Faces of Douche

Meet Monty.
Monty is a Mountie.
More specifically, Monty is one of the Mounties who killed Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver airport last March.
Apparently he also killed a guy while driving drunk. But he's not getting charged, because he pulled some bullshit prank.
Naturally. Why? Well, because he's a cop, of course, though naturally they'll put some sort of spin on it. Which we'll all believe. Because the police always tell the truth at all times, right?

Pussy Galore!

They've got a whole mess o' cats over at People For Animals, ranging from baby-cutie-pie-who's-a-good-baby variety to ultimately satisfying stuck-under-the-bed-because-I-know-you're-going-to-hurt-me type. Check-em all out at People for Animals. More partial to the living-in-a-cage-desperate-for-love kind? Has the RHS got a deal for you!

I'd love to say "Get them while they last," but, well... Remember: pets for Christmas is a no-no, but if you're going to get a creature, for God's sake, buy a used one.

Six in the Morning

1. AMBASSADOR ASKED FOR CUTS FROM AFGHAN DETAINEE REPORT: Former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, ordered diplomat Richard Colvin to cut out incriminating information from a report about treatment of Afghan detainees. (Globe and Mail)

2. OUR PATHETIC CLIMATE COMMITMENT: The Pew Centre is reporting that carbon emission reduction commitments made by developed nations are half what scientists say we need to avoid climate catastrophe. And Canada's commitments are the weakest of all the nations studied. We've mentioned it twice before on the blog, but it seems now is a good time to recall what George Monbiot has to say about Canada becoming a corrupt petrostate. (Globe and Mail, monbiot.com)

3. CRU DIRECTOR STEPS DOWN AMID E-MAIL SCANDAL. The director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, Phil Jones, has stepped down as climate liars and hooligans continue to scream for blood. This is probably a good move optics-wise, but, holy typhoon in a teacup, the CRU e-mails are being spun into a big-news event by a group of very suspicious right-wing ne'er-do-wells. (DeSmog blog)

4. U.S. TROOP PUSH PLEASES CANUCKS: Canada's foreign affairs minister says he's pleased as punch that the US has committed 30,000 more troops to the Afghanistan mission. (CBC)

5. SASK PARTY DELAYS SCHOOL FUNDING FORMULA: Further hamstringing the ability of school boards to plan for the future, the Sask Party has announced it will likely take longer than two years to put together a new funding formula for Saskatchewan schools. (Leader Post)

6. EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT THE TIGER WOODS AFFAIR I LEARNED FROM THE TAIWANESE NEWS: Media outlets have been having a hey day speculating about Tiger Wood's car accident despite having little information to go on. That hasn't stopped one Taiwanese news outfit from assembling a CGI recreation of the event based on the scraps of info available. Truly bizarre footage. And yet strangely amusing. (TheWeek.com)

Pick of the Day: Fruitcakes

Not going to be a popular pick, I know. But if you check out this Regina Little Theatre production of Julian Wiles' comedy about a boy who runs away from home shortly before Christmas and ends up in a small South Carolina town where the inhabitants are decidedly eccentric which opens a four-night run at the Performing Arts Centre tonight it's not as if you'll receive an actual slice of fruitcake as part of the admission price -- although now that I think about it, that would be a neat marketing gimmick for the RLT to consider.

I, for one, wouldn't be put off by the prospect. But a lot of other people probably would. For them, receiving fruitcake as a gift, or being offered a slice as a snack, inspires true revulsion on par with the most heinous phobias that plague humankind. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a term's actually been coined to describe this fear -- fruitcakeophobia? Regardless, it's not anything I suffer from. Of course, most of the fruitcake that I've consumed in my life has been of the homemade variety courtesy of my grandmother, mother and sister.

Storebought fruitcakes are another matter entirely. And if that has been your primary vector of exposure you have my sympathy. But don't despair. Even if you aren't able to bring yourself to see this play there's still plenty of holiday fun to be had tonight. At the MacKenzie Gallery, for example, Saskatchewan Express kicks off its latest musical revue Blue Champagne (which runs Dec. 2-6 and 9-13). As well, John Huston is presenting his one-person fringe-style performance of Dickens' A Christmas Carol at St. Mary's Anglican Church (Montague & 15th Ave.).

And for those of you who will not be denied when it comes this tasty Christmas comestible, here's video for the Eraserheads' 1996 song "Fruitcake" (YouTube)

GOP Select New Leader

Better than Sarah Palin, I say. (Onion News)

Climate Change Debate Starts at 6pm

If you're reading this post roughly around the time I'm posting it, the 2009 Munk Debate starts in about 15 minutes so you still have enough time to sign up and watch it live on-line.

As mentioned in this post, the subject of the debate is climate change and it pits George Monbiot of the Guardian and Elizabeth May of the Canadian Green Party against Bjorn Lomborg the "Skeptical" Environmentalist and Nigel Lawson.

UPDATE: Debate has started. It is also streaming live at Grist.com , The Mark News, The Globe and Mail, The Canada Int'l Council.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Why isn't Elizabeth May our PM? She is kicking Bjorn Lomborg's ass.

LAST UPDATE [8:10PM]: Wow. Lomborg's diabolical sophistry was a thing of monstrous, evil beauty. I no longer think of him as a "soft-in-the-middle" sceptic. He may be one of the most dangerous sceptics out there. Bravo to May for taking him to task repeatedly. She scored the best debating point of the night when she demanded to know why it is that he and his think tank, while claiming to want to come up with solutions for the poor of the world, were silent when $4trillion was spent bailing out the banks and only ever seem to decry spending money on climate change mitigation. She went on to accuse him of being a propagandist. Lomborg shouted her down and came on all slick and lizardy but never answered her questions.

