national leadership. Everyone --the guy next to me on the plane, my taxi driver, the pizza guy, the automated operator when you dial 411-- is wondering about the directives of the impending new Conservative government.

Well, I wouldn't worry too much. A minority government can only do so much damage. Mind you, Harper has already scrapped the Liberal national daycare programme (boo!) and is posing as a tough guy by "asserting" Canadian sovereignty against the Americans in Arctic waters. The latter bit is a classic case of the Conservative agenda not intersecting with mainstream Canada. Most Canadians care about so-called urban issues: taxation, security, healthcare, education, pollution, the economy, civil rights, etc. No one really cares that much about whether a few American submarines slip across the Arctic Ocean. This inflated issue is an excuse to rationalize unneeded increased military spending, ironically filling the coffers of the American military suppliers whose client is the one supposedly necessitating the purchase!

I do encourage you, however, to check out this.

As I've repeated obsessively, I called the Conservative minority win back on Nov 29th when many were predicting a Liberal majority. I did this for a number of reasons, but there is one lesser reason in particular I would like to elucidate upon. It has to do with having a macro view of history.

Our entire civilization is based upon energy. Without vast amounts of energy, our industries would cease, all meaningful travel would halt and all communications would stop. This dependence has accelerated in recent years with the microchip replacing functions that were previously low-tech and often energy-independent, and with truck delivery of goods to cities replacing more energy-efficient rail and ship services. If all the gas and electricity were to magically vanish tonight, by tomorrow afternoon we'd be living in feudal states, and by the end of the week a third of humanity will have perished. By the end of the month, half of humanity would be dead, and local governments would resemble tribal chiefdoms. Western civilization would be dead.

Ironically, our increased dependence on energy has coincided with a dramatic reduction in the global supply-to-demand ratio, caused by both increased demand (due in part to the growth of Asian economies) and by decreased supply; even the Emirates are realizing that the oil is running out, and are busily transforming last century's oil paradises into Middle Eastern Las Vegases. Historians one thousand years from now will look back on this era and realize that Western invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were inevitable. Terrorism gave the superpower(s) an excuse, but the wars would have happened eventually anyway. Iraq --a country artificially created by the British for the sole purpose of exploiting its oil resources-- sits atop the world's second largest active oil repository. Afghanistan sits atop the world's largest unexploited source. Invasions were long overdue. Remember the lesson of Dune: "the spice must flow."

In terms of local politics, those who can locally marshall oil resources and assure access to them by the superpower(s) will ultimately achieve power. In nations ringing the Caspian basin, that means the tyrant of Uzbekistan and Afghanistan's Northern Alliance will cling to power more thoroughly than any true democratically elected leaders who might play oil concerns off of competing bidders. In Iran, it means that regardless of the political or ideological stripe of the leadership, the oil will flow; threaten the oil and lose power. Saddam's true crime was not his tyrrany over his people or his brutal war against Iran. It was that he threatened the oil of Kuwait and was starting to leverage access to his own Iraqi oil for political influence.

In Canada, the latter half of the 20th century saw a growing tension between two opposing factions. No, not between English and French Canadians --that one is a non-issue artificially inflated by politicians and media; the Anglo-French conflict is a hold-over from past centuries. The true tension in Canada is between East and West. For decades, Ontario has held on to power because it is the heart of this nation's financial, and thus economic, machine. Ontario further benefits from strong national resources, and a history of both foreign investment and foreign presence.

But the West has oil. (The Alberta tar sands hold enough oil to fuel the West into the next century, assuming the oil can be accessed cheaply.) And Conservative politics is a child of the West. Inevitably, the winds of global change had to shift local Canadian power to Alberta. In the short term, power may fluctuate between these two poles, but over the next few decades, unless an energy revolution is realized, the Canadian voice will inexorably inch Westward.

The one confounding element in this global view of history is that damned democracy thing.
True democracy (a rare thing, and I'm not sure we have it) allows an electorate to advance agendas independent of the global mean. But ultimately, even the averaged voice of the electorate will respond to the energy needs of civilization.

