.......The 'Royal' Canadian

Another Afghanistan Documentary

2012-01-29T14:10:00.001-05:00

A new (2009) American documentary on the Afghan experience is ringing the chimes at 'indie' movie festivals this year. "To Hell and Back Again", a film by embedded reporter Dafung Dennis, tells the story of a 'surge' Marine fighting in the Argandhab valley of Afghanistan, in the heart of "Taliban territory". The Marine, Sgt. Nathan Harris, a 'career' Marine of some 6 years experience and mulitiple deployments, is wounded just before the end of his deployment and part of the film deals with the struggle he and his wife undergo with his recovery and the growing awarenwess his Marine days are quite possibly, over.

The action parts are the typical dusty experinces of young western men trying to figure out what makes an asiatic society tick, while fighting those asiatics to save them. It is remarkable how many times these young Americans tell the 'terp' to relay to the Afghans that they're 'there to help them'. And yet they don't answer the Afghans questions about helping them by going away, or not shooting at them. Noteworthy, too, how 'promises' to respect their homes give way to military necessity without evidence of the attacks that would engender that necessity. These peoples' homes get entered and 'tossed' without a care.

The war is real. The first casualty falls during a 'firefight' shortly after the Marines arrive. He goes home in a bag with no indication of who he was. And Afghan 'ally' is deafened in an IED or rocket blast and another is, later tossed a couple of hundred feet into a field - a rag doll created by an IED explosion. The Afghans are visibly affected, the Marine grunts take it as the cost of doing business.

The business of war as depicted here seems to consist of pouring massive amounts of projectiles onto a point or points where somebody thinks a Taliban to be in residence. The Afhans say of the Taliban that they shoot once or twice and run away. That would seem eminently sensible considering that to stay in place has to get somebody hurt, or that holding a position is a death sentence. We don't see a lot of dead Afghans, but there is a mini-fuss at one point, with villagers, because three observed to be wounded have 'disappeared'.

Which brings us back to the other part of the story. Sgt Harris does not 'return' with his unit but rather is a patient in hospital when they come home. We first meet him, at home, after his recovery has begun. The wound he received is not life threatening, but it certainly is life-changing - smashing a hip joint and removing a sizeable piece if tibia. Sgt Harris has steel rods in his leg and painful exercises to maintain flexibility and motion in his joints. To assist with this, he is on an array of medications, which, as we see in the film, when combined with the slowness of recovery and the pain, plunge him into some very dark places. 'Stoned', or 'out of it' the war in Afghhanistabn has done little or no good for citizen Harris. Given his apparent love affair with a glock pistol, it gives one pause to consider that he, or his wife, or both, may not make it through this. He has the support of individuals in the community and theVA medicos and, perhaps, even his Marine brothers, but he doesn't seem to have a family looking out for him, or his wife.

In one of the 'support' scenes he is invited to a remembrance ceremony for the dead members of the unit. A Marine Chaplain gets all choked up remembering how the 'Betsy Ross' version of the Stars and Stripes that he'd taken with him, reminded him of the 'circle of the 13 dead (in the credits 15) 'brothers' united forever in a circle of patriotism. Needless to say, the unhurt Marines got to take an emotional farewell of comrades most of them probably never knew. The Sargent just looked like he was in a lot of pain.

It makes you wonder, when you see his suffering, what happened to those three wounded Afghans? Where's their disability pay? Where's their VA? Medication and rehab? We know their 'community support' is under direct threat. And it makes you wonder, too, given the circumstances under which he received his wound, if he might not have fallen victim to the creed of fire superiority and received his wound courtesy of his fellow Marines or an Afghan ally. Being out front of a Marine firing line, couldn't be healthy for anybody.

This movie just leaves you wondering.

Newt, Mitt, Rick, Erl, Ronnie and the Zombas

2012-01-29T13:34:00.000-05:00

The Republican primaries stagger into the home stretches (Florida this week and Utah or somewhere else conservative next week) and it's looking like Milt Rummy is taking the lead. But this race has more in common with a 'keystone kops' scenario than anything politically significant. For it keeps on swinging between farce and just plain slapsick. It's hard to believe that the leader, chosen from this field of nags, just might actually poll the ballots of half the Americans who vote. And that an 'electoral machine' that can get out more voters than the other side, might actually gain control of America for at least the next 4 years.

At least Americans are guaranteed for more years like the last four years no matter who wins. The incumbent couldn't so much worse than he has done. America won't be moving ahaead anytime soon.

So if it isn't politics, what is important to Americans. Well first there's 'ennertainment'. This is the close of the football season and the Superbowl is right around the corner. So a day of massive consumption of fast/junk food and large quantities of toilet-flushing water are in order. As well as that the Bachlor is coming to a climax and every female in America id enthralled with the consideration of which plastic tart Opie the human sheepdog might select as his 'breeding mate'. But what crap! the only way somebody could desensitize and inteelect to watch this pap is by training on "Survivor' which, by the way is almost ready to go, again. I'd like to see them go somewhere cold and with mosquitoes this time.

The Oscars are uipcoming too. But before that there is a plethora of 'lesser' and 'almost as good' awards to be red-carpetted and mediarated. If you haven't gotten your annual dose of Hollywood's 'aristocracy', this is the season for you. And the films - why it's 'old' Hollywood vs 'new' Hollywood. The old Hollywood dating back to the hoary days of the new millenium and the new Hollywood consisting mostly of talented foreigners. Abnd most of the nominees 'suck' or 'blow', or do both. I think somebody has learned a lot from 'The Hurt Locker' in terms of how to make 'boffo' from lawsuits on any given 'stinkaroo'.

Speaking of 'Pipa' and 'Popover' the recent pieces of legislation entered into both houses in the States to curb internet piracy, what happened there? Obviously the lobbyists of BIG music and movies had done their work convincing the legislators that some 'strrong medecine' was needed to stop granny and the teenagers from robbing them blind, or festooning the earth with kiddie-porn pictures. But something went amiss whaen the trolodytes of the internet rose up and signed petitions which, mirabile dictu, sonme plls actually might have read. The legislation has been 'withdrawn, for tweaking and like a famous generalissimo, they will return. For this is about stealing braces outta the mouths of babes, see?

Is Roller Derby making a comeback yet?

Whaddi Miss?

2012-01-18T22:09:00.001-05:00

It's been some time since last I blogged and some aquavit has flown under the bridge.

Life took a little diversion after a toothache this summer. The tooth resulted in a sinus problem, which resulted in an ultrasound examination (go figure), the discovery an abdominal aneurysm and the consequent 'zipper job' which is keeping me under the radar at present. The last time I blogged was in September, the operation was at the end of November and there's a lot of stuff that has happened.

In 4 months the world isn't much changed, unless you're a Greek or other south European. The northern Europeans are seeing changes too, but more slowly and more civilized. The Euro zone remains on tenterhooks, and, with it, a significant chunk of the NA bond market, too. Things don't look much better in the future.

The autumn brought its annual round of natural disasters. The central US had a nasty tornado season. Hurricane season this year was largely a bust. There were, and still are, notable floods in parts of Asia and bonnie Scotland got two weeks of an Atlantic storm of the century. Not to worry though, the countries that count don't think this has anything to do with CO2 pollution.

Kyoto saved itself by the skin of its second and third world teeth after the Chinese said they would look into it. Canada was represented by our environmental point-person, the former talking head Peter 'the newsman' Kent. He dummied-up for the conferennce, but his master had him announce the official divorce between Canada and Kyoto when he got back to Ottawa. Kyoto has just been an idea in Canada since Maurice Strong, the chairman of Ontario Hydro started buying up rainforest an eon ago. That's all we've ever really done. And now, with the yankees extracting their oil from our Tar Sands, we can hardly afford to do anything else.

My other big favourite, the annual AIDs conference passed uncommented. President Obama made noises like America was 'getting serious' about AIDs ( $11 million over 6 years - they're busted ya know?), but it ain't up to 'war on' status yet. As for the rest, the standard reports of 'promising' vaccines, the dearth of life-saving treatment in third world countries and the regular report of 'only' another 15 percent increased transmissions. The pandemic continues.

The gallant little war in Libya was concluded. Ghaddfi got a lethal gunshot, or three (we're not sure) from disgruntled countymen. Shortly after that, the ragtag national militia took the last strong points and the war was declared 'over'. Now the 'national government' is trying to figure out what to do with the ragtag militia, and the eastern part of the country (Cyrenaica) has already threatened to revolt and seperate. No doubt there's lots of work for 'mercs' and free agents, training-up a government army and police force to restore order. And to get the remaining Ghaddafis to safety. Some Canucks - Garda International? (not bad for a couple of TO flatfeet) - surprisingly 'large on the ground', supporting Ghaddafi (and our oil interests?) were involved trying to get one of the Ghaddafi boys to a little hacienda in Mexico, without benefit of proper immigration clearance. The same lad, Saaf al Islam is reputed to be the proud owner of a rooftop condo in sparkling 'Tronna'. Our PM says we should confiscate that.

Things are looking interesting as 'Old Man 2011' lumbers off into the sunset and baby Dick Clark cleans his dentures for the New Year. There's a election coming up and America's got primaries! Canada's Libs are due to 'rehead' themselves so we'll have to see how that goes. If little Mr. Achmedinejad doesn't upset the world applecart fiirst - there's peril in the Gulf. dontcha no? Maybe it's all related to that Mayan profitsy, eh?

More on those topics in the near future.

