Is It Desperation?

Evilscientist's ruminations about the Cons latest round of attack/smear ads going after Dion got me thinking.

Is it really desperation on the part of the Cons, or perhaps it's really just the nastiness of this group coming to the surface?

I've argued for years that the most prominent of the Reform/Alliance/CPoC are fundamentally bullies. Guys like Jason Kenney, or Rob Anders. Generally speaking, they'll try to shout or sneer down anyone who dares question their wisdom. When Harper put John Baird into play as the Environment Minister, it was a pretty clear signal - 'Fine, you don't like me doing nothing, so I'll put someone in place who will shout down your criticisms' - which is more or less exactly what Baird's done.

Ultimately, the Conservative "attack ads" are little more than a bullying tactic. As Evilscientist pointed out, it really just tells us that the Cons don't have anything particularly good to tell Canadians about themselves.

As an aside, the Liberal Party youth wing has come up with their own ads which critique the Cons - not personally, but their government: here. (They're clearly aimed at a young crowd, but are an amusing poke at the Cons ... without getting into smear campaigning)

Appointing Partisan Hacks

BushCo's intellectual dishonesty record continues unmarred by honesty with Bush's nominee to replace Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank.

This time, he's selected Condoleezza Rice's lead assistant:

As deputy secretary of state, Mr Zoellick was chief aide to Condoleezza Rice between February 2005 and June last year.

Perhaps a somewhat less corrupt slimeball than Wolfowitz, but it would be nice if, for once, the candidate was nominated for their abilities, rather than their connections to Bush.

Coming Soon: Womb Control

Are you a woman of childbearing age? Well, if the right-wingnuts have their way, it seems that not only can you bear children, you may find yourself obliged to.

In the "only moderately right-wing" rag that Maclean's has become this week, we find the cover showing us a slender, young(ish) woman, with a dashed line for the shape her belly would take if she was pregnant. Inside, we find this piece of journalism aimed at the sloping forehead crowd.

Basically, the argument is that population growth by immigration is somehow a bad thing, and we should be producing all the babies we can here at home. (Goodness knows, we can't have all them unruly immigrants overrun the place don'tcha know? - we won't discuss the fact that Canada is a nation of immigrants to bloody well begin with...)

The fear is that if the population doesn't keep growing (or at least sustaining itself) that our national economies will falter in the years to come. I don't buy those arguments entirely - in North America (and much of Europe) we are watching the biggest measurable generation in history, some from ahead of it, some from behind. It has been, by far, the wealthiest, most affluent generation in our history.

The 'Forced Birth' crowd has been trying to make sure that women bear as many children as possible for some time now - their efforts to outlaw abortion, crush sex ed programs and suppress contraceptives have been strident and loud for a very long time.

Now, we find people starting to wonder how to encourage women to become mothers - whether through coercion, propaganda, or outright bribery. Why? Largely because there are fears that our economy will collapse under the weight of the baby boom generation as it ages and retires. While there is some merit to this kind of concern, I think it is profoundly misguided to believe that the world's economies will collapse because of that.

At the extreme end of things, we find arguments like this ending off the argument:

On the other hand, in Germany, which now has the highest proportion of childless women in Europe, the "mommy wars" are just starting to heat up. Recently, a bestselling book called The Eva Principle: For A New Femininity by Eva Herman, a former TV news reporter, fuelled a national controversy by suggesting that women's emancipation was a horrible miscalculation and that men and women would be happier and society would thrive if women would just shut up, stay home and raise the kids.

I'm sorry, but, the argument that making women legal and political equals of men was "a mistake" is fundamentally flawed, and only the most wingnutty of groups would argue otherwise. Given our current Federal Government in this country, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the more obviously brain damaged ideas implemented in law and policy. (Oh wait - they already started their assault on women's rights and equality.

It seems to me that when society quits punishing women for having children (economically), or not having children (morally), then women will make the most appropriate decision. Public pressure either way is offensive and demeaning. Why do we think that women should "get married and have a family", but nudge and wink approvingly at a "confirmed bachelor"?

The Insanity's Leaking North

I see that Ken Ham's unique brand of evangelical insanity is creeping its way out of Kentucky and into Alberta.

For those not familiar with Ham, he started the creationist "Answers in Genesis" website/ministry, and is in process of opening a rather elaborate "Creation Science Museum" somewhere in Kentucky.

A few days ago, I heard part of an article about a "Creation Science" museum somewhere in Alberta being opened. Because I was still in the fog of sleep, I wasn't entirely sure what I'd heard, and left it alone until I had time to investigate further. Today, I was doing a bit of wandering about on the web, and I found that yes, Alberta is busy creating its very own "Creation Science Museum".

The website for them is here, and the Museum itself is somewhere in Big Valley, Alberta - a small town southwest of Red Deer.

Looking through the Alberta museum's claims about the material they are presenting is a glimpse into the fervent insanity of Young Earth Creationism.

Here are some of the more amusing gems:

The interactive bacterial flagellum and DNA displays both provide compelling evidence for creation and refute any unguided, 'natural' processes such as evolution.