He who controls access to the power, truly has power.

Election Hangover

Thanks to all my droogies for the kind thoughts regarding my father's surgery. Twenty-four hours after the event, he was finally allowed to sort-of wake up (though morphine makes waking status tenuous), and his first words to me were, "Did you remember to take out the garbage?"

So I freaked him out by telling him he had awakened into a horrific new future world in which the Conservatives run the country. Cruel, I know, but sometimes that's what a (lovable) curmudgeon needs.

As some have correctly noted, my election predictions were not too far aff the mark. I thus award myself the ceremonial cookie! Mmmm, democralicious.

Some of my predictions did not come to pass, however. Though stepping down from the leader's position, Paul Martin nonetheless kept his seat. Belinda kept hers, too. And the Greenies failed to win one.

Oh well. Given the weakness of the new government, we might all get another chance to play the prediction game real soon. Oh yay.

Don't Wake The Sleeping Giant

Election eve, with Canada's immediate future to be determined tomorrow by franchises asserted by the sheep we call citizenry. Some, like me, are so sheeplike that they still don't know who to vote for.

Tomorrow is also open-heart surgery day for my beloved father. So maybe I will skip voting this time as a sort of electoral sacrifice to the gods. We shall see.

My prediction still stands: Conservative minority, though with a margin smaller than that being predicted by the polls. And while this may look like a safe bet, do recall that I made this prediction way back when the election was first called; so no poll watcher I!

The last time Ontarians were pissed at the Liberals, they inflicted us with Mike Harris. His retarded policies are in large part responsible for much of the suffering of present day Ontario. The cut-backs in certain kinds of health care contributed to a poor response to SARS. The cut-backs in some prevention programmes contributed to the rise in some kinds of crime. The list goes on. Bob Rae's NDP actually gave use something resembling a balanced budget; Harris and his successor gutted it in their rush toward privatization and corporate welfare.

Well, the nation is mad at the Liberals now. As a result, they may inflict us with Stephen Harper, who would have taken us to Iraq, denied gays their rights, sold off the environment piecemeal, challenged abortion rights, cut programmes for impoverished aboriginals, waste money on the unneeded expansion of our military, sign on to an unproven money-swallowing US missile defence programme, and possibly (though this part is speculation) hand over all our softwood lumber concessions just to appease the Americans.

However moderate he may appear now --and he does appear quite moderate and inoffensive-- the old Stephen Harper hasn't gone away. He's hiding beneath that inch of makeover magic. And his party's bloviating dinosaurs --Stockwell Day, Preston Manning and their like-- haven't gone away, either. It's their policies which will win the day in any Conservative government. Don't say I didn't warn you.

But what I really wanted to talk about today was how to play with toddlers. Two cute little Korean kids, aged 18 months and 4 years, live next to my parents. They consider my parents to be their grandparents, and their photos have replaced mine and my siblings' over the mantle; that's how absorbed they've become into my family.

Anyway, I was playing with them yesterday, and getting tired after a few hours of running about. So I discovered the perfect toddler game. It's called "don't wake the sleeping giant." See, I go to sleep in the middle of the room, and they take turns tip-toeing past me, trying their best not to wake me. And they never do! Brilliant, I say, brilliant!

The Americans Take Notice

How sad are we as a country when it's national news that our federal elections are being noticed by the Americans? And yet it's hard not to raise an eyebrow when US media turn an eye to our piddling contest, mostly of course to see if we're talking about them.... and of course we are.

On Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert actually talked about Paul Martin's negative attack ads against Stephen Harper. It's really a funny bit. Watch it here.

While Colbert ends up making the Liberals look slimy, I can't help but think that the piece did more to help the Liberal cause than to diminish it. After all --sadly-- a 30 second comedy routine on an American Tv station will reach more Canadians than any number of paid commercials. In essence, for no charge, the Liberals got to air their attack ad for the entire nation during prime time.

You want to see a real attack ad? Watch this.