Another Afghanistanian Embarrassment

2011-09-15T15:32:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday this week, the Haquani 'terror network' of Pakistan orchestrated the efforts of a handful of fanatics to disturb the peace in Kabul. To-day we're being told that that 19 hour rootin'-shootin' sideshow was only a small part of a massive 'sonderaktion' the enemas of freedom had planned to upset the 9/11 retrospective weekend.

The fact is that 10 heavily armed criminals could bring downtown Kabul to a standstill for most of a day before the forces of decency got some decent targetting data and blew the last 4 bitter-enders out of a concrete skeleton, which they had been using to 'fire at' the US embassy - among other things. We're told that they 'only' succeed in killing 8 Afghanis - including three children - and wounding another 17. The reponsory barrage, of all arms gunfire, we're supposed to believe, only succeeded in killing the 10 evildoers and didn't hit anybody else.

We are told the attackers used "heavy weapons" after breeching a skyscraper under construction. This gave them access to firing positions overlooking the US embassy and ISAF HQ some half- kilometer away. 6 PRG rounds are reported to have been discharged in the general direction of the embassy, but at that range they were ineffective. Maybe those heavy weapons would have worked better. The attackers are also said to have "targetted" and destroyed an empty bus full of schoolchildren. It is reported that they were able to make their way through stringent security zones because they looked like 10 burkah-clad women on their way to work at daybreak. Eventually their vehicle was fired-upon, at whch time they all ran away to hide. Two others mounted fruitless suicide attacks on Afghan police stations and that, in large part, is what defines the attack as 'complex'.

Video shows a robust response from Afghan police and military including strafing runs from the Air Force Mil gunship helicopter. As if all the ammunition the Afghans were firing wasn't enough. ISAF rent-a-troops manning the ramparts at HQ were also busily engaged firing at the criminals from inside the danger zone, i.e. a crossfire.

The results of all the bang bang can be described from two perspectives. The Afghans are concerned that Kabul is no longer 'safe'. ISAF's 'take' is that it could have been worse, the Taliban didn't do it because threy've been 'weakened' and that that gunfire is a harbinger of freedom.

So if the Pakistani's would take some responsibility for what goes on in their tribal zones, or at least allow the forces of light to tackle the Haquani criminals, that promised dawn of freedom might only be another decade away.

So yeah, and only because the media went nuts, the terrorists scored a PR point or two. But hey, look who's still top-side and how little damage was done! What we think were their plans were thwarted. Or maybe that's what inspired to-day's news that what was really supposed to happen was very 'skeery'.

It's a good thing nobody warned Kabul like they warned New York and anywhere else about the potential for 9/11 payback'. At least there was no potential threat to be warded-off, at least in the public's mind, until to-day. But if BS works in America, why shouldn't it work in Kabul? Saying something's always better than dummying up.

2011-09-02T13:50:00.000-04:00

My favorite constabulary is in the news again.

The first story relates to a tragic accident involving a TTC bus and a heavy duty tow truck. The accident, which killed a female passenger and sent most of the other passengers to hospital, occurred when a TTC bus attempted to get around the tow truck. In the process it struck the rear end of the truck, forcing it off the road. The TTC driver, a 52-year old, 10 year employee, was unhurt and, 'shaken up', took the rest of the day off. Police determined that there were no 'obvious signs of impairment' (aside from the bus, see above). The driver refused hospital treatment, or testing. And there it might all have ended, had not some 'investigating officers' found a quantity of pot in the driver's gym bag. To-day he's being 'investigated' for possible drug use and needless to say he's called his union into the matter. Having dope at work, and smoking dope at work may well be totally unrelated events in this instant, but the time interval between the accident and finding the dope should have blown any proof that he was whacked at the wheel. He probably 'blew' a relaxation reefer, at home, afterward, to cope with all the stress - that would explain any negative blood testing. Even if there were no obvious signs of impairment, would any other driver get such an empathetic police investigation after a fatal accident they walked away from, I doubt it.

The other story involves the Pleece Chief William 'Linda' Blair. He was recommending his 'Chief's birthday honors list' of the 'deserving' for advancement in the ranks, to the Toronto Police Board, when one of the civilians noticed that nine of the 'meritorious' had been cited for removing their identification at the G20 pacification and response to potential terroristic activity, last year. The Board voted to reject the Chief's recommendation and withhold a salary increase and promotion for the officers in question. Well, right off the bat, the PR department at HQ swung into gear with charges of pleecemen being punished two times for the one peckerdillo. It seems the fellows had already suffered a 'one-day stoppage' of the pay for trying to hide their identity from those who would seek to harm them and their families - or try to charge them with assault, illegal arrest, or other misbehaviour. I'd be willing to bet the stoppage was deducted at 'regular' salary as opposed to G20 'overtime' and special, hazardous duty deployment rates. The Board's well-reasoned response was that promotion isn't a right, it's a privilege bestowed by the employer at the recommendation of the Chief. The Board now wants to know just how the Chief goes about making such recommendations. Watch out for a massive pout and deeply hurt feelings at HQ.

Ancillary to this is another dose of Blair who, taking to the media recently, declared that a proposed 10 percent reduction in the police budget was going to result in a twenty percent reduction in the number of pleecemen and women.

Now that Canada's armed intrusion onto the worlds' stages is theoretically winding-down, the Canadian Armed Forces are winding-down their wartime expenditure, too. Reductions in personnel are proposed. Who's going to get the axe? The officer corps? The civilian employees? Or the grunts, erks and swabbies who whom it all depends? I'm inclined to think it will be the second - as the former can 'golden handshake' into private enterprise or a government job and the latter remain at a premium in, at least, theNaval rm.

While we're on the subject. The Prime Minister Steve Harper, setting the stage for his diplomatic master stroke in Paris at the Libya-freedom-recap meeting, stated his gratitude for all the sacrifices Canadian troops were making to bring freedom to the Libyans, and to serve up a warning that we wouldn't be leaving until the job was done up good and proper - despite an 'end of mandated deployment' coming up in a week and a half. Not only that, he stated every Canadian's willingness to send our boys, and girls, after other nasty dictators. So Assad better get his head out of his azz and resign before he gets a 'beaver bashing', too. This is great, there's an outside chance of Canada actually doing something about Darfur, a situation that can be laid directly at the feet of Canadian Talisman Energy's Sudan oil dealings some two decades ago. But Harpo wasn't 'on watch' back then, so it don't count. Neither will the 'bad men' in Bahrain and Yemen, who, in those cases are the 'rebels' rather than the dictators. Of course the rebels in Afghanistan remain the gunsight targets for our new 'training mission' - we'll still be dropping our NATO/ISAF bombs on them.

The only people I can see getting any real jollies out of out new-found warrior ethos are the same sort of extravagantly paid investment managers and hedge fund honchos who would invest a couple of hundred thousand on some massive pick-up trucks to drive around the estate weekends and a pair of Harley's for the oulaw cruises to the local coffee bar. After all, for the wise, a war is always an investment opportunity.

"My Life Has Been Rooned"

2011-08-16T13:09:00.004-04:00

Ref to:

http://popsiq-canadian.blogspot.com/2010/06/wear-red-on-friday-scarlet-french.html

One of the more notable collateral damages of Canada's Afghan adventure is the sad fate of Brigadier General Danny Minard. His meteoric rise from promotion in January of 2010 to removal from command six months later, to embarassment and demotion, culminating if his retirement and removal, is an object lesson on tripping on one's own sword. A tidbit for the memoirs of the Rt. Hon P.G. McKay Esq. Minister of Defence.

Once said to be on the proverbial fast track to military glory and high command, Brigadier Danny, commander of the CAF contingent to Afghanistan, fell afoul the CAF's 'no-fraternization' policy and was turfed from his post. Afterward he was court-martialled and found guilty of lying and forcing a subordinate to lie, in trying to cover his hindquarters. He was demoted in rank, fined and dismissed from the service. None of which will bother him much, as he had already resigned, taking his pension at his then-current rank. What is bothering him, more than the 25G in 'bonus' money lost, is that he figures 'somebody' has ruined his life and it ain't him.

He's looking around at the media as suspects numbers one, etc. If it hadn't been for the media, well, what the heck, he would have been able to keep on keeping on.

We're told that he had begun a 'relationship' with an NCO 'well before' they both had found themselves posted to Kandahar. There are no proscriptions of such 'relationships' at home, save for 'getting caught' by a spouse, or your CO. There are no 'officially' punitive remedies at any rate. Base Kandahar is different, CAF personnel, even married ones, are strictly prohibited from 'canoodling' on the base during their 6 month rotos. It was the latter action that presented the problem.

Actually, it was another 'action', or lack of same, that presented the problem. A 2010 suicide bomb attack on an ISAF (US) convoy on a bridge near the Base at Kandahar, which killed a US serviceman, was laid at Minard's doorstep insofar as Canadians were supposed to be looking after bridge security. And that, in the minds of Americans, wasn't being adequately done. The Americans took Minard's 'failure' to heart and a griping campaign about his 'lack of military merit' ended-up on the keyboard of noted American military blogger, Mike Yon. Yon mentioned that Minard might have been too 'otherwise occupied' with personal night missions to have been doing his job right. If he mentioned Minard's girl fiend's name and rank I don't know, but their liaisons were 'the worst kept secret' on the base. Mike's blog posting started the chain of events.

The military started an investigation.