Without a doubt though, Monbiot was brilliant and while I think May made some of the best points on the Pro side, Monbiot was the most persuasive speaker of the night.

As for Lawson... a blithering idiot. When the debate veered into discussion of peak oil, he demonstrated that despite being a policymaker at one point in the UK government, he doesn't understand even the simplest points of the energy scarcity issue.

I suspect this debate will be available for viewing via the Munk Debate website. I can't say watching it was enjoyable. But I did come away with a greater respect for May and Monbiot.

ROSIE'S TUESDAY TOP SIX

BREAKING TELEVISION RATINGS AS WELL AS HEARTS Sunday’s Grey Cup game drew the largest television audience in CFL history, watched by more than six million Canadians on TSN (Truth and Rumours). How many of them know who the 13^th man was? Just wondering.

I’VE BEEN THERE Don Cherry was on Toronto sports radio station Fan590, offering advice to Ken Miller, where the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ last-play gaffe is getting more analysis than the Zapruder film. Cherry’s advice? Drink lots. (Fan590)

MEANWHILE BACK IN THE REAL WORLD African people like albinos … for the strangest and deadliest of reasons. At least 10,000 are in hiding, fearing for their lives. (msnbc)

BUT JACK BAUER DECLINED COMMENT Kiefer Sutherland endorses Medicare. (Larry Hubich)

PROBLEM IS, THE WHALES ARE STILL GETTING SHOT AT George Monbiot says Canada is to the environment what Japan is to whales. (The Guardian)

LINDA DOESN’T LOVE A MAN IN UNIFORM … FOR A REASON Shorter Linda McQuaig: Rick Hillier is a bully: Richard Colvin stand up to bullies. (Toronto Star)

Pick of the Day: World AIDS Day

Conceived by two public information officers (James Bunn and Thomas Netter) working for the World Health Organization in Geneva, World AIDS Day has been held annually since 1988 to promote awareness of the pandemic and to honour those who have died from HIV/AIDS.

That's a lot of people to commemorate, unfortunately. Since 1981, an estimated 25 million people world-wide have died from the disease. Another 34 million currently live with HIV. In the past decade in particular, Africa has been hardest hit. But earlier this year, Saskatchewan's chief medical officer Moira McKinnon made headlines with the announcement that there had been a 40-per-cent jump in new cases of HIV in the province to 174 compared to 2007.

From the outset in the Western world, HIV/AIDS has been stigmatized unlike virtually any other communicable disease; first because of its association with gay men, and now because of its impact on sex trade workers and intravenous drug users. For proof of the extent to which "morality" has intruded on what is essentially a public health issue, one need look no further than the recent decision of the Saskatchewan government to limit the number of needles distributed at needle exchanges to ten per visit -- a move which HIV advocacy groups have condemned.

It has become a tradition on Dec. 1 for arts organizations and artists to withdraw from view for a day an art work as a way of observing World AIDS Day. In honour of that tradition, there is no pick-of-the-day today. Although if you're in the Cornwall Centre today between 10 a.m.-3 p.m. AIDS Programs South Saskatchewan and All Nations Hope will be distributing informational pamphlets. As well, at 7 p.m. there will be a memorial gathering for people lost to AIDS at the Ramada Hotel.

Canada: A Corrupt Petrostate

The 2009 Munk Debate will be held tomorrow night. The Globe and Mail is having some kind of pre-debate show live streaming "chatty" type-a-thingy on it's website where you can send in questions. And you can sign up to watch the debate free on the web at the Munk Debate website.

This year's debate will see climate liars... er... "sceptics" Bjorn Lomborg and Nigel Lawson face Guardian science columnist, George Monbiot and Green Party leader, Elizabeth May.

Should be interesting.

I don't know much about Lawson, but Lomborg is one of these soft-in-the-middle climate deniers. He's not like, say, Christopher Monckton who scoffs at the idea that people are warming the planet. Lomborg accepts the scientific consensus on this (up to a point), he just figures that based on his cost/benefit analysis, we would do better to invest in things like ending poverty instead of making massive investments in reducing carbon emissions.

Oh, and he also thinks that we should stay away from international treaties because we've been trying that route for 20 years and look where it's gotten us.

Gee, Bjorn, the lack of action on climate change couldn't have anything to do with chaps like yourself sowing discord and discouraging action on the subject, could it? You're not really being on the up and up when you say a particular solution won't work if you're the guy fucking with it?

As for the "feeding the poor instead of fixing climate change" thing.... it's a false dichotomy. We're not making such massive investments in solving the climate change problem that it's taking aid away from developing nations. In fact, all this line of reasoning he's been trotting out for the past decade has accomplished is to give developed nations (like ours) a good, compassionate-sounding rationale to not invest in reducing carbon emissions. Of course, we don't ever seem to make any corresponding investments in helping the developing world, either.

Still, Lomborg's style of scepticism is a tough one to debate as he'll be doing an end run around the moral highground. (I can almost hear him trilling, "All you care about is carbon. I care about people.") Plus, I think Lomborg's one of these guys who got into the denial game out of a desire to be thought clever and be loved. In a debate I could see him moderating his position just to stay on the audience's good side and to diffuse Monbiot and May's position.

Which brings me to Monbiot... Love his column. Can't say much more except that he has some choice things to say about Canada -- that, as the title of this post suggests, we're turning into a corrupt petrostate. And, I hasten to add, I agree with him.

And May... well... she sure would make a fine PM.

Christmas Boogaloo

Not sure if Shane is planning a rundown of his favourite Christmas-themed movies like he did with his month-long Hallowe'en extravaganza, but with December looming I thought I'd get our coverage of the holiday season off to a start with this post. (Break)