Thanks to liberal catnip for bringing this up.

From The Independant:

More than 10,000 Iraqis - the vast majority in Baghdad - have been killed in the past four months alone, a figure that would send shockwaves through the international community were it in any other part of the world.

How true is that? 10,000 dead, this should cause public outcry, but it seems like it can be easily ignored by most people in power. It’s time to wake up the “leaders” of the world to the crisis going on in Iraq.

If this isn’t a civil war, then what is?

Just some lyrics that I thought I would share from one of my favorite, and coincidently NDP supporting, band:

———-

Fun and Games
Barenaked Ladies
we sent in the army
they sounded alarms we
saw it coming from a mile away
we kept it off radar
because we had to say our
intentions were to save the day

why did you fail
to see

it was a gag
it was all for a laugh
and they were shocked and they were awed
and they were blown in half

fun and games
we’re just pulling legs
we knew this barrel of fun
would be a powderkeg

we kept it all long-range
and made a regime change
you’d have thought it would have been a gas
but when it got ugly
we sat around smugly
because you bought our little joke en masse
don’t look at me that way

it was a gag
it was all for a laugh
we knew your sons and daughters
would be blown in half

fun and games
we’re just pulling legs
we knew this barrel of fun
would be a powderkeg

put a smile on
we’re the ones that you selected
leave that dial son
because we just got re-elected
in a while our
bill of rights will be rejected

and all the blame will be deflected [this bit is vaudville style]
the forests will be unprotected
the nation’s poor will be neglected
creation myth is resurrected
a new salute is genuflected
a gallup poll will be respected
gallows pole will be erected
all this will go undetected

while you all slumbered
we sat and crunched numbers
of all the causalities we could afford
there’s no need to draft them
you could hear us laugh then
the poor and black all need the room and board
did I say that
out loud

it was a gag
it was all for a laugh
and now our very nation has been blown in half

fun and games
we’re just pulling legs
we knew this barrel of fun
would be a powderkeg

we knew this barrel of fun
would be a powderkeg

it’s a powderkeg

———-
The album, entitled Barenaked Ladies Are Men, with this song on it will be released early next year after they release Barenaked Ladies Are Me in the fall. You can download a live version here for only ninety-nine cents.

Edited to add: I am keeping an online database of the lyrics for the BNL album for myself as I can not find them anywhere else on the internet. If you are interested, they can be found here.

These are the kind of ideas that must be defeated.

And it’s spreading! Today at work, the neo-conservative that I sit next to started to say that any Muslim accused of terrorism (in response to what happened in Britain) should be shot on site.

It’s getting scary.

NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) wants to give the parliament buildings back to parliament.

OTTAWA – NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) announced today that he is introducing a motion calling for Members of Parliament to take control of the Parliamentary Precinct.
Last spring, when the government refused to lower the flag on the Peace Tower in respect for the death of a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, Mr. Martin raised a point of privilege in the House of Commons, saying that Parliament, not government, should decide what happens on Parliament Hill. “It should be Parliament not Government who decides whether or not the flag on the Peace Tower is lowered to half-mast,” said Martin.
At the time, Speaker Peter Milliken considered the motion but eventually ruled that the House of Commons and the Senate are merely “tenants” in the Parliament buildings, and the Government had direction and control over all physical aspects of the parliamentary precinct.
In other words, the government is Parliament’s landlord.

The Majority of Canadians elected Parliament and not the Government. Parliament should not only be in charge of Parliamentary procedure, but they should be given more control over running the country. The opposition MPs were elected too! Yet in minority governments, it seems like the opposition has less power then they should have.

It will interesting to see if this gets unanimous support.

Bush and his friends break the law? No need to worry! They will just change the law!

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments.