"Depraved and Beyond Reform"

Salim Mansur of the Toronto Sun doesn't usually catch my attention, but he has this weekend in a piece about the failure that is the United Nations:

The United Nations has become the gathering place for the hyenas of our world -- representatives of tyrannies, medieval fiefdoms, dictatorships and Mafia states -- devouring their own people and blackmailing liberal societies by the sheer weight of numbers in a regular mockery of democracy in the General Assembly.

Kofi Annan, who leaves the U.N. shortly, after a troubled, disjunctive career, is quoted as saying to the BBC:

"If I were an average Iraqi obviously I would make the same comparison -- that they had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets, they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying, 'Am I going to see my child again?'... And the Iraqi government has not been able to bring the violence under control."

Thus, it is apparently Annan's view, and perhaps that of the UN generally in its worldpolitic view, that brutal autocracies are preferable to the fight for freedom. Well, from the U.N.'s perspective that may be true - they certainly are going forward on every imaginable front with the disarming of citizens over governments, something that plays into the hands of even the most benign of dictatorships, and then there's that proposed U.N. army, er, police force.

From Rwanda to the middle east to Darfur, the U.N. is impotent, deafened by the shrill wailings of its private agenda NGOs and awash with the sins it professes to want to cleanse from the world.

Mansur:

The United Nations is depraved and beyond reform.

Indeed, democracies such as Canada should resign from the UN and construct a democratic coalition where victims of the hyenas might at least get an impartial hearing, consistent support and even, on occasion, genuine assistance.

The "Liberal" Party of Renewal

Stephen Taylor elaborates on the latest venom from members of the LPC, eating their own this time...



Never should these sh*theads grace the halls of Parliament again. Never.

Stephane Dion on not being...Stephane Dion

Stephane Dion, on the matter of his dual citizenship with France (he was born in Canada)...

"Multiple identities should be seen as an asset, not a threat"
"There is nothing wrong with multiple identities. The hearts of people are big enough to accept different identities. Canadian citizenship will give me my rights. Identity is the way I feel about the country."

I believe the psychiatric term for that is "schizophrenia", or Multiple Personality Disorder. Which Stephane Dion wants to be Prime Minister? Is "Kyoto" really the name of a dog, or is it one of Stephane's "identities"? Which "Stephane" did the Liberal Party elect? Do they know? Does he know? If Canadian citizenship gives him rights, what does French citizenship give him? Discounts on vin ordinaire? Inexplicable desire to turn and run? A place to hide? Seats at Cannes? Vichychoise?

Why does a committed Canadian federaliste feel the need to hold a foreign passport, especially one who would be king, er, Prime Minister? And should Canadians tolerate such an individual as Prime Minister? The Bloc Quebecois are not at all obtuse about their desire to remove Quebec from Canada. Is Stephane Dion hedging his bets?



UPDATE:
http://195.83.177.9/code/liste.phtml?lang=uk&c=22&r=231

Taken from the French Civil Code, Arcticle 23-8(Tip of the hat to the French government for making their laws available on-line in English).

Art. 23-8
(Act no 73-42 of 9 Jan. 1973)
Loses French nationality - a French person who, filling an employment in a foreign army or public service or in an international organization of which France is not a member, or more generally providing his assistance to it, did not relinquish his employment or stop his assistance notwithstanding the order of the Government.
The party concerned shall be declared, by decree in Conseil d'Etat, to have lost French nationality unless, within the period prescribed by the order and which may not be shorter than fifteen days or longer than two months, he stops his occupation.
Where the opinion of the Conseil d'Etat is adverse, the measure provided for in the preceding paragraph may be adopted only by a decree in Council of Ministers

(thanks to an inquisitve bloggerazzi...)

UPDATE:
Nothing like political expedience to provide the beacon for the Liberal path of righteousness. Dion has apparently decided, that since it might be politically expedient to renounce his maternal birthright, he would be willing to let it go, for the good of the party, er, election, er, power, er, country, yeah that's it.

Apparently, the word "integrity" is totally absent in the Liberal Party. Took arguably the most honourable man in the party, what, less than a week to cave a principle for the purpose of power...

SDA's "The Baghdad Brigade" and an unabashed tribute...

I don't know how Kate McMillan, the heart and soul of Small Dead Animals does it. Really. Her blog has morphed over time, with a lot of hard work, and a core of devotees, to become one of the most significant media phenoms of the last few years. Persistent and incisive, she consistently displays an unequivocal ability to pull out the core of a story, and, more likely, the story of the story, and lay it bare for all to see and reflect upon.

