“TV’s The West Wing Audience Speaks,” Zogby International, 1 March 2005, http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=972 (from MyDD).

The American Tory Democrat Party is imploded. The primary frartricide between Vice President Hoynes and Vice President Russell may be tearing the party apart. The Convention is in two days and they still do not have a nominee! But what if upstart Matt Santos wins the nomination?

The situation wouldn’t be good for the Republicans. Democrat Congressman Matt Santos leads Republican Senator Arnold Vinick by 44% to 28%. Unbelieveably, only one nation-wide poll exists and it is a month old. Nonetheless, it is the best we have and it reveals:

Part of Vinick’s problems can be attributed to a gender gap. While he and Santos are tied among men, each getting 35% of the vote, Santos holds a commanding lead among women, where he outpolls Vinick by 53% to 22%.

Vinick also has failed to sew up Republican support. While Santos has the support of three-quarters of Democrats (74%), Vinick only has a lock on 49% of Republicans. Among independents, meanwhile, Santos leads 39% to 26%.

Visually

Inner Ring: All Voters: Santos 48%, Vinick 22%, Other/Undecided 30%
2nd Ring: Men: Santos 35%, Vinick 35%, Other/Undecided 30%
3rd Ring: Women: Santos 53%, Vinick 22%, Other/Undecided 25%
Outer Ring: Independents: Santos 39%, Vinick 26%, Other/Undecided 35%

With Vinick rarely polling above undecideds, things aren’t looking good. However, an Electoral College projection reveals that the race is still up in the air.

I used the 2004 Election as a baseline, but gave Latino candidate Santos the Red states most likely to flip: Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, and New Mexico. I faced a problem with Ohio, Florida, and Texas: Florida has a large latin population but much of that is Cuban, and the state has been trending Republican; Texas is Santos’s home state but is very solid Republican, Ohio was narrow Bush in ’04 but has a small latin community. In the end I gave Texas to Santos while keeping Ohio and Florida Red.

The election is still undecided

Vinick is a long-serving Senator from California, and his secular views may win poitns in the Bear Flag Republic. It would be astonishing to have a popular Santos landslide and still have a very late election night, as the Golden State’s returns come in.

PS: Yes this is TV’s West Wing election. Yes I’m going through political withdrawal. Why can’t there be Presidential elections every year?

“French opposition to EU treaty intensifies,” by John Lichfield, Independent, 4 April 2005, http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=626136 (From Democratic Underground).

The European Union is not the European union that France wanted. It is not the Future France wanted to create. Given that, it is not too surprising that the French are now euroskeptics

Hostility to the European Union constitution is hardening in France, despite increasingly desperate attempts by government and opposition leaders to rescue the collapsing “yes” vote before the referendum next month.

An opinion poll published yesterday showed that 55 per cent of French voters who had reached a decision were likely to reject the proposed new EU treaty in the vote on 29 May.

Worryingly for the “yes” camp, the latest survey – the sixth in a row to predict a “no” vote – shows an erosion of support for the treaty on the centre-right and a hardening of attitudes on the left.

Even when bribes are thrown in…

Senior political figures admit privately it may be impossible to turn around the extraordinary momentum gained by the no vote over the past three weeks. Efforts by the centre-right government last week to bribe public sector workers with an inflation-linked pay rise have had no immediate impact. Neither have dire warnings from President Jacques Chirac and others that a no would plunge European and French domestic politics into deep crisis. He will make his first major contribution to the campaign in a live television debate on Thursday

The new treaty or Constitution is, basically, stupid. It frightens a lot of people by giving the transnational European Union a lot of vague powers (which worries Britain) and vague talk about free markets (which worries that French). In America we would sign the treaty and ignore it, but the Euros take things more seriously.

The important news: French intrasigence may save Tony Blair’s political career. Tony Blair has promised a vote on the new treaty, which is deepy unpopular in Britain. Losing a vote of that importance would seriously harm Blair’s credibility. Further, if the other countries vote yes, Britain may be asked to leave the European Union.

