On second thought...
Suddenly, I'm considerably less sure about the wisdom of our war in Afghanistan. Is Canada really there supporting a government that endorses executing people for converting to a different religion? I'm not sure if even the Taliban did that. NATO or no NATO, I'm not sure if this is such a great idea after all if we are ousting one group of intolerant religious fascists to replace them with another group of intolerant religious fascists.

I know there is still considerable anti-Western feeling outside Kabul and that to a considerable extent the Taliban still rule the countryside. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak with an Afghan journalist who was visiting Tokyo. It was by turns inspiring, depressing and frustrating. He was very offhand about the risks he runs daily as a stringer for the foreign press. He said he could travel the country freely with a beard and more traditional garb than the suit he was wearing, but that if anyone found out who he worked for, he'd be dead. "But you don't get far in this business if you are afraid to take chances" he said, throwing gasoline on the fire of my frustration at the editorial timidity and herd mentality of the Japanese media. He was very definite about the state of affairs in his country being much better generally than the news would indicate. After years of civil war, the fighting is mostly over in most of the country and things are getting back to what he called normal, pointing out that normal in Kabul and normal in Tokyo are as different as chalk and cheese. "I come from another planet" he said.

Thought Crimes
A recent NYPD memo brags about the use of "proactive arrests" and intimidation tactics to break up and silence political demonstrations in 2002. So now all you have to do to get busted at demonstration in NYC is look like you might be thinking of doing something bad and you will be "pre-emptively arrested." Remember, police officers can read your mind - they know if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! Only you can prevent thoughtcrimes!

Round up
Yes, we at the Woodshed are surfing the Internet so you don't have to, bringing you videos of evangelists calling for a holy enema and proof that God may exist and be answering prayers after all.

Toys for young Republicans can be found at the Baby Bush Toys catalogue site, but if you really want to brainwash your youngster, Jesus wants you to buy one of these talking biblical action figures . Tom Waits sang about his chocolate Jesus, but you choose the confectionary deity of your choice.

Take a minute to enjoy some 60-second Shakespeare courtesy of the BBC.

(and a top of the ol' snap brim to all those at the hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy that supplied some of the links)

Papers please...
This kind of Gestapo shit really has to be stopped. Anyone who thinks The United States is not becoming a police state really is dreaming. It could be argued I think that it already has become a police state, but the cops just haven't quite cottoned on to the fact that they can now do whatever they want if they dress it up as part of the war on terror or the war on drugs. What is really going on is a war on freedom. I don't doubt that the powers that be may have had the best intentions but when you start handing over the kind of power the Patriot Act gives and combining it with the current administrations willingness to just ignore the law (see FISA and Bush's NSA domestic surveillence program) as it suit them and you get Italy circa 1936, but with leader with a weaker chin.

Steven Harper and coffee in Kandahar
Canada's new Prime Minister has been beset by allegations of unethical behavior over floor crossings and Senate appointments and refuses to meet with the federal ethics commissioner. His shaky popularitity is taking a pounding and so, following the example of his ideological inspiration, U.S. President Dubya McCodpiece, Stephen Harper decided to top-gun his way (see photos 8 and 9) into Afghanistan last week to visit the Canadian troops there. At least he didn't pretend to land a Sea King on a destroyer, and had the class not to play dress up and put on a Canadian Forces uniform or quasi-military flightsuit.

Whether you agree that Canada should be sending troops to Afghanistan or not -- and the Galloping Beaver makes a compelling case for deployment -- I think anyone with any respect for democracy and the troops being sent into harm's way would agree that the issue deserves to be discussed in Parliament. If the reasons for deployment are so clear and compelling - and I think they are - then what the hell is Peter MacKay afraid of? An open discussion of why they are being deployed does not mean that people don't support the troops, it means they don't take decisions to put them at risk lightly.

If, as Gen. Hillier suggests, we are liable to be in this for the next decade surely it merits some kind of public debate. Canadians will always support Canadian troops when their actions deserve support, but to our national credit, we will not tolerate abuses, unlike some of our allies.

"Two large double-doubles and a cruller, hold the shrapnel"

When I heard Harper had gone to Kandahar, I figured he'd have to go in with a very small contingent of press in order to make room in the C-130 for 3,000 take-out coffee's from Tim Hortons, but then I saw that Tim's is opening a local branch. I'm not sure how Hortons plans to staff the Afghanistan outlet. Likely some poor soul in the Canadian Forces quartermasters corps will be trading his combat greens for Hortons' polyester browns, but I'd like to volunteer for the 1st Canadian Expeditionary Doughnuteers, maybe Rick Mercer could put in a good word for me with his skydiving buddy Gen. Hillier. I can only think that the reason they held off on doing this so long is that they were worried the armored personnel carriers would be pretty tough on the drive thru lane.