That there were unsympathetic members of the CAF who, all of a sudden, started 'leaving Danny out', is a no-brainer. About the same time everybody at National HQ was trying to disavow knowing a soldiers' soldier who just happened to morph into deviant cross dresser, panty bandit and double murderer. Balling the help, acceptable in some 'manly' circles, became detrimental to the career trajectory, so did associating with ballers. In fact, some were so 'unsympathetic' that they may have deliberately been proactive in throwing a spanner into Minard's works.

It was just prior to this that Danny 'accidently' discharged his personal weapon in the presence of 'big' Walt Natanczyk the CinC. No doubt this unsoldierly lapse didn't help when news of his other laps came out. His 'bad example' to the deployed troops had to be undone by the reappointment of his predecessor who, if nothing else, had a reputation for some competence.

The wheels came off Danny's wagon completely. I'm not sure that his Mrs. 'deserted' him, although, given his lack of remorse at a 'stupid rule', she might well have done that. The Major may be affected by that 'career trajectory' stuff, too. Being married to a 'loser' is one of those 'judgement errors' that could shorten the ladder of advancement in the eyes of those who might only have been bamboozled by one.

One has to wonder though, just how Danny managed to advance so far, so fast? It wasn't as if this hubris stuff would have been a 'sudden onset' sort of malady. Danny's been skating close to the edge of the open water for some time and still would be, we're led to believe, if some media type hadn't shone the light on him, and her .. and the stupid rule everybody else was supposed to be following.

I wonder what Dan would have done with Sapper Jones, caught fraternizing with Gunner Smith?

Car 54 Where Are You?

2011-08-11T09:05:00.001-04:00

It seems that they're taking it to the streets all over the place.

There have been a week of protests and camping out in gallant l'il Israel for the past 10 days, over 'social inequalities'. It is a 'welfare state' for the Hebrews, but some of the wealthier ones don't need welfare and, like their American cousins, don't see why they should have to pay for somebody else's. The 'somebody elses' are out on the street.

The Brits are 'going nuts'. This is being laid to a number of reasons, from the need to 'refit with some valuable new 'kit' for going back to school', to the 'protest of the marginalized at a harsher and more restrictive social welfare policy in a diminishing economy'. Some rather civilized areas of London have been affected and the unrest seems to be spreading to trendy shopping areas of northern cities. A real 'run on the stores' is underway.

The Greeks have been protesting all summer about the Euro-imposed draconian measures required to have the government qualify to borrow the money needed to keep on paying the interest on the national debt.

There have been protests about the same thing in Portugal and Spain.

The Arab spring has morphed into the Arab summer. Tunisia seems to be settling down as somebody announced that bikinis would be welcomed again - preferably wrapped around Swedish tourists and that booze would be available for the ferenghi - heads up Brits! Egypt seems on the point of another melt-down but this time the 'enemy' is less distinct, although it could be the Army. The Syrians are embroiled in on-going anti-government 'protests' and government protest suppression. And the Libyans are still 'discussing' the pros and cons of Muammar Ghaddafi with heavy artillery, anti-tank weapons and rigorous NATO humanitarian bombing. Let's hope things cool off in the Fall.

What is marvellous in all this is that the people who should be out on the streets, demanding that their government stop the jacking-around, are all at home running garage sales and kajiji -ing the 'toys' to raise cash. When you're trying to figure out how you're going to make your next credit card payment with another maxed-out credit card, there's not much time, or use, to be smashing the windows in upscale stores and stealing the kids some new Keds. The closest America has come to 'disorder' was this Spring's Wisconsin protest by public servants. That soon stopped when the 'Governator' 'bought off' the police 'protestors' with a new contract. Americans are just too 'American' to complain that going to the Mall and not being able to buy much isn't any fun.

Achmedinejad, the 'rogue' leader of Iran, popped-off again to-day about the topic. He was wondering, out loud, where the UN Security Council was in the face of the British riots? For we all know where the UN was in the face of the Arab disorders - fixing it so that some world powers could be executing their 'obligation to protect' the rioters. The UN so far isn't siding with the Tottenham rioters, or perhaps that's only because it hasn't been asked.

I think we're going to see more rioting in future as food prices, and prices in general, continue to rise. There are parts of the world where starvation because of the inability to afford to buy food is becoming a growing reality. It's only a matter of time before the folks who can't afford a $25 baseball cap or $80 jeans will be hitting the streets, too. They might even do that sooner if they can't afford the school lunch program.

Reality TV

2011-08-08T13:11:00.001-04:00

One of the most popular diversions these days is watching 'reality' on the television. It used to be that documentaries were as 'real' as it got, but since the advent of 'Survivor' - 'real' world entertainment has come to the fore. Now we have 'Celebrity Rehab', 'Big Brother', 'Bachelors' and cross-referable 'Bachelorettes' in a full-time (3 month) reprise of the Dating Game - with more smooching. There are a gang of brain-damaged people from 'New Joisy' who make the Three Stooges look like a brains trust and give some indication why somebody would ever want to call an Italian a 'wop'.

But some of the best reality - and this only occasionally in the media - is some of the stuff brought home from Afghanistan in some body's field pack. Of late there seems to be a lot of this stuff available.

Soldiers have always been fond of keeping mementos of where they've been and what they've done. In the 'olden' days that came in the form of looting the dead. To-day it's more apt to come in the form of recordable media. If it hadn't been for some eager photographers, the events of the Holocaust would lack a very important visual dimension. It's hard to deny the photographic record.

No less so to-day. There is a narrative that we've all been exposed to. It's the one that justifies and defines and continues to shape what the 'civilized world' is doing in parts of the Third World. It's the one that's taken as conventional wisdom, very successfully, for it has been motivating for more than a decade now, with new motivations happening daily. The media has been co-opted into constantly reprising the narrative but, from time to time, a glimmer of another story sneaks through the cracks, often from those who are at the 'pointy' end of things.

Lately, Danes and now Dutchmen who have been part of the Afghan 'assistance' force are producing media based on video and photography recording the events experienced by the troops - a la "Restrepo". Two of these are "Armadillo" - winner of a European award and "Fokkin Hell". These live-actions are interspersed with interviews, with the soldiers involved, that flesh-out their perspectives. Not surprisingly they emphasize parts of the narrative the regular media plays down, and they introduce some things the regular media wouldn't show at all. What we're actually doing is way off the PR spokeperson's 'talking points'. In fact it bears little resemblance to what we've been, and are being told, at all.

One of the notable things portrayed in the European work is the notion of how disliked the ISAF forces are. In a couple of scenes Afghan youngsters ask these young soldiers from Denmark, in one case, and Holland on the other what they think they're doing in Afghanistan and then disabuse them of any 'ideal' of actually helping anybody, or being welcomed to do it. There are the other scenes of Afghans trying to niggle compensation from soldiers unwilling to pay it. At least the Europeans don't seem to find the same need to 'jack around' with the locals portrayed in Restrepo. But the notion that 'they're on the take' is prevalent.

Another is the obvious anti-Afghan (anti-Taliban but who can tell the difference?) attitude held by the young soldiers. Every Afghan is a potential enemy, and so every Afghan is a potential target. It's a tribute to discipline that more Afghans aren't shot during the daily round of observation and patrol - just due to the omnipresent threat. There isn't much about 'rebuilding' in any of these works, unless it's rebuilding a firebase. But that could be because these are shot in 'hot' areas, as opposed to the more civilized spots. A further observation could be made about the men and their weapons, if the Afghans aren't awed by western firepower, the awe is certainly compensated in the western militaries. Bomb strikes, artillery stonks or missile impacts are all attended with 'oohs and aahs'. And the 'free shoots' seem to be heartily enjoyed by everybody with a trigger finger.

The casualties, the wounded, are depicted in remarkable isolation from the actual events. The camera only sees aftermath and there an impression given by the obviously unwounded that it's a fluke to be hit. If the western forces are as successful hitting their targets, there should be thousands of wounded Afghans not being medevaced out. But they must be hiding.

One other aspect that shows up in one of the pieces is the notion of unit integrity and keeping 'secrets'. In the Danish film the unit NCO gets hauled on the carpet for shooting wounded Taliban after one of the unit writes home to his parents about the deaths of three Taliban in a firefight. While the incident is depicted in all its bloodthirstiness, one can empathise with soldiers in the heat of battle, confronting an armed opponent. To say there was some 'overkill' involved is perhaps making an understatement, but that, too, is to be expected in such circumstances. What is notable is the Sargent's telling-off to his unit and his reminder that they had only done what they 'had to do' and it was the 'right' thing. That 'only those who were there share an understanding of what happened', that civilians, even nice family ones, can get it 'wrong'. When nobody raises a disagreement, "Tak! That's the story, move on.".

I think there is a whole lot more of the 'realistic' type of photojournalism that will appear after the military censors have returned to barracks. That should go a long way toward doing for Afghanistan and Iraq what a string of dissonant narratives have done to the Vietnam experience. Once again the glory and honour of 'serving' in war - especially an unjust war- will be magnified as a fool's game. I can't see our latest round of vets getting any more respect than their Vietnam daddies and granddads, they certainly won't be compared favourably to their grand sires of the World Wars.

The Peripatetic News

2011-08-07T13:24:00.003-04:00

It's been almost a whole fortnight since last I applied digits to keyboard in another Blogger deposit. And what a fortnight it has been! If it wasn't for all the actual world-shaking events I'm sure the hyperactive media would have been hard pressed to drum up any kind of interest. But events overtook them.

