Iraq The Model vs. The American Left

Catherine Seipp at National Review Online puts out a must read article detailing Martini Republic's pathetic attacks on the most influential Iraqi Blog, Iraq The Model.

UPDATE: Martini Republic's response to Catherine Seipp is up and is quite entertaining on a nick junior sort of level. The best part is Alex's appreciation for all the increased traffic to the Martini site which reminds me of the Weak Blogger's Motto: "Better to be trafficed than accurate".

The Original Muslim-Refusenik

I just caught a bit of Tony Snow's interview with Irshad Manji on FOX NEWS. This lady seems to be wise beyond her years and it is great to see a fellow Canadian's words reach such a wide audience. You can also read her latest article in USA TODAY here.

Newfoundland Cojones

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams is showing his fellow premiers how one really plays hardball with the Feds.

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, escalating his battle of nerves with the federal government, said that Ottawa had no intention of settling a revenue-sharing dispute and had “dragged” him to talks in a bid to humiliate his province. Furious, he said that he wouldn't fly the symbol of a nation that was “slapping” his province in the face and on Thursday ordered the Canadian flags taken down.

With the next federal election endlessly on the horizon, Paul Martin cannot afford to offend the province that granted his Liberal Party 5 out of their 7 parliamentary seats. One might say that Mr. Martin is stuck between The Rock and a Hard Place (heh).

UPDATE: I just tried out the Cojones Test myself and only scored a 40 out of 100.

Vote Monderman

Mark Steyn turns the screws like nobody else can on all the nanny-staters out there (Is that even a word?) in his latest Spectator piece entitled Taking Liberties (via crushkerry).
Money quote:

Mr Monderman’s thesis feels right to me — that by creating the illusion of security you relieve the citizen of the need to make his own judgments. That’s really the story of September 11. If 19 punks with box-cutters had tried to pull some stunt in the parking lot of a sports bar, they’d have been beaten to a pulp. But, as I wrote at the time, the airline cabin is the most advanced model of the modern social-democratic state, the sky-high version of the wildest dreams of big government. Up there where the air is rarefied, all your rights have been regulated away: there’s no smoking; there’s 100 per cent gun control; you’re obliged by law to do everything the cabin crew tell you; if the trolley dolly’s rude to you, tough; if you’re rude back, you’ll be arrested on landing. For 30 years passengers surrendered more and more rights for the illusion of security. So on September 11, on those first three flights, the cabin crews followed all those Federal Aviation Administration guidelines from the Seventies, and the passengers did everything they were told, and thousands of people died. By the time the fourth plane got into trouble, the passengers knew big government wasn’t up there with them and used their own wits to prevent the hijackers from reaching their target.

Read the whole thing here.

A Helpful China and a Confident Canada

The Globe and Mail reports on the 44 North Koreans seeking refuge in the Canadian embassy in Beijing since October:

The 44 North Koreans who were holed up at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing have been released and taken to a safe third country, Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.

This sounds great on the surface but the story continues:

Officials declined to say who made the transfer or what safe third country was involved, citing privacy reasons. But Theberge said they are confident the asylum-seekers long-term safety is ensured. Officials said Chinese authorities were helpful in ensuring the transfer.

I don't know about you but I don't find the confidence of Mr. Theberge to be that reassuring. The Canadian foreign affairs department hasn't exactly been throwing its weight around over the last few years. At least the Chinese can be trusted to make sure those 44 asylum seekers are well taken care of. After all, they have been so kind to their own political dissidents as of late.

Free (thought) At Last

Holy @#$%! I just finished watching Risky Business for the zillionth time on the movie channel and after a bit of channel surfing I was astonished to discover that FOX NEWS was added to my cable package. This may not be a big deal to those of you south of the border but up here in the cold liberal north it is nothing short of a Christmas miracle. Most of my friends were betting that we would be seeing Al-Jazeera on our cable line up before FOX NEWS and for awhile it seemed that would be the case. The differences between the American and Canadian cable news networks are staggering and I hope a little stylistic and ideologic competition are able to improve the pathetically dull and uninformative Canadian media for the better.

UPDATE: While I dig Greta Van Susteren, I would way rather be sitting beside Rebecca DeMornay on the subway.


Greta


Rebecca

We report...you decide!

UPDATE 2: Thanks to Glenn over at Instapundit for the link. His is one of the best on the web and I'm amazed that after being in operation for only 24 hours I already made a footprint. I couldn't have done it without you Rebecca!

Leave it to the French

If the French can look past the mugging of the Iraqi people through the Oil for Food program a little Santa mugging shouldn't ruffle any feathers.

Lookout Power Line

Tommy Shanks is now online and is looking forward to being named Time Magazine's Blog of the Year for 2005.