However, a French no vote gives everyone cover. Great news!

“Roh Hints at New East Asian Order,” Digital Chosunilbo, 22 March 2005, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200503/200503220024.html.

“Seoul Is Beginning to Reap What It Sowed,” Digital Chosunilbo, 1 April 2005, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504010037.html.

“U.S. to Scrap Ammo Reserves for Korean Army,” Digital Chosunilbo, 4 April 2005, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504040035.html.

“Korea Steps Up Military Cooperation with China,” Digital Chosunilbo, 4 April 2005, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200504/200504040020.html (from OFK).

A state can be a positive force without being an American ally. While we distrust France, we recognize that the French economic engine is an important part of European trade. Likewise, India was a force for good in South Asia even when they were non-aligned.

So when Korea hints at leaving the Japanese-American alliance

President Roh Moo-hyun said Tuesday the power structure in East Asia will shift depending on what choices Korea makes.

At a graduation ceremony of the Korea Third Military Academy on Tuesday, Roh said Korea’s new role was of a stabilizer for peace and prosperity not just on the Korean Peninsula, but in East Asia as a whole. “Korea will calculate and cooperate if need be, and move forward with its proper authority and responsibility,” he said.

His comments were being read as a pointed reference to the country’s alliances with the U.S. and Japan rather than a mere statement of principle. Among core figures in the administration, there is growing dissatisfaction with U.S. and Japanese policies in East Asia, including North Korea.

or when Korea approaches the Chinese orbit

Military exchanges between Korea and China will intensify to a level similar to those between Korea and Japan, the defense ministry said Monday.

“China, more than any nation, wishes for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, so we plan to strengthen our military exchanges with China, including making defense minister meetings a regular occurrence,” Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung told reporters. “There is a need to raise the level of military cooperation between Korea and China to at least that shared between Korea and Japan, and it’s worth thinking about plans to help stability on the Korean Peninsula with China’s assistance.”

we should see it as a challenge, not a disaster. South Korea is still a force for good. But the alliance is over. American blood should no longer to spilled to protect South Korea.

Fortunately, America has gotten the message

Lt. Gen. Charles C. Campbell, the chief of staff of the U.S. Forces Korea, said on Friday that 1,000 of the current 12,000 Korean employees of the USFK [United States Forces Korea, the American presence that protects South Korea under United Nations Command -- tdaxp] will be laid off and forces’ support contracts cut by 20 percent over the next two years. Campbell also suggested relocating some key military equipment reserved here for an emergency from South Korea.

…

Given that the U.S. has been telling us that even if USFK strength is cut, it will try to leave as much equipment here as possible, it is hard to believe that cost saving alone is behind the move. No: this looks more as though the alliance is beginning to slacken.

The government must think carefully about the consequences, in terms of both responsibility and money, of advocating its “cooperative independent defense” and Korea’s much vaunted new role as a stabilizer in Northeast Asia.

even if it means something as serious as this

The U.S. has unofficially informed Korea’s military authorities that it plans to scrap the War Reserve Stocks for Allies (WRSA) — pre-positioned military supplies for use by Korea in times of emergency. But the Korean government and military say rather than destroy the stocks or ship them back to the U.S., Washington will ask Seoul to buy them.

That said, this is serious. This is a much, much, much greater rift than between Europe and America after the Iraq War. This is Korea saying it wants to shift sides, and America letting it. This is the greatest diplomatic gamble South Korea has ever taken and the greatest set-back for the Bush Amdministration, ever.

“Wesley Clark Conference Call,” by Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 4 April 2005, http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/wesley-clark-conference-call-wesley.html.