First off was the Oslo bombing and avantgarde shooting spree. I was actually 'en farte' on the internet when I noticed the first little media 'heads up' about 8:30 in the AM - an explosion reported near the office of the Norwegian PM. Within the hour, the US news blogs lit up like a hannukah candle with the 'work of jihadi terror' mantra going great guns based on the readings of the magickal 8 ball. Sadly, that turned out to be far from the case. As the day's events morphed into the work of a crazed gunman - a mass shooting more common to US college campuses - the other part of hyperactive media kicked into play to explain why this had happened. And since then the crescendo was reached, newsorthily speaking, followed by a denouement of rationality that might suggest 'it wasn't all that bad' after all. With the exception that they're burying more of the victims to-day.

While everybody apparently agrees that shooting sixty kids is not something to be done on a regular basis. The pundits who, sort of, share the gunman's perspectives, have regathered the courage to start saying that we shouldn't let his actions stifle the 'Stepford effect' - we shouldn't lessen any efforts to decry the imminent demise of our civilization at the hands of godawful Islam. The only 'real' mistake made here was in target selection. Had he shot muslims 'Hans Gunnar Quackenbusch' - 'Vanilla Hice' - might have been up for an Oscar, or a Nobel prize - definitely Olympic gold in free-range shooting. Punditry will out anyway.

The shooting was soon eclipsed by two weeks of 'high political drama' in America and much the same sort of activity in the EU. This of course all related to the financial situation which isn't going to go away anythime soon. It was defaults and bailouts on both sides of the Atlantic - Greece went under and was dragged to the surface for some Germanic mouth-to-mouth. Italy and Spain are on tenterhooks and it's problematic that the powerhouses are going to be much able to help. America won't.

The squabble that started when Obama foolishly tried to get the Republican 'rump' on-side at the beginning of his administration, is growiing into the kind of a tumor that should remind any political victor of the ancient tradition of 'cleaning house' when taking office. Leaving the lie-abouts from a previous administrtation thinking that they might be able to swing some weight, let alone have nothing to fear from a change, is like ignoring a field of IEDs and a very naive way to do politics. And so the Republicans saw Obama down to the wire over a debt extension (due another failed 'initiative') and succeeded in removing any potency left in the truncated programs they had 'signed on to'. In keeping on - and extending Bushco's great Asian adventures, instead of calling the troops home, Obama involved himself in having to extend those debt limits where they should never have been. He got democratically 'boned' for his pains.

As an unpleasant segue to all this, the recent news that Standard and Poor had turned traitor and 'stabbed the nation in the back' by reducing it's credit rating to AA from the traditional AAA added another 'toofay salute' to an already odious stinkeroo. The move served to drop the value of stocks about 23 percent in one day and, theoretically, add another 100 billion the US will have to borrow to pay the interest on the money it already owes. Having to increase the debt to service the debt has never been a sign of economic health. Maybe it's time that more financial institutions, who don't buy most of the government bonds anyway, start telling the emperor his Ass is bare.

While everybody's worrying about another kick in the retirement savings, to-day another little reminder that some are sacrificing all for us to have such freedoms. It seems some Afghan goatherd got lucky with an RPG round and dropped a chopper full of Navy Seals. Thirty of the finest fighting men that money can train, members of the 'Offin' Osama Squad' made their last dive into an Afghan mountain last night. Just what were they doing flying around an Afghan mountain in the dark with at least one other such well-sealed helicopter? Is was nice of you to ask. Well acccording to the press they were:

A) doing the job they were so well trained to do
B) Training the Afghans to do that job almost as well
C) In pursuit of a 'high value' target - a taliban bomb maker who had been unreportedly attacking ISAF convoys or
D) Going to the rescue of a unit pinned-down by massive enemy fire
E) Doing the job they loved and
F) Making the folks at home feel safer and prouder.

There's gotta be a country and western song in this. Would to gracious Sullivan was still going, but there is Vegas, and the late night shows. Why, the filthy Taliban even killed the doggy one of the nice soldiers had with him as they flew to a midnight raid.

The raid? Yeppers, it was another of those 'midnight rides' of which America is so fond. Months of intel work being brought to fruition at 3 am in a stealth strike on those who hate our freedoms. We are told that, after the crash, another chopper landed nearby and its crew, after a brief firefight, killed eight insurgents. They're darned lucky that that army unit 'under siege' didn't call in the standard air strikes, instead of trained seals. They might have wound up dead by the score. Or like the woman and her 8 kids - killed in another 'accident', down south, when somebody airstruck some Taliban hiding among them. But that news doesn't have the same 'weight' and discussibility.

Let's not forget the royal wedding and its 'ennertainment' value. The last Shuttle flight, the on-goings in Libya and Syria and the existential threats emanating from Iran, Korea, China - your choice. This week there's the famine in Somalia and floods in other places to keep us thinking about doing something about the environment.

And so the round goes on, the world's diversions and distractions, laid out for their Warhol moments for a 'news hungry' public in welter of sound bites and bafflegab commentary..

Revving Up that Rhetoric

2011-07-30T15:07:00.002-04:00

Iran is back! In case you hadn't noticed the media has been featuring a new round of Iran bugaboos for the past two weeks.

It started with reports that Achmedinejad was in somebody's doghouse. Sources weren't clear, but it was thought that he'd run afoul of a Mullah or, even worse, the dreaded Revolutionary Guard. The message that an 'Iranian summer' counld be expected at any moment faded off to be replaced by incipient developments on the anti-aircraft front.

The Iranians were charged with developing and testing a new anti-aircraft missile system that, while it might not prevent any future tactical bombing of terror sites, would certainly make the risk of collision much greater for the jet jockeys deployed. It was even media-ized that the treacherous Russkis were being tempted to give them the S300 missile systems they'd bought, rather than a refund. No doubt the wily Mede is holding out for newer, improved S400's which are reputedly capable of knocking out 10 different targets only slightly larger than gnats at any speed and extreme range in less than a minute!

After the military managed to get the pepto-bismol into them, they started considering the "rapid" increase in Iran's marginal propensity to produce an atomic bomb. This mode of reasoning was triggered by the assassination of, apparently, the wrong Iranian atomic bomb expert. The survivors were said to be increasing the rate at which weapons grade plutonium was being enriched to a whopping 24%, up from the old 17%. And even a dummy knows that's a whopping seven percent closer to the stuff they'll need to get themselves targetted for an ICBM strike. When somebody pointed out that the ounces of material the Iranians had were slightly less than the pounds they were going to need to make a viable explosive, the ADHD department went looking for some other topic.

And they found it over at the CIA news desk. The incoming chief of the CIA General "Orange Julius" Petraeus, long an advocate of Iran being the 'real' boogeyman of the middle east, got over blaming them for arming the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan , only because he has now discovered his arch-nemesis, the foul commander of the notorious 'Al Quds Brigade' of the Iranian Republican Guard is, get this, the de facto 'Ruler" of Iraq. Great minds in America are wondering if Petraeus' reign is going to result in the militarization of the CIA - and especially what the uniforms are going to be like.

Expect the calls for something necessary 'needing to be done' to increase as summer dwindles. For it's going to take more than one Norwegian 'Woody' to upset the applecart of freedom.

The Crucifixion Continues

2011-07-30T14:30:00.000-04:00

The persecution of the Rt. Honorable Connie Black of Coal Harbor Esq. by the forces of plebeian lesser lights continues with his recent conviction on outstanding charges. His sentence is another 6 months in the slammer, two years of supervised release and a $125 000 fine. When the dowager Lady Coal Harbor heard the bad news she was stricken in the public chamber and had to be assisted by medical personnel. She was revived and left the courtroom escorting her paramour as he left to settle his business and a acquire a stock of monogrammed prison duds. He'll be signing into the gaol next month, unless, of course he decides to take it on the lam.

Surely there will be 'minions' and prison buddies awaiting his return to the 'lecture hall' where many, according to his lawyers, were elucidated by the tomes bought for the prison Library as fruits of Lord Black's labor, and by his dulcet tones in viva voce as he disclosed to them the arcanities of Napoleon and the secrets of the classical ancients. Lord Black is no small light when it comes to such trivia. Perhaps he'll extend the learning experience to the area of the business and how to 'give it to them'.

Rupert should be so blessed..

We're Out the Door!

2011-07-05T08:08:00.005-04:00

Well not quite. In today's reality nothing is ever as it seems, or as it's cracked up to be. The denouement of Canada's adventures in Panjwai no less than anything else.

The Canada Day papers were full of the 'last' Canada Day in 'Canadahar' stories. Tales of ebullient Canuck merriment as the last 'roto' rotates its way into history. Stories of the Canada Day party at the base, where all the troops - front liners included - were gathered in for a couple of brewskis, some free red ball caps - a corporate 'goody' from Tim's to repay the 'opportunity to serve' where the Red Cross and Sally Ann served our sires - with donuts and coffee, and a 'good time'.

How many of to-day's vets will have the same sour taste as their Grampies caused by the Red Cross' habit of charging for what the Sally Ann gave away free? Tim's, after all, is in Kandahar on a 'cash' basis. Perhaps 'saving the world' and 'defending democracy from evil doers' are substantially different things than 70 years ago and there's supposedly a sense of entitlement missing to-day but it's definitely 'user buys'. I wonder how they work the 'buy a soldier a coffee' campaign the Legion runs over there? If the bottom line is 'covered' by what they charge the military? The Horton's 'volunteer' staff may qualify for the new 'Afghan service medal' - the one foreign service workers don't qualify for, but this is volunteering with a corporate edge. When the US vets see a Timmy's going up in their neighborhoods, it hopefully won't give them the heeby-jeebies. Let it be known, however, that Tim's plows all the 'profits' of that Afghan operation as charitable donations, back into programs for soldiers. A win-win situation for any 'patriotic' corporation.