The analyses from the first ever Deonandan.com user survey are almost complete. I will post them shortly. Here's a teaser: while this site seems to have more female visitors than male, the women are statistically less likely to have read my books or articles. Hmm, why do they come then? Could it be for my rakishly handsome features? Or is it the bestiality? Time for a new survey, methinks!

Election Predictions

Thanks to Sheila J., I've been compelled to put my election predictions in writing. Here's what I (not the mighty Nostrawattus) forsee for Jan 23rd:

conservatives  - 128 seats
liberals       - 103 seats
bloc quebecois -  53 seats
ndp            -  23 seats
green party    -   1 seat

As an aside, I also suspect we might see a lot of Independent candidates elected, though my suspicions aren't strong enough to overcome my innate laziness, hence I stick with the above predictions.

I encourage you all to submit your predictions in the comments section below. Come Tuesday, we'll see who was closest.

PS. Lyndon G. and several others have sent me Rick Mercer's predictions for a Conservative cabinet. Worth a look.

Nostrawattus, Part 1

Today I hand the reins over to Deonandan.com's resident prophet and mystic, Count Guiseppe Nostrawattus Almazi. The Count has agreed to forego the usual vague quatrains and will present his predictions in straight-forward plebian language. Take it away, Count....


I, Nostrawattus, have looked into the ether, have drunk of the sacred nectar and have done obeissance before Apollo, god of prophecy. The mists have parted and the hands of heaven have reached down to stroke my forehead and awaken my mind. From the fissure of that divine touch has erupted a third eye, fresh and crisp as that of a child. Mine eye hast found clarity before the ages, its gaze tuned to pierce the walls of time, the barriers that separate epochs. The events of the future, both near and far, have opened themselves to the eye, and a brutish play is performed for me in the ether, soundless yet deafening, blurred yet unmistakable. It is the theatre of Apollo, wherein the gods themselves whisper truth and prophecy from beyond the wings of the stage. And this, O Gentle Readers, is what Apollo has shown me in his play:

1. The federal Conservative Party of Canada will win a minority government
2. Paul Martin will come very close to losing his own seat, but will hang on by his nose hairs
3. Belinda Stronach will not win back her seat
4. Michael Ignatieff will win a seat for the Liberals and will immediately be appointed Foreign Affairs critic
5. The NDP will gain seats, mostly in Ontario, and will enjoy power and influence it has not seen since the heady days of Ed Broadbent
   
6. the Green Party will elect its first ever sitting MP
7. Before the end of 2007, Al Gore will return to public life in the USA in a big way
8. In 2008, Hilary Clinton will make a run for the White House but will fail to win her party's candidacy
9. John McCain will announce that he will run again for the Republicans
10. Before 2008, another major terror attack will occur on US soil
11. "Coincidentially," the Bush administration, or its proxies, will move to have the 2008 elections postponed "for national security reasons"
12. Before the end of 2006, the official US military presence in Iraq will be reduced. However, US military influence will continue to mount, through contractors and foreign proxies
13. Before 2008, Iran will be attacked, either by the USA, Israel or NATO
14. Before 2030, there will be a military nuclear exchange somewhere in the world, probably Asia
    
15. Before 2010, both China and India will enter the exclusive club of the world's top 10 economies
16. Before 2010, the US and Canadian dollars will be of equivalent value
17. Before the end of 2012, there will be major armed conflict over the disposition of Jerusalem
18. By 2008, avian flu will have cut a path of death and misery through large parts of the world, then will myseriously disappear mere months after the pandemic's first bite
19. By 2010, the "home" of HIV/AIDS will have moved from sub-Saharan African to the urban jungles of Asia
20. The end of 2006 will see Canada decidedly more politically polarized along the East-West axis, with Western attitudes temporarily holding sway.

Nostrawattus has spoken. The mists return and Apollo's play comes to an end.

Me So Pretty

Nothing too meaty today. I was up until 5:AM watching all the season 1 episodes of HBO's historical drama Rome. I have a great urge now to fornicate in public, salute men in skirts and lop the heads off of blue-skinned bearded barbarians. Just another Monday, I guess.

