Reading the news, I was struck by the bald-faced denial evident in our president’s words. “I am not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete,” said Bush. “We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren.”

Any thinking person has to ask, “What is the mission? How do you define victory? Just yesterday, I was reading Juan Cole’s excellent blog, and he was hammering this point.

What is the military mission? I can’t see a practical one. And if there is not a military mission that can reasonably be accomplished in a specified period of time, then keeping US troops in al-Anbar is a sort of murder. Because you know when they go out on patrol, a few of them each week are going to get blown up or shot down. Reliably. Each week. Steadily. It is monstrous to force them to play Russian roulette every day unless there is a clear mission that could thereby be accomplished. There is not.

Bush seems to be further distancing himself from reality every day. Even the centrist-by-design Iraq Study Group may be too radical for him. The strange thing to me is that he is supposedly trying to rescue his legacy in his final two years. How can he think digging in his heels like this will help in that regard?

From the Associated Press:

BOISE, Idaho — Two employees have been fired from the city’s ice skating rink after making a midnight fast-food run — in a pair of Zambonis.

The ice-groomer jockeys, both temporary city employees whose names and ages weren’t released by Boise Parks and Recreation, had to negotiate at least one intersection with a traffic light on their late-night creep from Idaho Ice World.

Read the whole story in the Seattle Times.

The Winter Hawks are (not surprisingly) struggling through their eastern swing to Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Things got started with a 7-0 thumping in Regina, Saskatchewan, by the middle-of-pack, third-place Patriots. Sure, the Hawks were just coming off a 24 hour bus trip after a home loss to arch-rival Seattle. The Western Conference in general and the US Division in particular are weak this year (with the exceptions of Everett and Vancouver), and Portland is bottom of the pack. One Regina fan commented on the Network54 WHL forum that Portland was the worst team they’d seen through Regina in a long time. Big, dumb, slow and soft were words used to describe the Hawks. (I’ve long complained that the Hawks seem to really go for size over speed and skill, and I’m evidently not the only one to have noticed. It’s really hurting us now with the new zero-tolerance standards in the WHL.)

Next, the Hawks squeaked out a 4-3 win over East Division cellar dwellers Moose Jaw (Saskatchewan). Then came another thumpin’ (6-2) from first-place Brandon (Manitoba), and then a 3-0 shutout from a Saskatoon (Saskatchewan), a team with a similar record to Portland. The prairie has not been good to our left coast boys. (Seriously though, a lot of these guys are from the prairie, and the annual eastern swing gives their families a rare chance to see them play.)

The Hawks wrap up the trip with back-to-back games against second-place Prince Albert (Saskatchewan) and fifth-place Swift Current (Saskatchewan). Here’s hoping they pull off at least one win (Swift Current is doable) before the long bus ride back to P-town, where the boys face the the juggernaut of reigning WHL champs Vancouver this Saturday night.

So yesterday I’m going for a cuppa joe with my cubie neighbor, and he mentions that he and the clan went to Disney on Ice the night before. I called the wife, and before I knew it we had tickets for last night’s show (half price thanks to the Entertainment book). The kids, they loved it. Well, “love” may not be the correct word. They were a bit overwhelmed, I think. Little guy, who was dumbfounded throughout the show, finally broke his silence on the way home. “I will always remember this day,” he said.

The show, Disneyland Adventure Featuring the Incredibles, was (predictably) long on tech and short on literary value. The whole “On Ice” genre is a little weird to me to begin with. There’s always this sense of forcing together elements that really don’t belong together. At a basic level, there’s some really good skating, but the kids don’t care about that. Nobody cheered for the double and triple jumps these guys and gals were landing in costume in the midst of props and lights and smoke. Then there’s the awkward attempt at retelling part of the movie. The outline of the script could be done in 25 words or less. Most dialog serves only to setup the next action sequence. There is no irony, no appeal to grown-up humor, and no subtlety whatsoever. Just a ton of flash and sizzle. But that’s all I expected, really, having once before experienced Toy Story 2 On Ice.

