Christopher Hitchens saw fit to defend George Bush’s war in Iraq when it was declared. It made no sense then, and it makes no sense now. Hitch has since, like so many journalists who actually want to be read, and therefore, paid, turned tail on Dubya faster than you can say “blood in the water”.

Indeed, it seems he’s actually got his shit together and become a smart writer again, rather than a mere contrarian. His latest rant on the financial meltdown is a good example. In it, he argues quite convincingly that the rot goes far deeper than the financial system.

Remember the scene at the end of Peter Pan, where the children are told that, if they don’t shout out aloud that they all believe in fairies, then Tinker Bell’s gonna fucking die? That’s what the fall of 2008 was like, and quite a fall it was, at that.

And before we leave the theme of falls and collapses, I hope you read the findings of the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration that followed the plunge of Interstate 35W in Minneapolis into the Mississippi River last August. Sixteen states, after inspecting their own bridges, were compelled to close some, lower the weight limits of others, and make emergency repairs. Of the nation’s 600,000 bridges, 12 percent were found to be structurally deficient. This is an almost perfect metaphor for Third World conditions: a money class fleeces the banking system while the very trunk of the national tree is permitted to rot and crash.

…

Has anybody resigned, from either the public or the private sectors (overlapping so lavishly as they now do)? Has anybody even offered to resign? Have you heard anybody in authority apologize, as in: “So very sorry about your savings and pensions and homes and college funds, and I feel personally rotten about it”? Have you even heard the question being posed? O.K., then, has anybody been fired? Any regulator, any supervisor, any runaway would-be golden-parachute artist? Anyone responsible for smugly putting the word “derivative” like a virus into the system? To ask the question is to answer it. The most you can say is that some people have had to take a slightly early retirement, but a retirement very much sweetened by the wherewithal on which to retire. That doesn’t quite count. These are the rules that apply in Zimbabwe or Equatorial Guinea or Venezuela, where the political big boys mimic what is said about our hedge funds and investment banks: the stupid mantra about being “too big to fail.”

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Eminem has turned into the JD Salinger of mall hip-hop, but apparently he’s been busy lately. Straight from his compound, here’s the latest…and hell, it’s not bad!

LISTEN

One hell of a baritone

Levi Stubbs, lead singer of legendary Motown band The Four Tops, has died at his home in Detroit, US, aged 72.

The performer, who had suffered ill-health for several years, passed away in his sleep.

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This is what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had to say about yesterday’s result:

Harper had called elections early in hopes of getting his party a majority, but the Conservatives sought to put a good face on the results, pointing to their increased number of seats.

“Every other incumbent government in the Western world is in serious political trouble with the economic situation,” Conservative legislator Jason Kenney said. “Ours is probably the only one that could be re-elected — let alone with an increased mandate.”

Two things are nice to note here: first, the paper mentions specifically that Harper called elections to get a majority, which means he failed and wasted the country’s time and money in the process; second, despite Kenney’s comment - which I haven’t fact-checked in any way, but it sounds fishy - the fact is that this result was very clearly an indictment of Stephane Dion, who is a good man but quite clearly not leadership material.

In other words, if Harper couldn’t win a majority yesterday against a lame duck leader, and in shaky economic times that tend to favour Conservatives (despite, paradoxically, their historically very poor economic stewardship) Harper can’t win a majority period.

Stephane Dion is not the only national leader who should be looking for work soon. Quite simply, Harper has had enough chances to prove that he’s NFG, and the country is tired of going to the polls to prove that point over and over again. Stephen Harper is basically Joe Clark without the charm and nice hair.

They can spin it all they want, but Harper called this election to get a majority, and he should have done it in a walk, but he didn’t. Why? Because he sucks.

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Damn.

FOR 25 weeks in 2004, I’m Still in Love by deejay Sean Paul and singer Sasha sat in the Billboard Hot 100 pop charts. The song peaked at number 14 and was another hit from Sean Paul’s Dutty Rock album, but it also gave the man who did the original version his first ‘taste’ of American success.

That man, singer Alton Ellis, died Friday at the Hammersmith Hospital in London, 10 months after he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. He was 70 years old.

Ellis was at the peak of his powers in 1967 when he cut I’m Still in Love for producer Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd at Studio One. It was one of many hits he recorded during that decade, which earned him the undisputed title of ‘Godfather of Rocksteady’.

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One of the few economists I can actually understand, let alone agree with…

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) — Princeton University professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on trade theory.

Krugman, 55, received the prize “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity,” said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which selects the winners. His work explained how economies of scale influence trade and urbanization.

“It’s a total surprise,” Krugman said in a telephone interview.

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This is from Nerfgun. I love it when the Internet moves this fast.

Support that one!

Plus, buy that merch!

Eeeesh. For the love of Jesus, somebody throw the man some mackerel and let him govern!

Update: Was I being uncharitable? Let’s watch the tape:

The CRTC will tomorrow start its do not call list, which should theoretically allow people to ban telemarketers from invading their homes with offers of free cruises, discounts on window installations and, of course, vote solicitations. 64% of Canadians say they will join the no-call list, which is another way of saying that 36% of citizens have yet to hear about it.

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Too funny…see if you get the giant CNN ad beside the story. Go here and see if you get the giant CNN roadblock about the event of the century that…um, might not be happening.

The weird thing is, he says he can’t debate because he has to go and deal with all this financial stuff in Washington. But, like, isn’t the President already dealing with it?

I think it’s more likely that he’s trying to get Palin up to speed on the foreign policy stuff. I’ve acquired a leaked transcript of one of these debriefings.

McCain: Well, Sarah, Grenada is pronounced a bit like like “grenade” and it’s hot there. Grenades explode, and explosions are hot, So, Grenada, hot. Canada is different is pronounced a bit like cannibal and it starts with a C, like “cold”. Canada, cold.

Palin: I can see cannibal from my window!

McCain: Canada…you can see Canada.