There were road hockey games with the politicos, other entertainers and press. 'Bubbles' the Trailer-park boy was there, a French Canadian comic to entertain the rump of the Vandoos was there, the CinC and 'MinDef' were there - sticks, and mikes, in hand. And so was Canada's latter-day 'Cracklin' Rosie' Di Manno the granny, warrior-groupie of the Toronto Star.

Rosie's is out-doing herself these days. It's almost as if she thinks she won't be going back to Afghanistan over the next decade to report on the 'sacrifices' of our military police units and square-bashing aficionados. She's no spring chicken, but one might almost suspect she gets moist being around all that military junk Describing how a unit used an Afghan hill to 'clear' their APC guns and artillery before they were packed for shipping, one might be amused by the apparent glee of the lads on a free-fire exercise. Everybody who hadn't had a chance to shoot something significant must have been bussed out to the site. A jarring little bit of reality intruded into the good time, in the form of a Afghan station wagon, straying into an area that was thought to 'civilian free'. It just underscores the fact that our 'intel' still isn't 90 percent.

That doesn't stop Rosie from drooling over some Playgirl candidate's gelled 'stiffie'. It's good that our guys can manage to look great while fighting terror. And a real bummer they have to slap a 'pot' onto a flashy 'do'. But that's war. To-day's Rosie report is titled, 'No Warning ... No Regrets'. It tells of the prowess of the Canadian sniper.

The papers speak glowingly, for the saga isn't finished yet, of how Canada's 'footprint' was being 'erased' as we leave. That will be a change, if it's not more BS, as Afghanistan is littered with the detritus left behind by better war-fighters than us. The jury is still out on 'the mark' we've left on Afghanistan. Not only in terms of the stuff we won't be 'repatriating', but also in terms of the 'wonders' Johnny Canuck has wrought. Those wonders are now in the gentle hands of the US Marine Corps. We'll see what happens next.

For the Canadian Forces, however, the gaze is directed northward ... toward Canada's Arctic. The 'challenge' there will not be from Afghan farmers, but from the Bears and Bison. It was our current PM who, only three years ago, 'Stepforded'** the renascent Russian air force's encroaching on Canadian airspace as they flew around their half of the Arctic. Canadian F-18's were scrambled to meet the potential intruder and the case made that we 'need' something stealthier to sneak up on them, and actually 'catch them in some act' or other. I wonder what the PM will think when our 'allies' steam a fleet into the Arctic to protect their vital oil interests and declare the Northwest Passage an 'international seaway' like the Red Sea, or the Intracoastal Waterway? Our allies seem intent on manifesting their destiny on Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, while our enemas, the Russki's, don't.

Or maybe we'll be saddling-up the Governor General's Horse guards to ride to the rescue of the gallant little Libyans. Wouldn't that be a shock? For they don't particularly like us either.

A country in search of an adventure is a country with too much time on its hands.

** The act of pointing and shrieking - at 'aliens' a la The Stepford Wives' and hecklers who attend Netanyahu speeches. Alerting the herd to danger.

Blessed St. Nicholas, start praying for us

2011-06-15T10:29:00.005-04:00

Santa Claus in his holier aspect is 'told off' as the patron saint of prostitutes. It is said that he saved a poor man from pimping his three daughters by giving him a sackful of gold. Why else would a guy want to peddle his daughters' butts than for some of the long green? It seems, though, that this story makes Nicholas the patron saint of almost-prostitutes, gals who get 'on the game' need more patronage than that.

And so it goes in summertime Canada. For a decent little first world spot, Canada has its share of 'sex trade workers' - males and females who extend whatever paypacket they've got with a little 'professional' sex on the side. Now a non-association "they've" formed to 'represent' them has been hied into court to defend against a government challenge to a lower court ruling on 'anti-prostition laws' being contrary to their Charter rights and freedoms. This after another court ruling that cited prostitution as a "legitimate" occupation. Nobody seemed to challenge the notion that balling for dough was much different than anything else people do for dough, except when it comes to doing it on the street, or by bothering passers-by to find somebody with dough to do it for. Those laws about public prostitution, communicating for prostitution and living on the avails of prostitution are being challenged as laws that 'force' women to 'work in the shadows' where, sometimes, their customers do them harm. What they want, I imagine, is the right to hang out a shingle, along with the more marketable body parts.

Strikes me that, unless the gals are working out of a high-security establishment, with glorified 'bouncers', that risk of harm isn't much diminished. Nor is any risk to 'johns' from those bouncers - who might be equated with guys who flunked out of police foundations courses at best, or a self-ordained 'lawmen' like 'The Dawg' at worst. One can only imagine the clientele. When you're breaking 'Mom's first law' and exposing yourself to 'strangers' you're asking for some trouble. Just look at the havoc caused by overly-friendly uncles and overzealous persons in authority - even to, we're told, the willing! I would doubt prostitution, even where it's a pillar of the society isn't plagued with a whole whack of related social ills. If it was any sort of social panacea, or even decent way to make a living, it would be promoted world-wide and we wouldn't be trying to remake it, again.

When it comes to banging for bucks there is no telling when a 'relationship' of long-standing isn't going to 'go sour' and somebody receive a good hiding - even in those non-prostitutional relationships. Adding a cash exchange just adds a flillip to the level of customer satisfaction and fogs the notion of another 'tip'. Cash enterprise is the stuff of real-world hurt feelings, donneybrooks and gunshots on regular occasions. Prostitution has been a risky business since the days when the ladies had to 'show up for duty' in honor of the goddess at the temple once a year. Even nice gals, doing their religious duty, were exposed to the social misfits who hung around the temple, gland in hand, waiting for just such an opportunity. Just look at the Pig Farmer of Kelowna. He could have slaughtered nice girls, but the hookers' lifestyle made it oh-so-much easier. That wouldn't have changed much, even if there were no 'take-out services', he was inviting them to 'parties'.

The Sex Trade Workers essentially want the law changed so they can 'open' their business in places it's not open now. Anybody who's had the privilege of living beside an 'illegal' bawdy house can only imagine the fun it would be to have a legal one - running all above-board, 24/7 (closed for Christmas and high holidays)- next door. The increased tax revenue wouldn't begin to cover the increased police costs to fend off the phone complaints and investigate the damage to customers cars. And why would the girls want to give up the goodies they've got now - welfare, state child support and/or disability payments, untaxed income, free health coverage and other social service benefits? No doubt these lifestyle 'perqs' wouldn't be included in any new legislation, but they will be, eventually, if prostituion continues to be expanded as a legitimate way to earn a living.

Hey, there's a new career field - specializing in the business end of the sex trade for 10 percent off the top. And let's not forget the investment opportunities provided by a chain of franchised high-end bordellos. Or is that just legalized pimping?

If This Don't Take the Cake

2011-06-14T23:37:00.006-04:00

We're told that during Hitler's last few days the question , "Where's Wenck?" echoed and re-echoed through the Fuhrerbunker under the devastated streets of Berlin. It was only when the question was answered that his 'army' wasn't any longer in existence that all hope was lost.

In 1973, just before Watergate finished him, Nixon 'sold' the invasion of Cambodia as the ultimate winning strategy. We know now that, in return for a load of sequestered communist supplies, the real outcome was the destabilization and ensuing destruction of Cambodia by the, until then impotent, Khmer Rouge. In that same war, the 1975 invasion of Laos by the South Vietnamese forces put paid to any chance they had of resisting the communists. A year later South Vietnam was consigned to the dustbin of history. When things get bad, the wacky get worse.

And so it continues in NATO's gallant fight to free the Libyans from the grasp of the guy they've been 'forced' to let rule them for almost 50 years. It's such a tough old fight with only the bomb plans left over from the Reagan era, that NATO is seeking the help of anybody willing. And so we have this fantastic tale:

"How social media users are helping NATO fight Gadhafi in Libya"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/how-social-media-users-are-helping-nato-fight-gadhafi-in-libya/article2060965/

One Graham Smith , writing in the otherwise sober Globe and Mail newspaper, comes out with this rather outlandish tale of how some granny's twitter intercepts are helping to plot targets for NATO airstrikes. How some equally uninformed ice cream store employee in Arizona was responsible for shutting down Ghaddafi's private oil revenue source - all from some simple Google searches. If Smith's right, he might just have discovered the secret formula for overcoming world terror - the power of the ''common Joe''. No longer working in armaments plants , the common North American Joe, or Josephine, can apply their Internet talents toward gleaning intel. Something that, apparently, the greatest force for good on earth hasn't the time or resources to do. Maybe a national campaign is in order.

If every 'Netizen' in the freedom-loving countries on earth would put aside their porn sites, P2P activities, hold on to the email or stop cruising for puppy portraits for one hour and concentrate on finding the facts for the forces of freedom, glorioski, we could really impress those jihadis and tie military intelligence in knots after two hours. Force the defeatists to provide our soldiers with some decent data processing software to sort through all the clues for the TRUTH.