Anyway, here’s a late Thursday Thirteen, which I will call Thirteen Things About Disney on Ice:

1. Disney on Ice is produced under license by Feld Entertainment.

2. Feld Entertainment got their start in the circus, as owners of Ringling Bros.

3. In 1979, Feld bought the Ice Follies and Holiday on Ice.

4. In 1981, Feld produced the first Disney on Ice show, and has held the exclusive license for Disney on Ice shows ever since.

5. Feld Entertainment employs 450 professional skaters in 8 shows touring continuously world-wide.

6. Who are these skaters? Good question… In the early days, they employed well-known Olympic skaters, but today you won’t find the names of the skaters anywhere. Not on programs and not on Web sites. I did find this one interview with a member of the chorus ensemble of Toy Story 2 On Ice. She’s been doing the same show for four years. Sheesh. What a grind that must be.

7. After all these years, and with all that crazy, overwhelming tech (lights! sound! pyrotechnics!), it still comes down to the pinwheel. In this show, it was performed by “robot copy” Syndrome’s army. During this, I leaned over to Wacky Mommy and whispered “Oglethorpe fucked her, you know.” She said “Huh?” “It’s true,” I said, “I heard it from a couple of guys. Ogilthorpe fucked the last girl on the pinwheel of the lce Stravaganza. That’s her, right there.” Then I yelled towards the ice, “Get yer butt in gear, for the love of Mike!” (I recorded the whole thing on my cell phone! No, seriously, if you don’t get the Slap Shot reference, you probably think I’m a real a-hole.)

8. If you want to skate with the anonymous hordes of Disney on Ice performers, you need to be 17 and have a high school diploma.

9. If you can’t skate, Feld may have an opportunity for you in Animal Care. You don’t need a diploma for this one. One area of responsibility is “manure pickup”.

10. If animal poop is a turn off, you may prefer the Circus Nursery Attendant position. One of the duties of this job is “Directs children in resting and toileting.” But you get to run away with the circus.

11. Disney on Ice has been performed in 45 countries on six continents.

12. Feld Entertainment is the single largest employer of figure skaters in the world.

13. “Well after that, we don’t have to go to Disneyland,” said Wacky Mommy on the train ride home. “Yes we do!” cried little miss missy. Damn it! Stupid sexy advertising!

Since I’ve become an amateur t-shirt designer in an attempt to support this site, I’ve learned a lot. One of the interesting
things is where antiwar hockey fans live. I’ve sold gear to folks where you might expect to find lefty hockey fans, places like Ontario, Oregon, California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But I’ve sold even more in Virginia, Ohio, Kansas (!), North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Florida and Arizona. I’ve even sold a sticker to somebody in Hawaii.

One of the oddest lessons I’ve learned is that you never know what people are going to like. I’ve developed several designs over the last couple months, with these two tossed off just to try to hit on a theme:

The general idea being a star as the center of a distressed design. I had an old Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax t-shirt that I really liked, that was yellow with a blue star on the front, and I kind of wanted to hit on that.

The trouble was, the blue turns green against the yellow fabric with Cafe press’ dye sublimation process, and I didn’t want to mess around trying to get the color right. So I pretty much just left the design up there out of laziness. The “Pass. Shoot. Score!” shirt was another experiment using the star as a central theme, but I thought the design was too busy. But again, I just left it out there. Now, suddenly, both of these designs are selling like hot cakes. WTF?!? I was seriously going to pull both of them, and they’re both outselling any of my other, more refined designs. Both of these designs have been in the top five when you search on “hockey” at Cafe Press over the last few days (the “pass shoot score” design has recently fallen some, but it’s still on the first page of results).

There’s one design I haven’t sold any of yet, that’s specific to Oregon, Washington, BC and Alberta. The front says “Left Coast Hockey” and on the back, superimposed over the red star (I like stars!), are the cities of the Western Hockey League’s Western Conference:

I bought one for myself, and I plan on wearing it to a Winter Hawks game one of these nights.

Anyway, thank you to all who have bought my designs on Cafe Press. And don’t forget, if there is any issue with quality, please take advantage of the Cafe Press satisfaction guarantee. They like to fix things.