Oh yes, resurrecting the already discredited theories of Michael J. Behe and the other ideologues that hang out with William Dembski over at the Discovery Institute. Brilliant, credible science to be referencing.

The "Age of the Earth" display is finished. This beautiful display packs a pile of leading-edge information regarding dating methods, fast fossils, rapid cave formations and Out of Place Artifacts.

Fast Fossils? There's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Not to mention "rapid cave formations" - short of the kind of forces that plate tectonics involves (or small thermonuclear devices), caves are geological formations, and "rapid" in geological terms is something you can measure in a few thousand years.

The "Evidence From Geneaology" display, donated by Edgar Nurnberg, is one of the more favourite displays of our visitors. These scrolls from the Lambeth Palace in England trace the geneaology of King Henry the 6th back to Adam and Eve.

Uh-huh. I'll bet that these are just irrefutable evidence of the lineage of King Henry VI. Given the time period, King Henry may have commissioned those scrolls himself either to feed his ego or insanity.

The "Dinosaurs and Humans" display shows considerable evidence that not only did dinosaurs exist recently, but that humans existed with them. This evidence is fatal to the evolutionary dogma which has dinosaurs extinct at least 60 million years before humans evolved.

This is the classic rubric of the "Young Earther" arguments. Essentially, it's like claiming that the Flintstones was a documentary. The claim is, essentially, that Dinosaurs were wiped out in the "Great Flood" described in Genesis chapters 6 and 7.

While a "young earth creation" view may be a valid position of faith, it's a different thing altogether to try and twist the evidence that nearly several centuries of scientific inquiry has found that speaks otherwise.

Harper's Priorities: Military First

Harper seems to think that aggrandizing the military is more important than your civil rights.

At a fundraiser for a local military museum, Harper and O'Connor announced the commitment of $5 million dollars to build a library of military history onto the museum.

The number $5 million is interesting - because that's about the budget of the Court Challenges Program.

Apparently, in Harper's little world, propaganda is more important than your individual rights and freedoms:

"Stories of heroism, camaraderie and sacrifice ... bind us together as a people and define us as a country which stands for human rights," said Harper, who earned applause when he reiterated his government's intention to rebuild the Canadian Forces.

"This is not just about hardware and dollars," he said.

"This is about recognition and respect."

The contribution to the Military Museums helps fund a tangible telling of the sacrifices and successes made by serving men and women for generations to come, he said.

Don't make the mistake of assuming I'm anti-military - I'm not, nor do I think it's unreasonable to fund museums - although Harper's spending cuts have also slashed funding to non-military oriented museums which leaves me deeply suspicious of his motives.

Grim Reaper Harper

I wondered why Harper had gone to Afghanistan this past week. Usually there's some political game he's playing.

It seems it was a trip to "see the troops off" to get killed in an offensive. One of the classic stunts in the "support the troops meme".

Fundamentally, Harper goes over to Afghanistan for one of two reasons - he thinks he can get a boost in the polls, or he wants to take "credit" for sending more of our troops off to die in battle. It might qualify as amusing if it wasn't so damn depressing.

Recently, I've found myself musing aloud about whether we have any right to be in Afghanistan today. Superficially, there is a moral obligation to help the country pick up the pieces and rebuild, but that must be weighed against whether we can in fact be useful in that regard, or like the Soviets in the 1980s, are we merely propping up something that cannot sustain itself?

The notion of Afghanistan as a nation is somewhat suspect to begin with - the region's geography tends to reinforce and encourage the tribalism that is pervasive through much of the Middle East to begin with, and I suspect that optimistically, you might achieve some kind of loose tribal coalition, but it would never be a "government" in the sense that we understand it.

The second question in my head is the moral/ethical imperative surrounding the kind of government being propped up in Afghanistan. Do we have any right to impose our style of government (with all of its cultural assumptions) on Afghanistan? I fail to see how Afghanistan itself poses (or ever posed) any real threat to Canada. Let's face it, originally the goal was to find Bin Laden in the days following 9/11/01 - a goal that Bush soon abandoned when he decided that Iraq looked much more exciting to play in.

Looking at the situation today, it's quite apparent that "The Taliban" (tm) is no more a discrete enemy than "al Quaeda"(tm) ever was. It's part of the local social and political fabric - which renders it next to impossible to "defeat" in any real sense. It may go to ground only to rise up again when opportunity knocks.

There are no "easy" or "pat" answers, but at the moment, I'm not happy with a Prime Minister who is using Afghanistan to further his political ambitions, and I am less than convinced that Canada has a compelling story to be there.

I Wonder How Stevie Will Pull This Off

It seems that George has made himself King ... if he can provoke a "national emergency", at any rate.

The implications are disturbing to say the least, but one wonders just how Stevie's Jr. Rethuglicans are going to try and emulate the same thing here in Canada. (So far, you have to admit, Harper's been pretty obviously following the Rethuglican Playbook(tm) from Washington)