Michael Ignatieff “explains” his abortion motion fiasco.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw7jT938pi0&feature=player_embedded]

Well done!

There are days, I swear, when the world looks very bleak. Even when the sun is shining.

Tokyo, Japan (CNN) — The game begins with a teenage girl on a subway platform. She notices you are looking at her and asks, “Can I help you with something?”

That is when you, the player, can choose your method of assault.

With the click of your mouse, you can grope her and lift her skirt. Then you can follow her aboard the train, assaulting her sister and her mother.

As you continue to play, “friends” join in and in a series of graphic, interactive scenes, you can corner the women, rape them again and again.

The game allows you to even impregnate a girl and urge her to have an abortion. The reason behind your assault, explains the game, is that the teenage girl has accused you of molesting her on the train. The motive is revenge.

It is little wonder that the game, titled RapeLay, sparked international outrage from women’s groups. Taina Bien-Aime helped yank the game off store shelves worldwide.

My first reaction was: “I sure hope it’s not just ‘women’s groups’ that are outraged, otherwise we’re doomed.” (Women’s groups being, on the whole, remarkably useless except when they’re worse.) But then I had a sip of coffee and reminded myself that maybe now we’ve reached the point where it can’t get any worse and that things are therefore bound to improve.

Is it possible, you think?

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Andrea adds: Darkness comes before the dawn.

It’s true. Men are wimps.

For those of you who’ve been following the adventures of James O’Keefe in Louisiana:

NEW ORLEANS – Federal prosecutors filed reduced charges Friday against conservative activist James O’Keefe and three others who were accused of trying to tamper with the phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office.

The new charges are contained in a bill of information, which can only be filed with a defendant’s consent and typically signals a plea deal. The new filing charges the four with entering a federal building under false pretenses, a misdemeanor. They had been arrested Jan. 25 on felony charges.

Is it me, or does this story keep getting better?

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Update: Better, and better…

FYI:

Oh to be a fly on the wall of the Liberal caucus this morning.
After tabling a motion about child and maternal health, hoping to use contraception and abortion as wedge issues on the Conservatives, the Liberals got caught in their own wedge Tuesday, losing the motion by a vote of 144 to 138.
While much of the focus was on three Liberals who voted with the Conservatives – Paul Szabo, John McKay and Dan McTeague – a bigger factor in the vote was perhaps how many Liberals didn’t show up for the vote.
While the House of Commons journals recounts who voted it doesn’t name the no shows.
While all parties had missing MPs who weren’t paired, the Liberals were missing far more than anyone else, 13 out of 77 MPs – or roughly one out of every six members of their caucus. Either a particularly virulent strain of flu is ravaging Liberal ranks at the moment or some Liberals decided to duck the vote.

Here’s who missed the vote in alphabetical order:

Angus, Charlie – NDP
Calkins, Blaine – Conservative
Dion, Stéphane – Liberal
Guarnieri, Albina – Liberal
Hughes, Carol – NDP
Jennings, Marlene – Liberal
Kania, Andrew – Liberal
Karygiannis, Jim – Liberal
Kennedy, Gerard – Liberal
Kent, Peter – Conservative
Lee, Derek – Liberal
MacAulay, Lawrence – Liberal
Malhi, Gurbax – Liberal
Neville, Anita – Liberal
Rafferty, John – NDP
Roy, Jean-Yves – Bloc Québécois
Tonks, Alan – Liberal
Volpe, Joe – Liberal
Wasylycia-Leis, Judy – NDP
Wrzesnewskyj, Borys – Liberal

Don’t look at me like that – it’s not me saying it:

In a recent interview with the Hill Times, Dr. Carolyn Bennett, an otherwise pretty sensible MP, manages to offend a very dangerous constituency: stay-at-home mothers of young children.

I say dangerous, because as such a new mother (or technically, a work-part-time-from-home-into-the-night-while-my-nine-month-old-sleeps single mother) I can attest that the exhaustion involved can sometimes turn even the cheeriest parent into a crazed zombie.  Dr. Bennett risks life and limb if she campaigns near any mom-and-tot playgroups in the next federal election.  And in case she thinks people will forget her words, the family-friendly Tories will undoubtedly plaster them at every Rainbow Songs and Gymboree class in her riding of St. Paul’s.

Here is what Dr. Bennett said, while criticizing the record of the embattled Minister for the Status of Women, Helena “Air rage” Guergis:

“Women of Canada want to hear about early learning and child care; that is the key to their economic independence, to be able to get back to school, to get a real job, to be able to go to work.”

Ah yes. Because these little ones just raise themselves, right?

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Andrea adds: I disagree with the idea that Dr. Carolyn Bennett is “otherwise sensible.”

A splendid column about the Liberals’ stance on abortion.

The Conservatives haven’t gone near abortion in four years of power, and show no desire to. Their proposal to champion greater support for the health of women in children in low-income countries stayed well clear of the issue, for the very good reason that good health doesn’t require abortion in any way, shape or form. Beating at it with a stick, as the Liberals insist on doing, just distracts from the main goal, which is to improve the conditions of people who need it.

Canadians may have accepted that there’s little chance we’ll ever reach a national consensus on abortion, and that it’s better not to fight about it, but that’s not the same as active support. Let this issue out of the box and there’s no telling what damage it will do, and to whom. Establishing itself as a party determined to promote liberal abortion policies may please the Bob Rae faction of the Liberal establishment, but there’s no evidence Mr. Rae’s personal views command support from the majority of Canadians. As was shown yesterday, they can’t even carry the caucus.

So, the issue is settled, right?

Interesting to note that while people vote and debate and talk endlessly (or so it seems) about the need to include abortion in maternal health initiatives in the Third World, a relatively simple measure that would punish those who attack pregnant women more strongly right here at home stagnates.

It’s good that we have our priorities straight.