Many Thursday Thirteen regulars may have the impression of me that I’m just one of those Demon-cratic, Bush-hating Lie-berals, just waiting for my party to come back so we can push our agenda of gay marriage, gun control and high taxes. Well, it may come as a surprise, then, to discover that I can be as critical of the Democrats as I am of Republicans. So in the spirit of fairness, here are Thirteen Things the Democrats Should Remember (But Will Probably Forget):

1. It’s the economy, stupid. Thirty years of neoliberal rule has skewed the distribution of wealth dramatically to the richest 2% in this country. The middle class is shrinking, the working class is now the working poor, everybody’s in debt up to their eyeballs or beyond, and everybody’s working longer hours for less pay (when adjusted for inflation) than three decades ago. We’re at a point now, for the first time in American history, where we can’t realistically expect our children to be more prosperous than us. Raising the minimum wage is a nice gesture, but it doesn’t address the fundamentals of neoliberal fiscal policy championed by every president since Carter and “free trade” championed by every president since Bush I. Being in hock to China is more a threat to our fundamental security than “terrorists”.

2. We won’t solve our health care crisis without a single payer system. But don’t expect Democrats to push for single payer. It’s anathema to the insurance lobby. (Remember Hillary’s debacle? She took single payer off the table before she even got started.)

3. We can’t have a stable Middle East without a solution to the Palestinian crisis. Bush’s refusal to deal with the Palestinian Authority has been shameful, but can we expect the Democrats to defy the Israel lobby? History says “NO!”

4. War is not an energy policy. Don’t look now, but history tells us the Democrats were bombing the fuck out of Iraq before the Republican’s invaded (with the explicit support of the Democrats).

5. War is not an anti-terror strategy. See #4. Which Democrats opposed bombing Afghanistan? That’s right, none. And boy, that policy sure has helped reduce terrorism (not!). A country reduced to rubble. Osama bin Laden still at large. Mullah Omar still at large. The Taliban resurgent. Women still oppressed. Apostates sentenced to death. Hey, I’ve got an idea, why don’t we go bomb Somalia next?

6. There is no war on terror. Quit repeating Republican talking points and dumping money down the military-industrial rathole. Shine a light on the real security issue: the economy.

7. Ceding issues to the opposition is not a winning strategy in the long term. Sure, you took the house by running a bunch of conservatives in Democratic clothing. But when the party becomes (became?) nothing but a weak echo of the Republican party, or even the “true” conservative party (vs. the neoconservative Bush Republicans), where does that leave liberals and progressives? Isn’t this akin to destroying a village in order to save it?

8. Hillary can’t win the presidency. Neither can Obama. Get over it.

9. At some point, you won’t have George W. Bush handing you elections. You better come up with a winning strategy, and fast. See #7.

10. You voted for war in Iraq. You knew as well as me that the intelligence was bunk. You voted for it anyway. You can’t pretend now that you had nothing to do with that mess. Own it.

11. We won’t have real democracy until we take corporate money out of our elections. Put that in your K Street pipe and smoke it.

12. One midterm victory does not spell the end of the Rovian one-party state. Don’t think for a minute that the Karl Rove and his gang have given up on their vision of total control. Those traditionally Republican house seats you just won? They will just as likely tip back the other way in two years.

13. You can’t turn your back on progressives. Remember us? The ones who believe in health care as a right, living wages and civil rights? We’re not going away. In fact, the economic policy of the last three decades is swelling our ranks. Your shift to the center-right makes us more likely to vote for third-party spoilers. Don’t blame Ralph Nader when he’s the only one talking about the issues we care about. Look in the mirror. Steal his thunder and you’ll get our attention back.

It sure is tempting to gloat this morning about a Democratic victory at the polls. I haven’t been registered as a Democrat since ’84, and I’ve been very critical of the party’s rightward drift in the neoliberal era. Sure, I’m happy that maybe we’ll get some opposition in Congress.