Earlier I blogged that the Democratic Underground’s hatred for Hillary is reason enough to vote for her. Well, Juan Cole has joined the Leftists-Against-Hillary-Who-Are-So-Embarrasing-They-Make-You-Want-To-Vote-For-her Conspiracy

If the Democratic Party has any sense, it will indeed go for someone like Clark (who you could imagine winning Arkansas and West Virginia against the Republican candidate) in 2008. If the Dems go for Hilary or someone else with that profile, the red/blue split will look in 2008 exactly as it did in 2004, barring some huge disaster that befalls the Bush administration in the meantime. Plus Hilary has started giving that disgusting standard AIPAC stump speach that Fritz Hollings told us is distributed to you as soon as you get elected to Congress. Now that AIPAC is under investigation for espionage for the Likud Party, maybe someone in the US political establishment can finally start standing up to them and pointing out that what’s good for Likud isn’t necessarily good for Peoria (or even for Israel, more to the point)

Now, to win Hillary Should have a Right balance on the ticket — someone who can calm conservative fears while she wins over the nation with her hawkishness… Clinton / Thune 2008?

“Sponsorship scandal,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Canada_sponsorship_scandal.

“Spotlight Falls on Groupaction,” by Tu Thanh Ha, Globe and Mail, 28 March 2005.

Finally, I know what the heck is going on. “Canada’s Watergate is unfolding, apparently, the blogs are charging, and it seems to be a public work scandal. Can’t the Great White North have a real scandal? You know, like accidentally invading an oil-rich despotism or familiar relations with an intern or something?

If Paul Martin isn’t Canada’s Nixon….
Then Why is the Globe and Mail story written by Tu Thanh Ha?!?

Anyway, the story out: The Liberals are Canada‘s Democrats, but crazier. Ever since the Conservative (Canadian Republican) and Quebecois (Canadian French) alliance fell apart in the early ’90s, the Liberals have been runnign the show.

Tu Thanh Ha (Presumably, the Aforementioned Reporter)
Not Actually Implicated in Scandal, but Quite Attractive

Mid-90s, the Canadian French realize they don’t like living in America, Jr. and try to leave. They lose the freedom election very, very narrowly. The Liberal Canadian government decides what the Quebecquackers need is propoganda, and begin a massive PR campaign to convince the French they really like living in a former British colony.

Canadian Frechman,
Not Being Subject to Criminally Ineffective Propaganda

A lot of this PR money is sent to a company called Groupaction. In a series of murky deals, a lot less money goes out than comes in. A lot of money is spent on farm shows and other worthless campaigns.

Turns out, Groupaction was getting away with it by sending money back to the Liberal Party in illegal bribes kickbacks side-payments. And maybe to the mob.

Because of the fact it involves advertising scams, it’s called adscam. Get it? Ad-Scam. Har har.

To make it more fun, no one won the last election. The Conservative Party, Liberal Party, and Bloc Quebecois (Angry Frenchman Party) split the Parliament, with no one winning a majority. As the first-loser Liberals apparently are all crooks, this may hurt them.

The sad part is that this shouldn’t be happening. Quebec has no business being in Canada. British Columbia has no business being in Canada. The Domion is an artificial state created by the business to contain America. The sooner it falls apart, the better to Canadians, North America, and the World.

“Home-schooled students want part in public school activities,” by Claudette Riley, Tennessean, 4 April 2005, http://tennessean.com/education/archives/05/03/67794851.shtml?Element_ID=67794851.

“Education Is Not a Menu,” by MichiganVote, Democratic Underground, 4 April 2005, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1366125&mesg_id=1366185.

Tennessee is pondering allowing home-scholars to particpated in extra-curricular (non academic) activities)

Families who don’t want their children attending public schools do want them to be able to play on public school sports teams.

The Tennessee Home Education Association is backing legislation that would allow students who are taught at home — and those in small private schools — to play high school sports and participate in such extracurricular activities as art, drama and music in public schools.

”It’s about equal access,” said Mike Bell, a THEA lobbyist who teaches his kids at home. ”This is about giving all Tennessee children equal access to publicly funded facilities and activities.”