Bolstered by a legion of fans who can also be sources, she consistently exposes the soft underbelly of an industry that has lost its way, capitulated its principles to a degree that is not only simply sad, but may even be wantonly criminal. Consistently she does this, all the while maintaining a professional career and still finding time to raise champion pooches, and show them throughout the US and Canada. A remarkable talent. A remarkable woman. A remarkable reporter.

Members of the MSM regularly decry and try to discredit bloggers as being simply "rumourmongers", "liars", or opinionated geeks with no real lives, even as they rush to make their own corporate "blogs", typically failing miserably in the process. They don't grasp the fundamental concept: a blog is not just the opinion of one, it is the interplay and exchange of dialogue by many, often disparate, individuals.

The core of the post must have an element of truth, however. It is easy to promote innuendo. Easy because much of what people learn from the MSM is based less on substance, and more on perception, spin, innuendo, allusion, outright fawning over personalities and ideologies. Many bloggers fall into the MSM trap - having an opinion is not enough. You must have a grasp of the issues as well. Not the MSM's perception of the issues, but a real sense of the real story - what it is, not what you want it to be.

Kate consistently gets that. And, more importantly, knows how to suppress an easy bias (without hindering her personality, I should add - it is a blog, after all), and more importantly still, knows that she ought to suppress it, in her presentations. Its not that she hides her politic, not at all. No one will miss that she holds right of centre views, and that most of her commentators follow that same bent. Its that those views are not the core of her reports and observations - the story is.

The Baghdad Brigade is a concise indictment of the failure of the MSM to honour themselves, let alone their constitutents. She writes:

...That brings me to something I've been noticing lately. The more generalized media auditing that is a primary focus of SDA has prompted a phenomenon of anonymous and defensive comments appearing here from members of the media who attribute misquotes and misrepresentation to their editors, headline writers, even to translaters.

That may all be true. But what is also true is that it doesn't matter who is responsible. Ignorance, bias, sloppiness, a reluctance to correct false reporting in as aggressive a fashion as it's first reported - is media malpractice.

Every person who knowingly participates in the release of a flawed product, whether they be the reporter who allows their information to be added to or altered, the editor who ignores a misleading headline, drive-by sneer or burying of the lede - down to the proofreader who realizes that context has being twisted or omitted - all are equally responsible.

Because I make part of my living as an automotive airbrush artist, I spend a good deal of time in automotive body repair shops. It takes a team to restore a damaged vehicle to its original soundness and safety. From the frame straightener to the windshield installer to the paint prep and application, modern automotive body repair is a concert of exacting trades.

Much of it is performed, day in and day out, by people who hold no university degrees. Some aren't even high school graduates. But, they know their jobs. As craftsmen, they know they will be held responsible for screwing up - but most of all, they understand that everyone who worked on that car shares the consequences when a vehicle is released that fails to meet safety or refinishing standards. Work must be redone. A pattern of faulty workmanship can result in a loss of insurance accreditation.

So, why is it that an industry that produces mere words and facts, that is stacked with university graduates, political celebrities and academics, which serves as a fundamental underpinning of our western democracy, does not hold their members to the standard of performance expected of a nameless welder in an auto repair shop?

How is it that reporters and editors can fail so profoundly, so routinely, with such utter internal unaccountability - and not lose their accreditation to issue a newspaper or news broadcast? ...

The stories about the media reporting from Baghdad and Afghanistan have become as profoundly important as the middle east stories themselves. An entire pillar of western civilization is showing deep cracks at the base on which it stands, cracks that threaten the integrity of the whole structure. It is bloggers like Kate who are the lay workmen scurrying around to rout out and fill the cracks and buttress the pillar. The MSM seems blithe to the tilt their structure is taking. To mix metaphors (badly, I admit it), they haven't yet got that the heat at their feet are the flames of burning Rome, not the cozy zephyrs of global warming...

Work through the links in Kate's post. Reflect upon the fact that you are reading about the media itself as it "reports" the conflict, not the tragedies of the conflict itself. Reflect on the fact that you are broadening your world perspective from the computer lens of a fairly humble commercial artist in small town Saskatchewan. Not just any small town commercial artist, mind you.

An extraordinary life, Kate. Thank you.