And the softwood lumber saga continues.

Jesus Christ, this is getting flat-out ridiculous. Until now, the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports (or LAMBLA) has taken some consolation in the fact that, while the NAFTA rulings (which are relevant) have consistently come down in favour of Canada, the WTO's rulings (which are most emphatically not relevant) have favoured the U.S.

So how to spin this latest development?

Canada and U.S. both claim victory in latest WTO ruling on softwood

WASHINGTON (CP) - The World Trade Organization has partly backed Canada by striking down an earlier ruling that supported U.S. measures against softwood lumber imports.

Wow. Even the WTO is turning against those thieving American bastards. So where's the silver lining for the American position? Oh, here it is:

But the WTO appellate body didn't make its own ruling on whether the U.S. penalties are legal.

In other words, "No comment" on that. Note how the Americans claim some sort of victory:

But U.S. lumber producers were also applauding the ruling, saying it upholds their position that Canada is dumping subsidized softwood on the American market.

when in fact the WTO's position supports no such thing (emphasis added):

The WTO found fault with a previous approach to evaluating the impact of imports, but it didn't rule on Canada's request that the U.S. determination was invalid.

So, again, no comment. Let's give the last word to LAMBLA's Steve Swanson, shall we?

"The U.S. government has repeatedly shown that Canadian lumber imports are unfairly traded and threaten U.S. sawmills and workers with injury," said Steve Swanson, chairman of the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports.

Um ... Steve? No one gives a fuck what the U.S. government has "shown" here. What's relevant are the NAFTA decisions, and you've lost all of them. So it's really not relevant what you, your mother or your government think here. Just give us our money back and stop being such assholes about it.