Real Amuricans don't need no fancy book learnin'
Some people are born ignorant and some have ignorance thrust upon them. Across the U.S. it seems there is a movement to get rid of the International Baccalaurate - check this article in the Guardian about a school board of ignorant conservatards that are out to give Kansas a run for its money.

At the high school level the program is usually a two year, highly academic program for juniors and seniors which is recognized as a first year course credit at many universities and colleges. As it is internationally recognized, the program is especially popular in international schools here in Japan. It's aim is to provide students with a comprehensive background in English, a foreign language, social studies, mathematics, and science. Also required are three other components: study of a Theory of Knowledge course—an interdisciplinary course which encourages critical thinking; Participation in 3 - 4 hours of extra-curricular activities per week with emphasis on volunteer community service; completion of a 4,000 word essay written independently, with guidance from a faculty adviser

Read the Guardian article to get the exact statements, the gist of the objections to the IB are that it is anti-Christian, anti-military and anti-American, promotes disarmament, multiculturalism, evironmentalism, a more even distribution of wealth (read "Marxism") and the importance of international institutions such as the United Nations (read "One World Government" and is just plain "too foreign" -- it was, after all, developed in France and the organization that administers and coordinates the program is still headquartered there.

Even the President has embraced the IB program and called for its expansion in the U.S., but I guess that's not enough for those who think that Sunday School is all you need.

Oscar winning rabbits
A short animated feature that is just like Brokeback Mountain, but with bunnies. (warning: contains scenes of bunny love that dare not speak its name that may amuse )

Ponies!
Ride Holden, ride! Karma is a bitch, isn't it?

Don't worry about Dubya's lack of experience or ability, he'll be surrounded by top people. Top people I tell you!
Yes, top people like horse show producer-turned-emergency-nonresponse manager Michael Brown, patriotic tunesmith-turned-Attorney General John Ashcroft, Lawyer-shooter and oil industry bagman Bwana Dick Cheney, Republican party gofer-turned-NASA manager (at least in his own mind) George Deutsch and last but not least this goniff (Slate link via Atrios' Eschaton) who truly was almost as good a pick to head Health and Human Services as Brownie was to head up FEMA. Personally, I think you can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps and the choices he makes.

Cheaper by the quarter dozen?
1 man, 3 wives: HBO comes to Utah -- Newsday.com reports on the new HBO program "Big Love" which focus on a man played by Bill Paxton living in Salt Lake City with his three wives. He's just trying to live up to the principles of the original Mormon church, apparently, and trying to get away from the creepy fundementalist compound he grew up in led by Harry Dean Stanton. Bruce Dern plays his father. Sounds like great casting, but the review in Newsday says its a bit scattered. Sounds like the Sopranos with Tony married to three Carmellas or Six Feet Under with Nate married to Brenda, his younger sister and his mother. I wonder if they will get into the old LDS doctrines about non-white races? Or how the First Nations peoples of North America are actually one of the lost tribes of Israel? Or the Osmonds?
Go out and read "Under the Banner of Heaven" by John Krakauer before watching.

"Dogs and Cats living together -- mass hysteria!" part two
Did I wake up in another dimension sometime in early February and just not notice? First Steven "I am not a zombie!" Harper gets elected over Paul "I balanced the budget" Martin. Then Canada loses to hockey powerhouse Switzerland in the Olympics and fails to get even a bronze medal in our national sport. Now this .

I mean, seriously, what in the hell is going on?

I'm starting to expect to open a history book and read about how British President Neville Chamberlin's doctrine of lightning war solved by the Sudatenland crisis by carpetbombing Berlin and killing German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Am I going to hear that long serving Canadian Prime Minister Robert Stanfield's government finally fell to Stephen Lewis and the Canadian Socialist Party after Stanfield introduced the War Measures act to put troops in the streets of Calgary and stamp out Preston Manning's separatist terrorist group, the Western Alberta New Constitutional Empire Regiment or that Mick Jagger, former leader of the Beatles, has been in prison since 1980 for gunning down some creepy autograph hound from Hawaii?

This new poll about Bwana Dick Cheney being more popular than wealthy skank Paris Hilton, but less popular than mass murderer Joesf Stalin makes sense - After all, Stalin did win World War Two - but Canada beating the US of A in baseball? Who put what in my kool-aid?

