Beyond the Pale

The trouble with engaging in military operations in a big grey area of international law... is that sometimes it comes back to bit you in the ass.

Canada may be powerless to take action in death of Canadian soldier

OTTAWA - The probe into the possible friendly fire death of a Canadian soldier by a private security force falls into a grey area of international law that could end up in Afghanistan's dysfunctional justice system, says a legal expert...

Hendin said if Canadian officials intend to diligently pursue the matter, they'll have some unpalatable and uncomfortable choices to make.

There are sections under the fourth Geneva Conventions that allow countries to prosecute civilians in other countries who wound or kill soldiers during a military operation. But to invoke those provisions the Canadian government would have toss out the claim that it's fighting an insurgency .

It would have to publicly declare Afghanistan to be in a "state of armed conflict" - a international legal definition that places an entirely new set of human rights responsibilities on Ottawa.

Conservatives to Allow Candidates and Agents to Testify

In an abrupt reversal, a spokesperson for the Conservative Party of Canada announced today that the party would, in fact, permit former candidates and their agents to appear before the Commons ethics committee investigating the so-called "in-and-out scheme". However, they indicated that certain restrictions would apply.

Obama vs. McCain as Word Clouds

The Boston Globe ran a very cool thing a week or so ago. They ran Obama's campaign blog and McCain's campaign blog through Wordle (a nifty tool that makes very pretty word clouds from any blog) and compared the results.

The number one word on Obama's blog is, of course, Obama, followed by campaign, senator, change, hope, donate, etc.

The number one word on McCain's blog... is also Obama. And the one word I couldn't find in either word cloud? McCain.

How interesting.



Go try it on your favourite blog - it's fun! I ran Garth Turner's and came up with this:



I couldn't find any Conservative candidate blogs to compare it to, but I did run Stephen Taylor's and... oh, THERE'S McCain!

Will the Real 'Correctional Grunt' Please Stand Up?

My ex-blogmate Raphael Alexander was one of several bloggers who posted about the Conservative government's plans to toughen up Canada's youth crime laws a few days ago. One of the people who commented on his post was an anonymous corrections officer calling himself "Correctional Grunt" who regaled us all with tales of the unrepentant young hoodlums he has to deal with every day and the many ways in which he and his fellow officers have been hamstrung by politically correct government and social policies.

As a youth correctional officer, let me give you guys an insider view of the YCJA, programming, and rehabilitation.

I am one of many Correctional Officers in a Young Offender facility in Ontario; or at least we USED to be. During the last Government's tenure we saw our job titles changed to "Youth Services Officer". That tells you exactly what our current and former provincial and federal Liberal Government's attitude was and is towards young offenders; that they are to be "serviced".

We are are not even allowed to refer to them as "young offenders" when we write and report them for in-facility infractions and incidents. Now they are "young persons", or "clients" and the word "criminal" or "offender", which is exactly what they are, is forgotten for fear of damaging their already tender sensibilities and self esteem.

It goes on and on like that, for fourteen paragraphs, and sounds like a sincere, if somewhat angry and one-sided, first person account from the front lines of our youth justice system. In fact, Raph was so impressed that he re-posted the comment in its entirety today, claiming it had changed his mind on the whole issue.

The trouble is, it all sounded so... familiar.

One person mentioned another blog where an anonymous commenter had posted the exact same comment a week earlier - right down to the same typo near the beginning of the fourth paragraph. So I decided to do a little digging.

Unfortunately, the comment sections of most blogs don't get picked up in a Google search, but just by looking for blog posts about Canada's youth justice system it didn't take long to find more recipients of Correctional Grunt's insightful, if repetitive, commentary.

The Turner Report, July 2008
Joanne's Journey, January 2008
Blue Like You, January 2008 (that one splits it up between two comments)
Kitchener Conservative, October 2006
Small Dead Animals, April 2006

The one on SDA was the earliest incident I found, and was also somewhat shorter with slightly different wording, which makes me think this might have been the original version.

A couple of these actually had follow-up comments from 'CG', so it may well be that this is, or was, a real person - if a somewhat unimaginative one. Then again, what kind of person keeps a copy of something like this for almost two and a half years just so they can paste it into the comments section of every blog post they find that mentions our youth justice system? And how often has the identical 'comment' been sent to newspaper editors or pasted into newspaper comments sections?

So. Just to satisfy my curiosity, would the real 'Correctional Grunt' please drop me a line? I promise not to reveal your Secret Identity - I would just like some evidence that you really are who you say you are.

And if anyone else has seen this comment appear elsewhere, or knows where it came from originally, please let me know. It would be nice to know if it is actually the same person posting this thing hither and yon, or if this isn't just the blog version of the classic conservative chain letter.

Conservatives Send Left-Wing Writer to Talk to Commies

This just keeps getting better and better.

Mr. Dyer told The Globe and Mail that a Foreign Affairs official at the Canadian embassy in Cuba called him and asked him to speak in Havana, promising to cover his travel expenses. He said he was given $3,000 in cash to cover his airfare, hotel and expenses in Cuba, and that he had never heard of PromArt until last week.

"It suggests to me this is the gang who can't shoot straight. My surmise ... is that they didn't have a pot of money that they could easily fit this into, so a little creative bookkeeping was done ... and you take it out of the PromArt budget," he said.

Wow. I got nothin'.

So, who do you think is getting fired over this one?

UPDATE: Here's Dyer's letter to the G&M explaining exactly what happened and why he went to Cuba.

Inspector Clouseau Does Digby

I just love those politicians from down east - they have such a colourful way of expressing themselves. That, and their low tolerance for bullshit.