Say, there's a word you don't hear much these days when the news is as manufactured as the first story I ever wrote about a 'parade'. Like that particular fiction, there is always a loss of focus, mine was 'clowns' in the parade, Smith's is the fiction that the military actually care about what they don't know and that they'd care about what any civilian thinks - unless, perhaps, she's spitting on them.

You gotta admit, though, the story's almost as good as a 'cakewalk' piece.

To the Shores of Tripoli

2011-06-14T14:49:00.005-04:00

Sometime in the next month or so, Little Stevie Wonder, the preemeer of Canada will be asking his parliamentary cronies to 'have patience' while he extends Canada's role in leading the forces of freedom against the world's current tyrant in Libya. I imagine the patience part will have more to do with those cronies who think the his government is still spending like a drunk on a payday spree, for it couldn't have much to do with the transmogrification of the 'time to fall' period, vis a vis Mr. Ghaddafi, from a matter of days to months. If nothing else, 'Stay the Course' is a mantra Steve apparently learned in utero.

And how are things in sunny Libya these days? Well it depends on who you're reading, but none of it is that 'light at the end of the chunnel' horsewallop. Positively speaking, the rebels (now that couldn't be the best word for legitimate forces of freedom) keep on keeping on, lately toward Tripoli, or holding-off the onslaught of Ghaddafi's minions elsewhere. The first desert boots are on the ground - on the feet of some private 'security' personnel, there to offer 'training' to the ragtag rebel forces. "Leadership" would definitely be faster, but, perhaps, too expensive and might not sit well with the Libyans. The French and Brits have decided that deploying attack helicopters is warranted, to do a 'blue knight' and winkle the evildoing armour out of city allies and bazaars. Lately, the rebels are complaining that Ghaddafi is hiding all his 'good stuff' in or near mosques and hospitals and, only to-day, in the ruins of some of those reminders of Roman glory that dot the Mediterranean seashore. If grandpas 'had to' bomb Pompeii to winkle out the panzers, great-grandkids Bubba and Harold wouldn't think more than once about 'restructuring' Leptis Magna or Sabratha. NATO "isn't ruling anything out", even some world heritage destruction would be Ghaddafi's fault.

On the negative side, things don't seem to be changing fast enough to have Ghaddafi get the 'willies' and go away. A bombing 'uptick' last week seemed aimed at removing more sand from bunker sites, or blasting Muammar's tent to shreds than it did actually 'awing' anybody. The NATO 'campaign' seems to be on summer holiday. It appears that the bombing might be more of a joke than anything else, if what the Toronto Star's Rosie 'the Riveter' DiManno is reporting from behind the lines, the Gahaddafites seem to be laughing it up! So it's either they're not taking NATO all that seriously, or they're doing the 'Berlin bunker thing' on a demi-national scale in a sort of latter-day gotterdammerung party - without the artillery.

Our dear friends in America seem to be willing, if not actually encouraging, NATO to take over the whole thing and leave them out of it. If it's to be believed, the US has a very light footprint in Libya, some CIA spooks and US-based patriots trying to set up a cogent 'government' and find out who the 'bad guys' from AQ might be to head off any applecart-upsetting when mission becomes successful. That should have been easy, for Ghaddafi had most of them in jail, but the rebels released them.

So, right now, the Libyan thing is a 'non-war', in many places it's not even a media event - like in Canada or the US. It soon won't be an African event either, if NATO succeeds in getting satellite access blocked for Libya's government TV stations. One would have thunk that would have been right up there on the first day target list. Apparently not. They let Ghaddafi go on "lying" and "using propaganda against them", to show how 'free' everything is?

And that's a good thing for Stevie Harper's Government are getting ready for their hard-earned summer break which will see him ruling as the national autocrat until they reconvene around Thanksgiving Day (in Canada that's at the beginning of October) to extend our Libyan 'mission' to Christmas.

The House of Commons , yesterday, "unanimously" (but with "vigorous" debate and a threat that such wouldn't happen in future) approved the extension of Canada's 'mission civilatrice' to the poor benighted Lbyan people. It also took the rather unique step of recognizing a non-group of 'rebels' as the legitimate national government. I don't even think the Commies recognized the Viet Cong as the legitimate government of anything before they won. But Canada points to a proud tradition of support for 'governments-in-exile' during WW2 ( what would they have been otherwise?), Jean Bertrand Aristide in exile 1 (before the USA convinced us that he was really just an asshole-in-disguise and we joined in the UN-sponsored 'regime change' in that benighted nation.). I believe we even 'recognized' Pol Pot at one time.

That bit of hypocrisy is further diminished by the pusillanimous thumbsucking and political pettifoggery that holds up what we are doing trying to kill Ghaddafi as some sort of moral exercise the Libyans really need. If we are so noble, why the restrictions? Why only $60 million and why only three months? Why aren't we loading the invasion barges with unemployed lumberjacks and making plans for Syria, Yemen, Darfur or Bahrain, too? There are a ton of places the UN has a responsibility for us to protect.

Nathan Had a Sqeezebox, Momma Didn't Sleep at Nignt

2011-05-29T11:20:00.004-04:00

The blogosphere lit up least week twittering the blessings of Benny Netanyahu's unplan for a settlement of the Palestinian issue. AIPAC was fully mobilized to rah-rah his message of hope for Israel in case it fell flat. It didn't, but once everybody sobered up it is now being perceived that Nate has possibly painted any hope of a peace process into a corner with himself. You can't just say what he said and then backtrack on any of it. Credibility is as much an issue as anything else. Nate has the ultra rightists who keep him in power to worry about more than the Palestinians he's going to need to trust him..

Just what did Nate say any way? Well he prefaced his remarks to Congress by saying he was all for peace and that Israel was prepared to make some painful choices and to "be generous" to achieve that peace. But there were to be some provisos.

First there was the matter of the Jewish State - not the old 'State of Israel' as mandated by the UN and constituted by the founders - no a religious state, the land of the Jews. All of a sudden anybody who's non-Jewish by matrilinear descent or religious conversion is possibly not a citizen. That includes all those who would, I assume, prefer not to sign the new loyalty oath. Recognition of that State is a precondition for negotiations.

A second point is that the pre-1967 boundaries will not be the 'starting point' for defining the new Jewish entity. It's "flexible" borders will be defined through negotiation and land swaps. It's pretty apparent that Israel will look much like it does now, with some sort of tribal 'homeland' for the Palestinians passing through it. It's highly unlikely that 'homeland' will, or can be contiguous. But when it's only needed as a pool of labour, it doesn't have to be contiguous and it seems there's little other reason for having a separate Palestinian state but for the fact palestinians wouldn't 'fit' in a Jewish one.

All non-citizen Arabs would live in the Palestinian Zone. All except those Arabs who still claim property in Israel but who are now refugees in neighboring counties. They lose all rights to their confiscated property and as 'palestinans'. Another precondition.

That arab entity would have responsibility only for its domestic affairs, everything else would be sieved though the Jewish state. Little will change for the State of Palestine that doesn't exist for the Palestinian authority.

As far as negotiations go, Israel reserves its right to not negotiate with HAMAS, or with the PA if HAMAS is affiliated with them. They want the PA to elect a new 'peace partner'. Since HAMAS IS the current PA government, that's going to be a real sticking point. Even more so if they win more seats in the planned fall election. Even if Israel could skew that election, it's highly unlikely even Fatah would roll over for Netanyahu. If they did, any such peace treaty he outlined would never get ratified.

The saga continues to-day with the announcement, coming out of the recent G8 meeting in France, that a "balanced" view of Israel's situation is required. This at the instance of Canada's Steve Harper and in opposition to Obama's stated '67 borders scheme. It is also mooted that Harper's position was 'reinforced' by a call from Netanyahu, although this is in keeping with Harper's support for everything else Israel has done since he was first elected. Leiberman the Israeli Minister of Defence did, however, publicly thank him for the 'support'

What happens next will depend on American politics and, particularly, if Obama gets a second term. Israel can't be forced to do anything. Even if the UN was to vote unanimously on a Palestinian homeland, nothing could be done to effect it. Israel's security will always trump world concern. Until perhaps Israel is isolated.

Even then, the nuclear card she doesn't play could affect any outcomes that aren't perceived to be advantageous to her. There's a strong streak of the Masada complex in Israelis, even the blogging ones.

.

And the Cat Came Back

2011-05-25T22:12:00.004-04:00

Six months, or so, back, I posted on the results of a court case which saw a man with AIDS given a life sentence for spending seven years 'accidentally' infecting a number of women when he refused to follow health department instructions to inform his partners and to wear a condom . Two of his partners died of AIDS related illnesses and three others were infected.

Well it didn't take our man long to figure out that jail isn't where he wants to be and so, somehow, he's back in court trying to convince a judge that a) he's really sorry, b) he understands now what he did wrong, c) he's better now and d) he'd like to help others avoid doing what he did. The part about his being able to atone and pay back being much better done if he wasn't in the slammer, hasn't been mentioned in the media, yet.

By way of explaining what happened to him he had a long sad tale to tell. His slide into despair apparently started with a deformed testicle. That brought him ridicule as a youngster and gave him those bad of feelings of inadequacy. Would to goodness the Nazi heirarchy had such debilitating results from the scrotal abnormalities described in the old soldiers' song. But I digress.