The website MyHeritage.com is presently beta testing its new face recognition software. You upload a photo of yourself and it will compare it against its celebrity database to see which famous faces most resemble your own. The algorithms are seemingly biased by aspect and profile (eg, photos in which you are looking to the left are biased toward matches with celebrities who are also looking to the left), but it's still fun. I uploaded three photos of myself and got the following matches, in descending order of similarity:


Thelonious Monk
Katherine Hepburn
Steffi Graf
Benicio Del Toro
Asia Argento
Sharon Stone
Niki Lauda
Jeane-Pierre Raffarin
Naomi Watts
Joaquin Phoenix


Dennis Quaid
Lionel Hampton
Bily Bob Thornton
Kenneth Branagh
Lev Yashin
Mark Webber
Mia Farrow
Leonardo DiCaprio
Enrico Caruso
Cate Blanchett


Kajol
Robert Palmer
Michael Jackson
Ewan McGregor
Elvis Presley
Edith Stein
Johnny Depp
Mark KNopfler
Nicole Kidman
Penelope Cruz

Yes, I too noted the great number of women on those lists. Just means I'm pretty is all.

Giant Ape Men And The Birds Who Love Them

(Note: Before reading this post, please consult the very serious Deonandan.com disclaimer.)

What? No one cared for the dance videos? I do and I do and I do for you people. Sigh.

In keeping with one of this blog's themes, here's an update on the Washington state horse-fucking story. Surprise, surprise, the state's legislature is trying to make bestiality illegal there after the much publicized death resulting from penetration by a horse. (The video of which, by the way, is available on the 'Net.) Interestingly, one of the stumbling blocks the new bill is experiencing is the very distastefulness of the topic. Lawmakers are too disgusted to even read or think about it!

(For those of you new to this site, the bestial links are provided as exemplars of my on-going thesis that instances of animal sex abuse are being increasingly reported in the mainstream media. This in no way is meant as an advocacy of such actions!)

Now, in my last book I touched upon the freakish theory that modern reports of ape-men, like Sasquatch and the Yeti, might just be genetic memories of a time when hominids lived alongside more robust hominoids. In particular, the hominid (direct human ancestor) Australopithecus Afarensis was contemporaneous with a larger cousin, Australopithecus Robustus, also called Zinjanthropus. If I'm remembering my undergrad anthropology correctly (and I'm probably not), even Homo Erectus might have been contemporaneous with a version of Zinjanthropus. The result, in one theory, is that somewhere in our animal hindbrains, we expect and need to see large, robust ape-men scampering about in our periphery.

Similarly, I've been intrigued by legends of giant birds that swoop down and snatch humans for food. Such legends are common in many cultures. The "roc" is the most well known, popularizec by The 1001 Arabian Nights.

Thus I am intrigued to read that scientists have found evidence that hominids were once indeed hunted by birds of prey. In the linked article, damage done to the skulls of 2 million year old Australopithecus Africanus specimens have been attributed to birds of prey. Africanus is another version of Afarensis mentioned above. Hmmm... it's all coming together. Maybe our myths and legends of roc-like birds are in fact just genetic memories of a time when our ancestors were indeed preyed upon by seemingly giant eagles?

Oh, and for the record, I do believe that the yeti exists. Sasquatch probably not.

Yes I Like Dance. Doesn't Mean I'm Gay.... Or Does It? Hmm....

Confession time: I like watching people dance. Well, not just any people, but professionals. And not just any dancing, but eclectic, hypnotic, eccentric and/or athletic dancing. Yes, I stayed home on New Year's Eve and watched Gene Kelly in An American in Paris.

In that light, I give you the video for Le Tigre's single, "Deceptacon." It's doubly attractive for its allusion to one of my favourite cartoon franchises, The Transformers. By the way, the dance is supposedly called "aerobicon."

Compare and contrast with another favourite dance video, Skinny Puppy's "Pro-Test."