Bush jokes thread
Okay, it's been a slow day down at the Ministry of Truth , so I've been blogging a lot today, but I wanted to share these stories with you:

• George W. Bush is talking with his military advisers and they tell him that three Brazilians were killed in Iraq the previous day. He looks chastened and sad and slowly shakes his head, tears in his eyes. "That's terrible!" says the president and dismisses his advisors. He immediately calls the VP. "Dick" he says, panic in his voice, "How many is a Brazillion?"

• Asked his opinion about the ongoing controversy over Roe vs. Wade, George W. Bush said he "didn't care how people got out of New Orleans, as long as they left town."

• 15,000 atheists demonstrated in London today after a piece of blank paper was found on a cartoonists desk.

leave your joke in the comments

Big Brother loves you!

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is strength

God is sitting across the street from your house right now, drinking bad coffee and fingering his pistol
because apparently the Supreme Being, the King of Kings, the big sky-daddy hisself, is a bounty hunter. Which could explain a few things - what exactly I'm not sure, but it sure puts a different spin on the Lord's prayer.

Baaaaad behaviour
Remember after 9/11 how we were constantly told that all policemen and firefighters everywhere were the greatest heroes since WWII. I'm thinking that reputation may be fading somewhat in part of Arizona. The photo really does look like the kind of guy you'd expect to be molesting sheep. And then there are these Illinois cops who like to party with drunk underage girls, while locking the boys up for two weeks for underage drinking. Yes, you read that right, two weeks in jail for underage drinking - Thank God I didn't grow up in Monmouth Ill. - I'd have gotten the chair. Ahhh, Bobo's World (tm)

Mellowing out
Clearly someone needs to relax, perhaps with some soothing New Age "music" - I'm not making light of domestic violence so please don't sic the International Sisterhood of Outraged Womyn on me, but shouldn't this guy have been arrested years ago for crimes against humanity and fraud for passing off pablum as art?

The Koufaxes
The polls are open - vote early and don't vote often, this is just the opening round to narrow the field so strategic voting is recommended. The Woodshed endorses the following:

Best Blog -- I'll be voting for Jane at Firedoglake this year in the final, but so will everyone else, so you may want to spread the love around to ensure some other these deserving blogs--Eschaton, Orcinus, Jesus' General and Rude Pundit -- make the finals.

Best Professional/Sponsored Blog -- Orcinus (Dave is one of the most consistent, thorough and thoughtful blogger - journalists out there and doing the most important work.)

Best Community Blog -- TPM Cafe, what the wingnuts at open robe media and townhall think they are for the right, which is a nursery school comparing itself to Oxford postgrad programs.

Best Writing -- Michael Berube

Best New Blog -- Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory

Deserving of wider recognition -- A tough choice, but I'm going with Galloping Beaver, with apologies to Dave Noon at Axis of Evel Knievel. But if you want good reading just go to list and pick one at random

Single issue blog -- Orcinus swatting fascist knuckleheads or PZ Myers swatting antiscience knuckleheads at Pharnygula

Best Post -- I can't vote, I haven't read most of the entries (yet) but hitting them at random is supplying some inspiring reads. Go check them out and to thine ownself be true.

Best Series -- tough to pick from the serious look by Orcinus at Michelle Malkin being unhinged to Jesus General's hilarious Yellow Elephant crusade and everything in between but I think I'll have to go with Americablog's Gannon/Guckert series.

Best Expert Blog -- PZ Myers at Pharnygula

Best Group Blog -- essentially best community blog, only smaller - Lawyers Guns and Money for sharing the postings so well, and for hockey and battleship blogging

Most Humourous Blog -- Dependable Renegade, Rising Hegemon, Happy Furry Puppy Storytime, Rude Pundit are all brilliant, but I have to go with Jesus' General

the others - Most Humourous Post, Best Commentor,?Best State or Local Blog - I don't really feel qualified to comment on these, so I won't.

A heckuva job done by all
Photographic proof of a sort from the BBC that Mike Brown wasn't the only one on staff that was there as a result of a "hire the handicapped" program

"Now, y'all just listen here. You let the Dubainians buy our ports or I'll not only veto everything, I'll spank y'all, jest like I'ma gonna do to Hussien - he tried teh kill mah daddy, the least I kin do is paddle his bottom like we used do to frat pledges. Alberto said I couldn't brand him the way we did with new members at Skull and Bones, said them yoomin raghts types would git all upset, but there ain't nothing in the Geneva convention about a good paddlin"

"Gee, they sure do play tennis with funny racquets over here"