The Liberals knew right away who the stranger was - Michael White, 28, a long-time senior communications aide to Government House Leader Peter Van Loan who recently joined the Harper PMO as a media officer.

"He's wandering around looking like Fifi hit Paris in Digby," Saint John MP Paul Zed said

Mr. Zed said Mr. White was "pretending to be a tourist" but did not get into any meetings or attend receptions.

"This is like Richard Nixon and the dirty tricks department of Donald Segretti," Mr. Zed said. "I mean it makes no sense. If the guy wanted to come into the room, all he had to do is take off his secret squirrel outfit.

Heh.

_________________

On another topic entirely, RealNews has this excellent video explaining the many ways in which "clean coal" is an utter fraud. If you are an American and a Democrat, could you please forward a copy of this to Barack Obama and BEG him to remove this nonsense from his energy platform? Thank you.

Stephen Harper's War on Culture

The Canadian Culture Wars continue with the cancellation of the PromArt program, which provided travel funding to artists, performers and organizations to promote Canadian culture abroad. To justify their actions, a Foreign Affairs spokesperson cited the usual nonsense about "fiscal restraint", even though the program costs a mere $4.7 million a year - an amount so small that I couldn't even find anything in the 2006 budget that was that small.

It's, like, a buck from everyone in the GTA.

Then, of course, came the requisite list of deviant, left-wing, shit-painting, obscenity-spewing "artists" the program has funded in the past.

"Certainly we felt some of the groups were not necessarily ones we thought Canadians would agree were the best choices to be representing them internationally," she said.

Pressed for an example of those who failed to meet such a requirement, Howland cited a Toronto-based experimental rock band.

"I don't even want to say it (their name) on the phone," she said. "Holy F---, that was one that was flagged."

Holy F---'s second album was nominated for a Juno award and the group has been shortlisted for the $20,000 Polaris Music Prize.

Gee, sounds like the title of a certain movie, doesn't it? But 'Holy Fuck' weren't the only ones singled out, of course. A Conservative talking points memo dug up by David Akins at the National Post also lists:

... $16,500 to send Tal Bachman, a best-selling recording artist and the son of The Guess Who's Randy Bachman, to South Africa and Zimbabwe for music festivals... "I think there's a reasonable expectation by taxpayers that they won't fund the world travel of wealthy rock stars..." [ok, hands up everyone who has a Tal Bachman CD?]

... $5,000 to former CBC broadcaster Avi Lewis, who now works for al-Jazeera and who is described in a Conservative memo as "a general radical" [that would be Gemini Award-winning broadcaster Avi Lewis, son of known radical Stephen Lewis}

... Gwynne Dyer, who received $3,000 to help him travel to Cuba for a series of lectures... the Conservative talking points say Mr. Dyer is "a left-wing columnist and author who has plenty of money to travel on his own." [I'm sensing a theme here]

... The North South Institute, a nonprofit foreign policy think-tank, which received $18,000 in federal travel assistance so its representatives could attend a conference in Cuba... The North-South Institute is "a left-wing and anti-globalization think-tank," the Conservative memo said. "Why are we paying for these people to attend anti-Western conferences in Cuba?" it asked. [that would be this North-South Institute, whose Executive Committee is filled with a bunch of commie left-wing... corporate executives].

Even Stephen Taylor sounds like this sort of blatant political button-pushing has left a bad taste in his mouth.

What I find even more distressing is the list of funding recipients that the Conservatives have chosen not to mention - particularly those in the "Film and Television" category, as that one happens to affect my family financially. Because not only did PromArt pay to send Canadian film makers to sell their films at festivals like Cannes and Sundance - it paid to bring foreign buyers to our festivals. All for the bargain price of $350,000.

Here are a few that stood out:

$35,000 To allow the Banff Television Festival Foundation to invite foreign buyers to the Banff World Television Festival.

$15,000 To allow the Festival international du Film sur l'Art to host visiting foreign buyers during the 25e Festival international du Film sur l'Art in Montreal, Quebec.

$35,000 To allow the Hot Docs International Documentary Festival to invite foreign buyers to The Documentary Forum.

$10,310 To allow the Northern Visions Independant Film and Video Association to invite foreign buyers to the Images Festival 2006.

$80,000 To allow Film Circuit International to organize tours of Canadian films internationally.

$12,000 To allow the Toronto International Film Festival to invite foreign buyers to the Sprockets, Toronto International Film Festival for Children.

$53,500 To allow the Toronto International Film Festival to invite foreign buyers to the Toronto International Film Festival.

This isn't some street mime making a pilgrimage to Marcel Marceau's grave. This isn't some performance artist piercing her labia on stage in Munich.

THIS IS BUSINESS.

Yes, for the price of a few plane tickets and a VIP suite, the government can actually sell some of those partially subsidized film and television projects they keep griping about to foreign countries, thus turning a profit on those productions while simultaneously keeping a bunch of long-haired artist types like my husband employed and off the streets.

My husband is a member of IATSE, one of the two big film & television technical workers unions in Canada. Today he showed me the "In Production" list for Toronto for the month of August. It had four items on it. Only one was an actual feature film.

Meanwhile, the much anticipated Toronto FilmPort opened two months ago and is still standing empty. And now there's word that the new Michael Cera movie, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" - which is actually set in Toronto - might be filming in New York. Because it's cheaper.

Much as I'd like to, I can't blame the Conservatives for all of this. The threat of a SAG strike, the rising Canadian dollar, and the inexplicable refusal by the McGuinty government to offer competitive tax incentives in Ontario have all inflicted mortal wounds on the film and television industry here.

However, as far as I can tell, Stephen Harper is the only one who is actively trying to kill it.

(h/t to Stephen Taylor for digging up the full list of recipients)