UPDATE:
While reading about Le Tigre, I stumbled upon the fact that they elicited some criticism for having played at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. Apparently, there are over 90 women-only music festivals in the USA (!!) and this one is the sole festival that only permits participation and entrance to "women-born-women"; in other words, it actively discriminates against women who were born as men. Similarly, there is a Canadian case (discussed in this thread on rabble.ca) of a male-to-female post-operative transsexual being denied the job of rape counsellor because she was not born female.

The rationale for both the music festival and the denial of employment is that there is a unique experience in being born a female and raised a female, one which MTF transgendered individuals cannot simulate. This is possibly true, but why hasn't anyone asked whether female-to-male transsexuals qualify? After all, those individuals, while presently male, certainly have the experience of having been born and raised female.

It's all rather a shallow display of pointless exclusionary politics, in my opinion. But what do I know?

I will say this, however. Imagine going back in time to, say, the 1920s or 30s and snatching a typical North American citizen from that era and bringing him or her back to the present. Imagine showing this person the fashion of the day ("all the cool kids wear their pants around their ankles"), the government of the day ("oh yes, the American government is free to read citizens' mail, torture suspects and listen in on citizens' phone conversations") and the sexual politics of the day ("men can marry men, women can marry women, everybody accepts all the various possible permutations of coupling.... but the women-only music festivals don't allow women who used to be men). I think our time visitor would die of an aneurysm right there in front of us.

A Round of Wedgies (On Me)

It always amazes me whom democratic nations end up electing as their leaders. If we'd known George Bush or Paul Martin in public school, for example, we'd have been giving them daily wedgies. They're not smart enough to be intellectual leaders. They're not cool enough to be social leaders. Martin might be shrewd enough to be a sort of power-courting capo, but Bush sure isn't. Clearly, both these men ascended to power afloat the almighty inflating dollar. It's not a coincidence that they're both multi-millionaires from millionaire families. I'm really tired of the rule of artistocrats in the West. I'd much prefer rule by the enlightened elite; we should encourage every Nobel prizewinner to run for public office.

Speaking of Bush, did you know that under his adminstration, officials can now read citizens' private mail whenever they choose? Who was it who once wrote something to the effect that, "of course America will experience fascism, but we will call it democracy"?

And for all my troll fans, the ones who so enjoy the taste of Republican penis in their mouths that they insist on peppering my inbox and blog space with anonymous insulting content, I give you this. Your hero, George W. Bush, has now made it illegal for you to make such comments anonymously. So go ahead and fax me your drivers licences. It's the law. (I believe it is spelled I-R-O-N-Y.)

The Canadian election campaign trundles along. Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppes is proving again and again that he is, well, wacky. Not that it matters what I think, since all the Bloc cares about is seats in Quebec, and I'm pretty sure there are no francophone separatists reading this blog. (But I could be wrong.) John J. sends us a couple of Duceppes quotes:

"If there are poor children then it defenitely means that their parents are also poor"

"The difference between 1000 and 1 is exactly 999"

Can't put anything past that guy!

As for Stephen Harper.... Well, allow me to offer one bit of advice to all the other parties. Want to beat Harper? Remind Canadians that if Harper were Prime Minister in 2003, he would have sent Canada to war in Iraq against the wishes of the majority of Canadians, and our youth would still be coming home in body bags. Forget the promises of tax cuts, law and order, daycare payments and the like. Such colossal lack of foreign policy good sense, and such an acute inability to understand the moral position of most Canadians on this matter, should automatically disqualify him from the nation's highest seat.

Murder Shmurder

Greetings from Toronto, my droogies. I'm about to head to an early morning meeting, but I have made the time to be with you folks this morn. See how much I care?

Did anybody catch the leaders' debate last night? (Sorry, my American and global friends, we have to discuss boring old Canadian politics now.) I managed to watch bits of it in reruns. General impressions: Harper is looking calm and confident. Martin is looking flustered and desperate. Layton is looking like Sammy Davis, Jr, in the Rat Pack: not really one of the big stars, but they keep him around for kicks. And Duceppe, to his credit, keeps laying his biased cards on the table. Substantively, no one carried the day. Stylistically it was a win for Harper -- and for moderator Steve Paiken who is surely bucking for a national CBC job now.

