Reading from the Kerry playbook

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So they were for the mission before they were against the mission before they were for the mission before they'll be against the mission.

Winner of a platform you got there, Stephi.

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Ten percent?

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Anyone else wondering how making, at best, just over 10% of Afghanistan's poppy crop legitimate will turn the country around?

This is not the panacea we're being led to believe. Bruce Rolston goes through the hard numbers in detail here. Anyone toying with the idea of legalizing the Afghan poppy crop should read it.

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Picking precisely one nit

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Paul Wells, on his newly refurbished blog (glad to see the Rogers techies finally pulled their thumbs out), looks at the new Tory french-language attack ads aimed at Stephane Dion. I have but one thing to add to Wells' analysis:

But they don't say a single word about the Clarity Act.

In passing, this also helps explain why the ads weren't rolled out by Micahel Fortier, who rushed on Dec. 3 to pin the Clarity Act on Dion (as though it were the worst thing that could be said about him) and who has publicly called the patriation of Canada's constitution "le gâchis de 1982." Here, I am persuaded, we see the hand of the Prime Minister. Nobody badmouths the Clarity Act. Nobody goes after Dion for being mean to Quebec separatists qua separatists.

Personally, I wonder if it goes further than the practicality of keeping that arrow in the federalist quiver. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that Harper put the ideas enshrined in the Clarity Act to paper four years earlier with Bill C-341?

I wonder if Harper sees the Clarity Act as his baby, not Dion's. Maybe this is about more than just politics: maybe Harper and Dion actually agree on this one point.

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Uncommon Newfoundlander sense

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Bono is at a U2 concert in Halifax, Nova Scotia, when he asks the audience for some quiet. Then, in the silence, he starts to slowly clap his hands. He says into the microphone, in a deep solemn voice...

"Just for a moment, think outside yourself...Outside this arena. Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies."

A loud Newfy voice from near the front punctures the moment...

"Well, Lard tunderin jasus, ya stupid arse, stop yer fockin' clappin', then!"

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"Security and development are two sides of the same coin"

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"We should not be looking for the exit."

- Nigel Fisher, President and Chief Executive of UNICEF Canada on our national commitment to Afghanistan

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Deja vu

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For the first time in fourteen long years, I can point you to a Liberal promise that you can take to the bank.

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