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Foreign Intelligence Brief #344: On Casting Hobbits & Aspersions

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by Andrew Morrison | It’s been nine years, and the Taliban still don’t respect our observance of Remembrance Day. Forget nation building, let’s try providing these “dead enders” with a rudimentary grasp of manners…

Sadly, our PM isn’t much of a role model in this regard, as he won’t be asking our permission to extend the Canadian “training mission” there for another four years. Hopefully he’ll have us teaching the Afghan people the fine art of the deal, because according to a new poll…

Some 83 per cent of Afghan adults back efforts to secure the country through negotiations with armed, anti-government groups […] That’s up from 71 per cent last year.

At the very least, it remains a photogenic war. Perhaps there’s a good movie on the horizon. Maybe Sophia Coppola digs wearing burqas (my vote is for Bill Murray to play Hamid Karzai).

Speaking of film, The Hobbit is slated to start filming in New Zealand this January, and director Peter Jackson has set much of the cast, including the main character. if you haven’t already, meet the new Bilbo Baggins.

Also in Middle Earth, the nation of Myanmar (from the ancient Burmese word that roughly translates as “poorly run government”) has finally freed dissident Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. I’ll wager 100 kyats that she’ll be back in Mordor in less than six months for once again speaking out against the Big Hat Junta.

And just to make it interesting, I’ll bet an additional $3 (US) that Sarah Palin will find a way – however inappropriately – to publicly compare herself to Suu Kyi in less than 72 hours. If Andy Serkis wasn’t available, she’d make a rather precious Gollum herself. Failing that, she’d ace the role of Smaug the Dragon.

With Palin’s GOP/Tea Party troll gains in the American HoR, climate scientests brace for new and lofty levels of stupidity (“one Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them”).

Similarly, Glenn Beck is still an idiot. So is George W. Bush, but more in a charming, Grade 11 “my Daddy will pay you to do my homework” kind of way. I love this line:

When Crown Publishing inked a deal with George W. Bush for his memoirs, the publisher knew it wasn’t getting Faulkner. [my italics]

And speaking of dumb, here’s a well written argument against eating pigs. My one word winning counter-argument? Bacon.

Lastly, the UN can’t afford to stop the horrifying cholera epidemic that is currently gripping Haiti. The infectious disease (with what appears to have a 10% mortality rate) is expected to waylay some 200,000 people over the next year. Says one morgue worker, “I ask myself how bad it’s going to get. But only Jesus and the disease can answer that”. What is Jesus up to, anyway? Hopefully not listening to Pat Robertson.

Enter first world distraction. Is Dancing With The Stars on? No? What about Quentin Tarantino explaining the homo-erotic plot line of the film Top Gun? Phew!

There are 2 comments

  1. On pigs versus dogs:

    Some 15 years ago I read a study on the intelligence of animals which concluded that most pigs are smarter than most dogs (certain high-intelligence dog breeds excluded). This despite the fact that dogs have been bred for skill and character while pigs — with the exception of certain truffle-hunting types — have generally been selected for size and taste. I resolved to cut pork out of my diet. I did pretty good at it for many years, and now generally find it unappetizing. I will not eat most pork products when given a choice, although I will if served at someone else’s house.

    But my moral resolve ultimately failed due to *two* words: back bacon. No, not the 50%-lard side bacon that Andrew Morrison seems to think is a convincing argument. I have no trouble turning up my nose at that. But sweet and salty, cornmeal-crusted, savoury Canadian bacon is something I cannot resist.

    (Side note: Why is it so hard to find back bacon in B.C. ? I was amazed and delighted to find a display case full of back bacon and my local grocery store a few weeks back. Sure, it was shrink-wrapped Schneider’s brand, but I grabbed a big chunk. This was the first time I’d seen it in a grocery store in 2+ years since I moved here! How can you claim to be part of Canada when you don’t eat Canadian bacon?)

    For a more reasoned argument in favour of eating pigs, chicken, and cows (aka, an explanation of how I morally rationalize my delight in back bacon and other tasty pieces of flesh):

    These animals are bred, fed and housed for human consumption. If we didn’t eat them, they wouldn’t exist. Are you really saying it is better for that creature never to have lived at all, then to live and then die for our benefit? Does the fact that you will one day die make you wish you had never been born?

    I’m all for campaigns to encourage better treatment of meat-animals while they are alive, and quicker and less painful ways of killing them. But the only argument that is persuasive for not letting them live at all, is that the food we feed our livestock could be better used feeding hungry human beings. And isn’t that just back where we started, at a human-centric world view?

    (And before anyone asks, for fish and wild game, it comes down to a question of whether the harvest is ecologically sustainable. If the population is steady, then the animals being killed for human consumption are merely making room for other animals, which would have died due to starvation, or lack of habitat, or would have been unable to reproduce. Again, how is it worse to kill and then eat them as opposed to just letting them die other ways?)

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