Growing up in Idi Amin's Uganda didn't do him any good as, apparently, he got to look at a lot of dead people before he emigrated to Canada. Things 'picked up' there, with a free university education and a government job. He got married and had three kids. And then, somehow, he got an HIV infection. That 'somehow' probably had a lot to do with his wife leaving with the kids and the 'devastating' divorce settlement she laid on him. The economic hit was so bad that he took up drinking after work. It wasn't long before he realized he was lonely, and that the ladies in the bars were lonely, too. They obviously didn't mind his hideous gonadal disfigurement, for he, apparently, had a very productive sex life. Until some of the ladies started asking him pointed questions about his health. It appears that some of his partners were just happy to have a man, let alone one with a shrivelled nut and a heavy viral load, they didn't ask and he didn't tell. He didn't want to 'jeopardize' the companionship by wearing a rubber, either. Somebody got sick, the police got involved.They found out about the health department and the unmentionable. Bim! Bam! Boom! He's doing life.

But he's back and he's got a sympathetic lawyer. And all he wants to do now is to 'give back' by educating kids about what happens when you keep your HIV to yourself, or don't. The free medication he's been given in prison has reduced his viral load to nearly zero. So, even if somebody found him irresistable, he'd be almost a safe as any other guy who's not shooting blanks. Maybe he'd like to increase his family.

No doubt his lawyer will point out that having him sit in the slammer for twenty years, thinking over what he already knows now, will be awaste of valuable resources. Why, he could be kept comfy on a disability pension from OMERS, some publicly-funded housing and medication and stuff, while he 'helps' people. And all for a lot less than the $75 000 it costs to keep him in jail. It's a win-win proposition.

If it were anybody else I might agree, but there's the niggling thing I just don't get. Sad, lonely, drunk, stupid whatever, how do you go on for seven effin' years exposing people to a disease you say made you feel like you'd been "shot in the head, heart, soul"? No matter how scared, or traumatized, or deluded you were, there wasn't a single day when you thought to yourself what you were doing with your love gun was exactly what ruined your life? If that never happened, the guy should not be walking among us, he will do it again. And if it did happen, only once, why didn't he stop? Why did he 'unintentionally' kill two people and ruin three other lives? Those errors is worth more than twenty years of his. In days past he might have been hung.

He can be a more effective "poster boy for AIDS" doing his time. He can save up for a computer and cheap video camera and make some presentations from his cell. The message will be all the more credible.

PS: At his appeal, Johnson Aziga was declared a Dangerous Offender. He will be imprisoned indefinitely due to his 'likelihood to reoffend'. I hope he doesn't get on the prison 'screw squad'.

The Great Toronto Terror - a la Wikileaks

2011-05-22T09:02:00.002-04:00

Now that radical islam's threats to Canadian life has been expunged, we have only to await the writing of the memoirs of the guys who 'took down terror'.

Those revelatons may be at some distance in the future as, no doubt, secrecies will have been sworn and blood oaths will preclude the prolix. But there are some codicils being written as we wait. An interesting one showed up yesterday via wikileaks.

The Toronto Star printed a story that CSIS, the Canadian spy agency, had placed one of its 'star' witnesses, Mubin Shaikh, on the US no-fly list. Shaikh had been an informant while pretending to use his experience in the militia to pretend to carry-out military pretend military training for pretend group of Toronto pretend terrorists.

You may recall the saga of how diligent police work took down a network that threatened to bomb downtown Toronto, when they weren't up in Ottawa beheading the House of Commons. The 'evidence' read out in court and backed up by the eyewitness accounts of two paid police informers, was enough to convict the 10 of them. They have been sentenced to stiff sentences of between 2.5 years and life in prison. The court was told how they had talked, planned and comunicated about the jihad, how they had camped out and played soldiers with a real pistol and a variety of other pseudo weapons. How they had obtained a quantity of what they thought was fertilizer for a bomb and how police nabbed them all in a 'massive' sweep operation when two of them showed up to unload it from the police rental truck.

One 'hero' of the piece, back then, was Shaikh, who was said to have approached CSIS with an offer to act as an agent. CSIS referred him to the RCMP who paid him at least a quarter million dollars for his services. It must have stuck in somebody's craw that asking for money when your country's existence is at stake, isn't very patriotic. And maybe that's why his name appears on a couple of American no-fly lists. Not just no-fly but also 'detain and investigate' lists. Shaikh is a 'person of interest' to the US, perhaps becasuse he weas involved in the original 'oops I dropped my horseleg' pistol-smuggling operation that 'broke the case and perhaps because he's holder of some of that 'intel' that has gotten others trips to interesting places and extended Cuban holidays. No wonder the lad is not impressed. CSIS also got his birth information wrong - claiming that Shaikh was born overseas, when he was actually born at St. Mike's hospital in Toronto.

So much for the 'honour' among those who safeguard our freedoms. Actually honour has nothing to do with it. Shakh got paid and the listing was a bonus - CSIS tells the Americans all. America tells CSIS what it wants them to know.

The real story couldn't be much different from the fiction.

Well? We're still here.

2011-05-22T07:46:00.001-04:00

The "great earthquake" prophesied to begin the process of social disintegration leading up to the endtimes ultimate event, failed to appear, as foretold, again. I'm trying to figure out who gains in all this crap, there have to be 'suckers fleeced' somewhere. My bet is that the Grand Moff Tarkin who did the arithmetical computations, hasn't divested himself totally of all his worldly goods. But it appears that some poor dopes may have.

4 or 5 years back the same thing happened in Russia and a number of people in the Moscow area 'purified' themselves of everything but a clean bedsheet in anticipation of 'fahrt zum himmel'. It must have come as a shock in the ensuing years that the trip was off. Would it have been some form of welching to have 'indian gifted' all the stuff? And would the recipients have been 'doing the right thing' giving it all back? Deeply held religious beliefs and all.

That such messianic tidings should still be a regular occurrence should be of no real surprise to us. When we see the icons on which our 'world' is predicated - Bear Stearns, Lehmann Brothers, Enron, Bernie Madoff and the like - those things that 'fill the sole with joy' - proven to have the proverbial 'feet of clay', it makes the true believer start looking for alternatives. And so we have Raelians and Scientology and the fevered dreams of part-time shoe salesmen, petrologists and a host of others with 'good ideas' for us to improve ourselves. If it isn't Donnie and Marie selling you stuff to eat that's going to give you the bod you've never had (and that mother Nature's going to alter significantly) or the shopping channeleers peddling undies and electronics , jewellry and cosmetics, investment chattels and health gizmos that will , if nothing else, make your life 'fuller', it's the glossy merchandising of a million 'lifestyle' marketers selling everything from music to dog food. Consumerism is our faith - the market will never be empty - and religion, these days, is just another consumer choice. It's debunked as myth and superstition and used by many as the source of 'income generation'.

The ultimate 'big win' of course is the kingdom of heaven, the new Eden, Paradise .... a place away from all this mortal coil stuff where all will be, as it was in the beginning, all blissful perfection. It didn't take the hotshots down at the temple long to figure out that magical amulets and an 'in' with the deity were marketable assets. The business of religion has been around since Ogg first saw the divine fire. But you'd think that we'd have managed to shake off the notion that 'buying' eternity isn't a sucker move of the first water. Especially if 'buying' it means letting somebody else, who ain't God either, do the driving for you. This latter happens too much. Yesterday it happened again.

The leaders of the great religions weren't into 'passing the plate' - although some of their followers had the real-world 'smarts' to realize you can't run an organization on faith alone. Judas may have been concerned about 'the bottom line', but I don't think that Jesus was - they had some words that might indicate a basic difference of opinion on the subject. I don't think Buddha was big on the collection, although generosity with ones' earthly belongings was praised as virtuous. Like other such thinkers, he pointed out that such belongings only get in the way of growth to enlightenment. All those thinkers - even including Mohamet - put that 'growth', over finite lifetime, as the ultimate achievement. All of them encourage the development of the sublime over the practical, the thought and word over the material, a way of living over a lifestyle.

Our artificial lifestyle - I say artificial because we've done a great job of dissociating ourselves from the natural in life - just cries out for the experience of 'real' that has us getting-off on survival, or reconnecting with a self, blasted by bad choices in social 'advances' and abuse of what we used to consider 'gifts' but now take as rights, or ways of escaping. For with all our stuff we enjoy watching the foibles of others with their 'stuff', our's is far neater and better-organized don'tcha know! We enjoy watching - and there's nothing much wrong with that for getting an idea of what life is like - but it leads us to trust things and people we shouldn't be trusting much at all. Yesterday it was a apocalytic earthquake that didn't happen, tomorrrow it could be a power outage - a severe one would have the same social effect over a period of a couple of weeks. Imagine the effect of no refrigeration, or heat, or even drinking water. We 'trust' a lot of institutions and organizations to make sure we have these. God doesn't have to move the earth to screw these up, we can do that all by ourselves.

Maybe those who were having 'apocalypse parties' last night to celebrate the non-event could 'smarten up' enough to consider the last points. You'd have to be a mental midget, or a bunker dweller, to think that the 'end of it all' was a good reason to party.

There's always the end of that Mayan Calendar coming up in the Fall.

Putting the whammi on Muammi Ghaddafi

2011-05-21T21:08:00.002-04:00

Watching one of those 'town hall' meetings so much in vogue of late, on the topic of the current regime change underway in Libya. There were a host of experts and pundits available to discuss NATO's 'responsibility', acquired via the UN from the latest US doctrine - the 'obligation to protect' and how that is being applied in Libya. The 'rebel' side was represented by a number of expatriot Libyans.