But look more closely, and you’ll see not so much a Democratic victory as a Republican defeat. The Democrats are united only in opposition to Bush. On social, foreign and economic policy, they are perhaps more divided than ever. It is worth celebrating the Republican defeat, but don’t get too excited about Democratic victory. Their grip on Congress hinges on holding seats in traditional Republican districts, and on not doing anything to piss off the red staters therein. So expect a very moderate, tentative Congress, with an eye on holding on to the red states for the ’08 presidential elections. Don’t forget, Bush war cheerleader Joe Lieberman won against a war critic. This was not a tidal wave, this was a little slap on the wrist for Bush and his arrogance. It might signal an end to Rovian red meat politics, or it might be a brief interlude in the GOP master plan for total control.

It will be nice to see some oversight, though, if only for two years.

Here in Oregon, our do-nothing Dem governor, Ted Kulongoski, was handily reelected, our senate has stayed Democratic, and it looks like the house is swinging Democratic, too. Wow. It’s going to take a while for that to sink in. Now let’s see if they’ll address the 800 pound gorilla in the room: revenue. Our tax base was severely eroded by two property tax limitation ballot measures in the 90s, and nobody’s had the political will to even talk about it since. Our schools have had to grovel for band-aid funding every couple of years (a local bond measure passed yesterday after our 3 year local income tax expired), and my daughter’s first and second grade classes have both had close to 30 students. Music, Art and PE are luxuries at the discretion of principals (we’re lucky to have a grant-funded half-time music teacher and a full-time PE teacher — but no art). Will the fully in-control Dems address this? They’re making noise about reducing class size, but I have yet to hear anything about revenue.

Speaking of Dems moving to the center, I watched some of ABC’s election coverage last night with Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. The conversations turned to implications for ’08, and Stephanopoulos held forth with the common DLC line that “Democrats win when they run from the Center”. He noted Carter, Clinton…. And his voice trailed off. He neglected to mention Gore and Kerry for some reason. So I guess you could just as easily say they lose when they run from the center. Anyway, bottom line, it was a nice little romp for the Dems, handed to them on a platter by an inept, arrogant George W. Bush and a bumbling, ethically challenged Republican Congress. But it’s looking ugly for ’08. Left to their own devices, without any favors from the other side, I expect the Dems to blow it.

A junior B hockey fight spilled off the ice last week in Calgary, turning into a free-for-all that left a linesman unconcious after taking a kick to the head. All players and coaches from both teams were suspended indefinitely. Today, the league, Hockey Calgary, announced it was suspending two players for two years and one parent for one year from attending any junior hockey events in the city. A 21 year old spectator was charged with assault.

Repeat after me: It’s only a game.

Our two local Junior B teams provide a full slate of fights when they play, thanks to their respective dominance (Ft. Vancouver Pioneers) and fecklessness (River City Jaguars). When games get lopsided, the gloves come off. The Jaguars are 0 and 13 this year, so you know they’re frustrated. Especially when they’re on the receiving end of 16-2 thrasings. The Pioneers, on the other hand, lead the conference with a 12 and 2 record. Not much to build a cross-town rivalry on, so I’ve pretty much stayed away from the local Junior B scene this year.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Thursday Thirteen list, and even longer since I’ve written about anything but hockey here. (And there’s been some damn good hockey so far this season!) But this being election season, I am bound to get into politics again sooner or later. So why not start with Thirteen Failures of Geo. W. Bush ?

1. Iraq. Wrong target, wrong reason, wrong plan. Now we find ourselves backing a Shi’a regime (which also enjoys the backing of our fundamentalist extremist friends in Iran). We are fully engaged in a civil war, with our troops used to prop up an Islamist regime with direct ties to unlawful militias and death squads. We’re on track to lose around 100 US service men and women this month. Nice. Way to support the troops. Thanks, George.

2. Afghanistan. We went in there to… get bin Laden? Bzzt! Failure. To defeat the Taliban? Bzzt! They’re coming back with a vengeance. Liberate women from the Burqa? Bzzt! Didn’t happen (To quote Arundhati Roy, “It’s being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas, we are being asked to believe that the U.S. marines are actually on a feminist mission. If so, will their next stop be America’s military ally Saudi Arabia?”)