Of course, one item touched upon was gun crime, since Canada (specifically Toronto) is supposedly in the grips of a murder crime wave. Please. Let's look at the numbers, shall we?

Darth Vadum informs me that there were "only" 195 murders in DC last year (which is considered a good number). The population of DC, including its surrounding meta-cities and 'burbs, is comparable to that of Toronto. In fact, according to these folks , the worst cities for murder in the USA are DC (45.8 murders per 100,000 people), Detroit (42) and Baltimore (38.3).

In contrast, the homicide rate in Canada (last available stat is 2003) is 1.73 per 100,000 with Toronto ranked ninth (from 1990 stats). Which Canadian city is the worst? Regina, with 4.72 murders per 100,000.

More recent stats (2002) are available here and show that Toronto is sixth among Canadian cities at 1.80, with Winnipeg the most dangerous with 3.41 murders per 100,000.

Telling point: if Toronto were considered an American city, it would be the safest large city in the USA.

So for all you people complaining that Toronto is too dangerous to visit, or that it has become an American city.... put a sock in it already.

Just Hold Your Nose And Do It

My prediction five weeks ago of a Conservative minority government edges closer to realization, as devil-eyed Stephen Harper is now leading in the polls. And I can see why. He has successfully minimalized his scarier attributes by claiming that a Conservative government will not touch abortion and will not use the "not withstanding clause" (the stupidest part of the Canadian constitution) to roll back the new same sex marriage laws. He has also said that he will dial back the GST (the federal goods-and-services-tax for my foreign readers) by 2% --a gesture that means nothing economically, but that certainly appeals to the common citizen-- and that a limit to medical waiting times will be legally established, opening the door to a discussion of health care privatization. In addition, like every other tough-talking politician these days, Harper has put forward a standard Conservative "tough on crime" strategy for addressing the perceived increase in Canadian urban crime. (In my opinion, the strategy is mostly vacuous, but there's no question that it has wide appeal; quite clever, really.)

I can't even tell you what the Liberal and NDP platforms are without doing a web search, because their bullet points have not been as memorable. (Well, that's not entirely true. Jack Layton has put forward one memorable policy item, a suggestion for national pharmacare which would see the burden shared between the citizens and the government.)

The true prospect of a Conservative government is to be seen in the subtext, however. For example, one platform item is to give every parent $100/month to pay for daycare. This is, of course, ludicrous. Proper private daycare costs a great deal more than that, so the money would be better spent if disbursed centrally to fund free state-run daycare. This is a sly pilot version of Bush's disastrous educational credit program. The subtext is this: the federal budgetary surplus will be given back to citizens in the form of piddling cheques here and there.

This is the same nonsense that has beaten the American economy in the past 6 years. The Clinton-era surplus was eaten up by Bush's excessive tax cuts, and military spending has deepened a growing defecit. And the average US citizen received only a few dollars here and there for his troubles. And yes, those few dollars were quickly spent on "beer and donuts."

So here is the dilemma before Canadian voters. In one corner we have the Liberals, the corrupt and ineffective "natural ruling party" for years, mostly because (a) their philosophy is to be as electable as possible and damn be their character or integrity, and (b) their biggest enemy has been, in the past, too terrifyingly monstrous to be an electable threat. In another corner we have the Conservatives who, while successfully re-engineering their image for election time, are nonetheless Republican-lite, espousing thinly shrouded bigotry (anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-poor), with an economic plan that will drain our surplus without leaving any infrastructure to show for it. In the third corner sits the NDP, well-meaning, honest and ethical, but hobbled by its loud far-Left wing of marginalized special interests who don't seem to understand economics or the need to compromise. And in the fourth corner we have the Green Party, who are essentially financial Conservatives with extremist environmental policies and little care for anything else. I won't even mention the Bloc, since their policies only matter to Quebec.

So for whom do we vote? For the first time in my adult life, I don't like any of the options.

Net And Yahoo?