Accidentally, a DU poster makes an insightful comment

Education is not a menu. Arts and Music are courses that students receive a grade on. If homeschoolers take part in these items in a school system, they must become part of the head count. The problem in the idea of home schoolers taking part in alacart’ education is that it then opens the door to private school students also saying, ‘hey, I want to take Art or Music at this public facility as opposed to my private school which spends all its money on religion or some other program. PE is a course that is also required in most HS curricula. In some cases private school or home school parents want their kids to have band but then they don’t want to abide by the requirements.

Great point. Why is education not a menu?

I took college classes in high school. I received high-school credit for them. But why limit it there?

Apprenticing at an auto-shop would give tech students a better education than a shop class. Apprenticing at a local theatre is more useful than taking a theatre class. What is the purpose of bundling mathematics, music, and football in a take-it-or-leave-it deal? If a student can learn mathematics from an online university across the sea, A/V from a local ad agency, and baseball from a local high school, why not let him?

Why keep centralized, socialist, archaic, and failed public secondary schools when the international market offers so much more?

“Traducianism,” Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912 edition, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15014a.htm.

No, not that kind

Traducianism (tradux, a shoot or sprout, and more specifically a vine branch made to take root so as to propagate the vine), in general the doctrine that, in the process of generation, the human spiritual soul is transmitted to the offspring by the parents. When a distinction is made between the terms Traducianism and Generationism, the former denotes the materialistic doctrine of the transmission of the soul by the organic process of generation, while the latter applies to the doctrine according to which the soul of the offspring originates from the parental soul in some mysterious way analogous to that in which the organism originates from the parent’s organism. Traducianism is opposed to Creationism or the doctrine that every soul is created by God. Both, however, against Emanationism and Evolutionism (q.v.) admit that the first human soul originated by creation. They differ only as to the mode of origin of subsequent souls.

In the early centuries of the Christian Church, the Fathers who touch upon this question defend the immediate creation of the soul. Tertullian, Apollinaris, and a few other heretics advocate Traducianism, but the testimony of Saint Jerome (Epist. cxxvi, 1) that “the majority of Oriental writers think that, as the body is born of the body, so the soul is born of the soul” seems exaggerated, as no other writer of prominence is found to advocate Generationism as certain. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Macarius, Rufinus, Nemesius, although their views on this point are not always clear, seem to prefer Generationism. After the rise of Pelagianism, some Fathers hesitate between Generationism and Creationism, thinking that the former offers a better, if not the only, explanation of the transmission of original sin. Among them Saint Augustine is the most important. Creationism is held as certain by the Scholastics, with the exception of Hugh of Saint Victor and Alexander of Hales, who propose it merely as more probable. In recent times Generationism has been rejected by all Catholic theologians. Exceptions are Froschammer who defends Generationism and gives to the generation of the soul from the parents the name of secondary creation; Klee and Ubaghs who leave the question undecided; Hermes who favours Generationism; Gravina who advocates it — and Rosmini who asserts that the sensitive soul is generated by the parents, and becomes spiritual when God illuminates it and manifests to it the idea of being which is the foundation of the whole intellectual life.

…

Among the errors which the Armenians must reject, Benedict XII mentions the doctrine that the soul originates from the soul of the father (Denzinger, 533). Hence, although there are no strict definitions condemning Generationism as heretical, it is certainly opposed to the doctrine of the Church, and could not be held without temerity.

When fundementalists insist that only their Young Earth dreams are “Christian,” or scientists read without understanding, it highlights a failing in American culture. For thousands of years the Catholic Church has undertaken serious discussion on the origin of reality, the origin of humanity, and the origin of souls. The Church has an ancient intellectual tradition that marries the faith with other ways of knowing.

Life is more complex than science v. religion. Or anything versus religion.