3. North Korea. This will probably go down in history as his greatest failure, even bigger than Iraq. Why? Because when Bush took office, the US had a working policy, the Agreed Framework, that had successfully contained North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. This Framewok had been in place since 1994, and under it North Korea had halted all nuclear development. Bush promptly discarded the Framework, and North Korea promptly went back to the nuclear drawing board and—surprise!—produced a nuke. And Bush has the chutzpah to suggest that dialog with North Korea had failed. Wrong George! Withdrawing from the Framework is what failed!

4. Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Another brilliant example of the complete lack of realpolitik in Bush’s foreign policy. In the Bush world view, we don’t talk to our enemies, and—surprise!—they don’t do what we want them to do. Because of the Bush policy of freezing out the relatively moderate Fatah government, Fatah became completely ineffective. And they were voted out in favor of the religious fundamentalist Hamas party. Had we worked with Fatah, this could have been avoided. Really.

5. Lebanon. Again, Bush’s failure to talk to non-allies (in this case Syria and Iran) and his green light to Israel led to the near destruction of Lebanon and it’s fragile coalition government. For all its talk of promoting democracy in the Middle East, the Bush administration has all but destroyed the only two democratically elected Arab governments in the region.

6. Iran. Another case where not talking to our enemies has emboldened them.

7. Privatizing Social Security. For this failure, I am glad. Bush’s only significant domestic policy push wildly misjudged the popularity of one of the last vestiges of New Deal Social Democracy in this country.

8. 9/11. First, in not taking the specific threat seriously. Second, for completely freezing in the face of the attack. Third, for running away like a scared child instead of going back to Washington to take charge.

9. The Patriot Act. His first giant swipe at the constitution. (This is more properly thought of as a Bush success that is a failure for democracy and human rights.)

10. The Military Commissions Act of 2006. This suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus for anybody Bush arbitrarily determines to be an “enemy combatant”. One little problem: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” (US Constitution, Article 1, Section 9) I don’t see no Rebellion or Invasion here, so this law is clearly unconstitutional. This is Bush’s most flagrant power grab, and, again, a Bush success at the expense of liberty.

9. Enron, Halliburton and the culture of corporate corruption.

10. No Child Left Behind. Better to call it “No Child Left a Dime.”

11. The tumors on my dog’s ass. I don’t know how, but somehow Wacky Mommy thinks we should be able to blame Bush.

12. Global Warming. Bush refuses to submit the Kyoto protocols for ratification. The US stands alone with Australia in its refusal to ratify this treaty.

13. The loss of Congress in the ’06 mid-term elections. I’m calling this one in advance.

My favorite bumper sticker of late has a very simple, very encouraging message: “January 20, 2009”.

Portland may be looking at the cellar of the WHL’s U.S. Division in this rebuilding year, but we’ve still made somebody’s top ten list. From Terry Frei on ESPN SportsTravel:

MAJOR JUNIOR HOCKEY WITH THE PORTLAND WINTER HAWKS
Oregon, not Maine.

First, sample one of the game’s most heated rivalries, driving on Interstate 5 to catch barn-to-barn Western Hockey League games between the Winter Hawks and the Seattle Thunderbirds.

The best set this season is February 2 in Portland at the glass palace, Memorial Coliseum, which is where Cam Neely, Glen Wesley and Marian Hossa, among others, played; and where Bill Walton played when he didn’t talk at all, much less so darned much. Stick around after the game as long-time radio voice Dean “Scooter” Vrooman hosts “Hawk Talk” and visits with a Portland player on the ice, with the sound heard both in the arena and on the radio. Then catch the rematch the next night at Seattle.

Eat at Huber’s in Portland, having the turkey and the famous Spanish coffee afterwards. Dine at Ray’s Boathouse in Seattle, but be sure you allow enough time because of the gridlock traffic and take great care not to get on the Lake Washington bridge accidentally because there’s no turning back for miles.

There also is a slight chance it could be raining, so take an umbrella. And don’t let it bother you that you’re pretty much watching a bunch of Canadian teenagers playing under the Canadian Hockey League umbrella.

If you want to extend the trip, you could follow the Hawks to Kelowna, Prince George, and Kamloops, all in British Columbia.