Further to Mischa's link yesterday about potential Liberal candidate Omar Alghabra being accused of having made "pro-Muslim remarks" (which he denies, see here), there's a possibility I would like to suggest...

During the federal election of 2004, my then-girlfriend was volunteering on the campaign of NDP candidate Monia Mazigh, wife of tortured Syrian-Canadian Maher Arar. While canvassing door-to-door, my ex-gf discovered that many of the new immigrant households had been told by representatives of Liberal candidate David McGuinty (yes, the Premier's brother) that if they voted for Monia, the feds would think they were terrorists and they would be deported.

Clearly, this is illegal and unethical behaviour. It's also intrinsicly moronic, since to vote federally one must bea citizen, and a citizen cannot be deported. (Well, technically a citizen can't be deported, but tell it to Arar.)

My point is that there are many dirty shenanigans that go on beneath the radar during Canadian elections. It would not surprise me if one of Alghabra's enemies is deliberately spreading falsehoods about him. All par for the course in this honourable pursuit we call politics?

In other news, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is recovering from a stroke and is not expected to be able to again pursue political life ever. If you've not been following Israeli politics, Sharon recently left his ruling Likud party to form a new centrist party --Kadima-- leaving Likud for that Bush-parroting uber-warhawk Netanyahu. But Kadima is considered to be solely the force of Sharon's personality; without him, will the party persist? The other major party is Labour, which I am told has drifted more to the Left since it last held power. General elections are happening this season, and will not be postponed because of the stroke.

So where does this leave the country and the world? In my opinion, Israelis have become more centrist in recent years. They are not prepared to re-elect the marginalizing Netanyahu--- unless some of the more militant Palestinian groups do something really stupid and galvanize the Israeli voting public. So I am predicting a new coalition government, headed either by Nobel laureate Shimon Perez or Ehud Olmert, and made up of both the Labour and Kadima parties. I don't think this bodes well for the peace process, since Netanyahu is himself a force of nature who will, as official opposition, push the hard right agenda against a ruling coalition that is without a balancing strongman. In short, win or lose, Netanyahu becomes the de facto voice of Israel.

I hope the Palestinians are smart enough to just sit back and wait.

Win Mark Steyn's Money

You know what? There's a federal election happening in Canada! Yeah, I hadn't noticed either. Of course, for the upcoming US election in 2008, we already have some unlikely candidates, such as Christopher Walken and General Zod.

Brother Hrab sends us the latest missive from neocon apologist and blowhard Mark Steyn. Steyn, of course, lost all credibility when he once wrote something to the effect that Islamic civilization has contributed nothing to the world. Clearly, he learns his history from comic books. When one's bigotry becomes so pronounced, it pretty much invalidates anything else he has to say on the matter. But this article is kind of interesting, if you can manage to get past the boiling para-racist subtext. Essentially, Steyn is warning us all that the Western world will likely cease to exist by the end of the century.

And you know what? I think he' s right. Unlike Steyn's, though, my response is: who cares? Civilizations come and go and leave legacies, or they evolve into something new. As one friend put it, who mourns the Sumerians, the Mayans or the Chin empire? Western civilization has given humankind a great many boons, among them democracy and Greek science; but it has not existed in a vacuum, nor has it been representative of the needs and values of the vast majority of human beings. It was inevitable that when globalisation compelled the merging of world cultures, some new mutant world civilization would have to emerge. Let it come, I say.

But some things don't change... like the price of a computer. Recently, Brother Bhash discovered the purchase receipt from when I bought my very first computer, back in 1986. Compare it to the price of my last desktop (I'm a laptop man now), from back in 1994: $1177 vs $1710. The lesson? Regardless of the era, a new computer is going to cost you $1000-$2000:



Breaking news (courtesy of Darth Vadum): Wonkette is leaving Wonkette! Sigh. It was only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, the countdown to the inevitable USA/Israel/Iran conflict is on...Stay tuned...