We wait for a Conclave to chose the next Holy Father. The next Pope will deal with economics, oppression in China, the doctrines, and many other issues. But the next Pope will also be another link in a great chain. The Holy See was there to see the creation of the Byzantine Senate, the creation of the Byzantine Empire, the fall of the Roman Empire, the dissolution of the Roman Senate, the creation of the Caliphate, the creation of the Holy Roman Empire, the dissolution of the Byzantine Senate, the creation of the Ottoman Empire, the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the dissolution of the Caliphate, the the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The Holy See was here before us. It will be here after us.

Editor’s Note: This started out as a humor post, but gets more serious near the end. -tdaxp

Maybe it’s blogophlia, maybe it’s Canuckophobia, maybe it’s realizing that a post as dry as

A political scandal involving the Public Works Ministry, a government effort called the Sponsorship Program, and allegations of corruption in the ruling Liberal Party has Canada abuzz with rumors of payoffs, Mob ties, and snap elections. For the last two years, Canadian politics has been gripped by the so-called “sponsorship scandal” – tens of millions of dollars in government contracts which were funneled into advertizing firms closely connected with the Liberal government for little or no work, but with shadowy rumours that much of the money found its way back into Liberal coffers. Prime Minister Paul Martin, himself a Liberal, appointed the Gomery Commission to investigate these charges and determine whether to bring charges against government officials for corruption and malfeasance. (See the blog Small Dead Animals for some excellent background on the case.)

…

Brault said he met with Jean Carle, a key aide to then Prime Minister Jean Chretien to propose a more direct way of ensuring that Groupaction got a large share of federal advertising dollars in Quebec. Carle referred Brault to federal bureaucrat Charles (“Chuck”) Guité and told him that “there was room for everybody.” Guité later put together the sponsorship program, in which five Liberal connected firms — including Groupaction — were guaranteed a monopoly on government “sponsorship” advertising (e.g. federal
advertising at sporting or cultural events) and related work. The sponsorship program eventually became a huge slush fund into which over $250 million was poured, over $100 million of which was paid in fees and commissions to these five advertising firms, with little or any evidence of work done or value for money.

In exchange for these large contracts for little or no work, Brault kicked back generously to the Liberal Party, putting Liberal organizers on his payroll while they continued to perform party work (including, at one point, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s brother, Gaby Chrétien), paying invoices to other companies for work actually done for the Liberal Party, and giving large donations — in cash — to the Liberal Party through Renaud or Liberal Party organizer (and close associate of Public Works Minister Alfonso Gagliano) Joe Morselli.

can lead to this

But I love when something is abuzz in Canada. Particuarly something as atrocious as a blog censorship scandal.

I guess I should say something like how this shows that British authoritarianism still lives in the Great White North, but… it’s just Canadians.

Sure Canadians allow Islamic Law, pressured Americans for free trade in Cattle, and our part of our Manifest Destiny…. but they’re Canadians, eh?

In 80 Days is following the news (HTML code shamelessly stolen):

1. Corruption Scandal Breaks Wide Open
2. Adscam Trial May End Publication Ban
3. Canadian Visitors Find CQ
4. Liberals To Request Standing At Gomery Commission For Cross-Examination

Good thing that could never happen in America.

Update: Max Power tries to change the subject

Personally, I hate how the conservatives are jumping all over this. A liberal scandal is their wet dream. So I’d just like to say, for the record, that I know two conservatives (elected) that have eaten babies. Sure, the liberals may have spent 1 billion on whatever, but at least they don’t eat babies.

Baby-Eating (Infantophagia) is a Popular, but Taboo, Hobby in
the Canucki People’s Republic

Update 2: Slashdot picks up the story. Apparently this “Adscam” is Canada’s Watergate. I still don’t care.

Canada is not a nation. It should not exist as a state. It is an artificial state created by the British to contain America after the Civil War. It is a normally harmless monstrosity guaranteed to create maximal misery for British Columbian, Canadian, and Quebecois citizens. Canada should end.