Canadians are agitating to annex the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. Yes, the Canadians are seeking a warm-water port:
“In the long term, what is so absolutely vital for Canada is to expand our sphere of influence,” says Conservative MP Peter Goldring, a driving force behind the Turks and Caicos movement.
Canadians seeking Lebensraum? Wait a minute…
“We had a sphere of influence in the Caribbean 100 years ago. Canada was a major shipper and transporter to the Caribbean from the Maritime provinces. We have lost that direct Maritime link with the Caribbean.”
Goldring has organized an all-party committee of Parliamentarians as well as a group of business leaders to lay the groundwork for a possible union between Canada and the Caribbean Island.
“I'd like it to be the 11th province,” Goldring says.
“It would be a Canadian province at the gateway to the Caribbean.”
Of course, being nice Canadians, they don't call it “annexing” but use words like “union” or “merger” or “free association” and even “overseas territory,” while contemplating “400 kilometres of white beaches and 800 kilometres of virgin reef for divers and snorkellers.” Plus temperatures that stay in double digits year round. Even in Centigrade.
If this “merger” happens would it signal a reversal of the trend towards increased devolution and the creation of micro-states? Could this start a trend?
And, how would the US react to being flanked by Canada?
The Mirror of Justice continues to be an interesting blog. Take for example, Mark Sargent, The Church's Lawyers, discussing the moral and ethical duties of the principals and the lawyers defending the Catholic church against what proved to be a plethora of justified charges of priestly abuse.
According to my brother’s latest column, the blue-ribbon panel that is supposed to study intelligence prior to the Iraq war (albeit without subpoena power…) is not breaking any land speed records: “Five weeks after being appointed, the group has not met, and it is unclear when it will.”
How very convenient for the Administration. No meetings, no fuss about the committee’s authority. And no leaks.
My increasingly famous brother—people keep stopping me to ask if we are related—will host another session of washingtonpost.com – Live Online this afternoon at 1 p.m.
For what little it's worth, almost all the early US commentary on the Spanish elections seem about 98% mistaken to me. As far as I can tell, the moral of the story has nothing to do with strength or weakness, appeasement or terror, and relatively little to do with the costs of being GW Bush's (or the US's) friend and ally. It even has relatively little to do, alas, with the political costs of entering precipitously into wars of choice.
No, the moral of the story is this: voters don't like to be lied to, and in politics the coverup often costs more than the crime. The Spanish voters decided, apparently correctly, that their government had lied to them when it blamed ETA, local terrorists, for an act of barbarism committed by al Qaeda, foreign terrorists.
Which means that the 2% of recent commentary I agree with is the part that says this is bad for Bush: as the Bush lies like a rug meme gathers steam (the latest outrage about muzzling Richard S. Foster, Medicare's favorite actuary — only reinforces it), the idea that the US voters will punish Bush for lying, like the Spanish voters punished José María Aznar will begin to take hold.
Update: Seems like someone agrees.
Update (2): More agreement.
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