Drunken Fool

As promised months ago, here's a pic of me at my sister's wedding last August, drunk off my ass and dancing like a fool:

Welcome To 2006

Well here we are: 2006. I spent the first day of this new year having brunch with a friend, napping extensively, then watching the entire last season of Doctor Who (the one with Christopher Eccleston). Did you know that a spin-off will air this Spring? It's called Torchwood and stars Tom Cruise lookalike John Barrowman as Captain Jack, the omnisexual rogue from the 51st century. Why do I mention this? Because I admire thorough and multilayered storytelling. "Torchwood" is an anagram for "Doctor Who", and was the name the latter shows were labelled under in order to avoid video pirates. The term "torchwood" has been referenced at several innocuous moments during the Eccleston episodes (I know, I watched them all in one sitting!) suggesting that producer Russel Davies has everything well planned out. Gotta love it.

Okay, time for my personal reflection of 2005. Sure, some big global things happened: hurricanes and flooding in the USA, earthquakes in South Asia, terrorist blasts in England, Indonesia and elsewhere... the list goes on. But ultimately, we humans are selfish beings for whom world events are important insofar as they affect us personally. I am fortunate that none of the great world tragedies of 2005 has touched me or my family personally. Instead of dwelling on that point, I will simply list the things about 2005 for which I was genuinely grateful:

6. My sitar. As part of my self-imposed therapy after a hellacious 2004, I decided to seriously take up a musical instrument. I chose the sitar for a number of reasons: it's a touchstone to my culture, it looks pretty damned cool (so if I ever get bored of it, at least it makes a good decoration), and it embodies a musical ethic quite separate from what we are used to in the West, hence I could begin fresh like a baby. For those of you who don't have something creative in your lives, I implore you to seek out such a thing. It adds balance to your being and brings peace to your boiling blood.

5. Driving. See, I got a driver's licence 22 years ago when I was 16, but never drove again. So in the summer of 2005, I decided to get behind the wheel again. I had to take classes again, because I'd forgotten how to drive! But now I'm obsessed with cars and with driving, having driven about 50 different cars in the past 6 months. It's a good thing this interest has come to me late in life, otherwise I'd really be a lard-ass.

4. My job. Okay, for reasons I can't get into here, I decided early in 2005 to give up my lucrative and enjoyable life as a self-employed consultant and accept a full-time position --with less pay!-- with the Centre of Excellence for Child & Youth Mental Health. The position allowed me to acquire the status of Investigator with the Research Institute of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the rank of Assistant Professor (still hafta sign the papers, etc) with the Dept of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, of the University of Ottawa. It's been nice being able exert my professional skills at full force, with substantial resources at my disposal. This year has been an important one in my career development.

3. Hindi. This really has been the year of new skill acquisition for me. I've only been doing it for a couple of months now, but the study of a foreign language has been advantageous for two reasons: it's yet another touchstone to my distant culture and --this is important-- it allows me to exercise a part of my brain that has otherwise been allowed to go lax. Studying a new language, especially in the one-on-one private tutor format I have chosen, is intellectually quite fatiguing. But, like any exercise, the pain makes you better, smarter.

2. The internet. Bear with me for a moment. This year saw the dramatic expansion of my e-relationships. Some of my closest new friends are people I've never actually met in real life. They are scattered across the globe: the USA, the other side of Canada, Australia, India, etc. Yet I have more regular contact with some of these folks than I do with my true best friends in Toronto and Ottawa. This is neither good nor bad, it just is. And I am grateful to the Internet for allowing this to be. Moreover, the readership of this blog, and its activity level, have increased this year. I am grateful for that --and for you-- as well.

1. My family. Yes, this is shlocky. But it's the truth. Judging solely by life tables, I am precisely at the middle of my life. And as everyone knows, it takes longer to go up a hill than to go down. So I am acutely aware that my time with my beloved family is limited, especially as my parents enter their extreme old age and the medical woes mount. We are quite sanguine about mortality; after all, the only true cause of death is life itself. But its realization does compel one to more value the living while they are alive. Hence I end my list with a tribute to my family, each of whom I love more than anything the Universe could possibly offer me.

And for you, my droogies, I leave you with this: a video showing what country average Americans would like to invade next. Expect more of the same from me in 2006!