The overall impression however, despite a wide ranging and comprehensive exchange of diplomatic, military, and civilian views, is that, somehow, a significant number of Libyans seem to be being left out of the discussion. And that is strange. For Libya, the last time I looked, hadn't declared war on anybody, and aside, from a UN resolution, had anyone declared war on it. There should be a number of Libyan voices still representative of the 'ancien regime' who could offer an apologia, if not a perspective, for it. They may not be 'enemy aliens', but there is no way their narrative is being introduced into the debate, not in any free and open democratic forum.

So it seems that Ghaddafi, supported by two, (now only one), sons and the elite military units they command, are not only holding-off the rest of the country under the latest and best air bombardment NATO can offer, they actually seem to be able to put a regular 'run' on the 'rebel' forces and maintain another couple of seiges. They seem to be in control of, or able to deny control to, the country's oil resources. Ghaffi et fils seem to be in control of the western half of the country, and able to dispute the central coast, the southern areas seem to be theirs, too. What puts them in some jeopardy is the source of arms and supplies for the rebel forces, in the absence of such re-supply for his own. His ability to wage a conventional war seems to have been heavily-attritted but the notion that he might have access to some sophisticated weapons, particularly anti-aircraft weapons, is keeping the Coalition Airforce at altitude where they might not be as effective as wished. That notion might also be holding up the committment of ground forces..

As I pick this screed up (some 5 weeks later) little has changed, except now that NATO has managed to clear out at least some old stock from the bomb lockers, and Ghaddafi has become a personal 'high-value target',again, the leader of the free world wants permission from Congress - of the USA (not the world) - to 'go kinetic' by introducing an armed force into Libya. It's really suprising that the 'sober' voices (the silent ones) of the UN aren't saying 'enough already' and calling for a truce and talks. If only in New York - for the Security Council seems to be wagging the UN dog, and not doing it the least bit well at it.

So far the US seems to be taking some delight in pounding Ghaddafi's "compound" to rubble and using the general explanation (he brought them to a firefight?) to excuse their blasting a couple of his grandchildren and one of his sons. You'd think a country affected by one, singular, earth-shaking catastrophe might have some reluctance about visiting the same, in spades, on somebody else, particularly somebody else who did nothing to harm them. But, hey, if you had to hit back your 'pals' ..... it's always easier to punish an 'enemy'.

The testosterone is flowing in the US ... all the Bin Laden 'high fives' have sprouted a 'bush' full of 'macho' and John Wayne 'say-sos'. All except when it comes to gallant little Israel, though. Mr Meshuggeneh can come to America and address Congress, call the President a 'naif' and ridicule his Weltanschaung in the press. He can say that there's no way he's even going to consider what Obama, or the UN says, in his'existential' defence of Eretz Israel. Maybe if Israel wasn't America's 'only, real' friend. But then, who would want those high tech weapons - or be willing to use them - just look at what they do with the money they don't have to spend arming themselves, they've turned that desert into a garden, fer pete's sake. Or maybe that's the money they've screwed out of Gaza and the West Bank..

Another little north African 'adventure' may be just the ticket the US armed forces need to get their morale problem in order. A swift little desert war - putting the Abrams and the armored fist to work like Rommel did. And not a Monty, or even an O'Connor in sight - should be a 'cake walk', and an opportunity to show up the 'luftweapon' who figured they could bomb Muammar out of office.

But it better not take more than 2 weeks.

PS: There's no chance this is a Bin Laden post mortem trick, eh? Replacing 'the revolution' with Al Qaeda? Nah, probably not.

Rapprochement?

2011-04-29T09:29:00.002-04:00

Last month it was noised abroad that Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the PA, was to visit Gaza. Then a Jewish settler family was found murdered in the West Bank and the ensuing 'hue and cry' in West Bank villages put an end to the visit. The notion of Abbas sitting down with HAMAs seemed still-born.

But the Arab spring was in full swing and whatever powers there were in a newly 'de-Mubaraked' Egypt invited the feuding sides to meet together without the standard Egyptian 'interests' (viz Mubarak's agreements with Israel) involved. The result, announced to-day, was another plan to unite the two main 'factions' of the PA into one political entity. HAMAS and FATAH are uniting their forces to move the Palestinian agenda forward.

So what's new this time? There have been such 'plans' before.

True, there have been a number of attempts to re-engage the two halves of the palestinian polity, often at the behest of the Arab League. The league members have their own agenda and support of the Palestinian cause is, for many of them, mostly mouth action. Previous plans involved paying HAMAS for caving-in to FATAH. The latter being vaguely palatable to Israel as a 'peace partner' and acceptable to the western powers as 'reformed terrorists'. Obviously had HAMAS seen any benefit to joining the moribund rump of the PLO, it would have done that. But one of the main causal reasons for HAMAS is the loss of 'belly-fire' in the resistance, and the co-option of Arafat's movement to align with Israel's main supporters. Not to mention the fact that 'virtual zero' for Palestinians was thoroughly explored in a very protracted series of peace 'lunches', while the Zionists colonized the West Bank..

HAMAS, having fought off FATAH twice, was in no mood to join the 'losers', even though such action isolated and severely punished Gaza. It is perhaps this stalwart defence of their principles that is bringing the West Bank Arabs to the realization that, if there is no substantial change, the 'screwing' they've been getting will continue indefinitely.

Among agreement on 5 points is one to organize and hold an election in Gaza and the West Bank. This is vital. The last parliamentary election saw a Hamas government elected, and then arrested by the Israeli military. HAMAS took over administration of GAZA. Fatah held its strongholds in the West bank by rounding-up and jailing HAMAS proponents. HAMAS reciprocated after intercepting a US arms shipment bound for FATAH supporters in Gaza and chased the party activists out. The next election will allow ballot box comment on a raft of changes from new settlements to the Wall. I'd bet FATAH's day is done.

Of course the greatest reaction to this announcement came from Israel. The three biggest news sources were full of commentary and interpretation of the event. The Jewish blogosphere lit up with dire warnings that destruction had taken wing, the existential threat was being realized. There were demands for the UN to outlaw everything in Palestine and impose sanctions - definitely to ignore any calls for Palestinian statehood or study of Mr. Goldstone's original report - which still stands as written. The Israeli 'security' cabinet was meeting to discuss the ramifications.

Among the immediate actions being demanded is the withdrawal of US support for the Palestinian Authority which is, once again, being described, by 'Israelis', both 'foreign and domestic', as a "terrorist state". Israel calls upon the world not to recognize the 'new' Palestinian government. After an election this might be a more problematic. Israel might be well-advised to use the wallet of the USA to try to get a better settlement now, rather than risking a worse one at some time up the road.

It goes without saying that, unless she's obviously attacked, 'punching out' the neighborhood, again, as a diversion, is a counter-productive non-starter. But it isn't off the table, nu?

The Priministerial Aide

2011-04-10T15:52:00.004-04:00

Off and running and right into a tree, the 'Harper Government' of Canada comes wallowing out of the blocks and right into another cabinet-style embarassment.

This ain't Carson but the picture came up when he was googled.

About a month back newspapers were carrying a story that the Assembly of First Nations had asked police to investigate the possible malfeasance of one Bruce Carson, who, at that time, was putting himself across to them as someone with inside connections to the Tory government. He had involved himself in the sale of some water filtration equipment and was 'hyping' the deal with news that water quality was becoming a government 'priority' for first nations reserves and that he could access government money for equipment and training. He was also engaged in erroneously 'hyping' a particular filtration system to Indian band councils as being 'approved by the government and the AFN'. He might have failed to mention that his girlfriend, working for the company involved, stood to pick-up a 20 percent commission on sales.

Bruce's fiancee

Turns out that his girlfriend is a reformed Ottawa area 'escort' and former teen prostitute. Bruce had , apparently taken her 'under his wing', helped her get out of 'the life'. Helped her land a job. They had also become engaged and moved into a new house together. But that's the interesting part of the story. Since the story broke there are, so far, only trace elements of her previous existence on the internet.

The 'pied a terre'

The rest of the story is more mundane.

Carson, a former lawyer who was disbarred and spent some time in jail for a small fraud, has been a denizen of Tory caves in Ottawa since Harper came to power. He has had a number of functions tangential to government, acting as an aide and advisor. One of his more interesting appointments was as the policy chief on the Afghanistan deployment of Canada's Armed forces. Carson's job, at that time, was to receive and review daily reports from Afghanistan, to prepare a briefing digest for the Prime Minister and to advise on policy ramifications. It is said that he had 'secret' level security clearance, but reports from the military operation that he received must have been at a higher level than that, considering that one of the 'biggies' he handled was the matter of possible war crimes charged by returning military personnel. How a convicted fraudster managed to attain such status, is a question on which the Harper Government seems to be doing the 'cabinet shuffle'. They've blamed an anonymous clerk and, of late, said the outgoing 'Staff' of the Mounties did it - but he denies that. It's looking more like nobody vetted Mr. Carson at all. And this gaffe won't be solved by tossing another aide under the dumptruck. It's even better than the 'Minister of War' dropping his brief at his girlfriend's house, for Harpo, himself, gave Bruce his jobs.

In the interim, Carson has had to step down from his latest appontment as the executive Director of the Canadian School of Energy and Environment. The CSEE is a government creation, a multi-institutional panel to collect studies on energy and the environment. A viable alternative to actually doing anything about energy and the environment, no doubt. Carson took that job late in 2008.

Goldstone Redux

2011-04-04T22:35:00.003-04:00

Some 20 months ago Justice Goldstone, at the behest of the UN HRC, presented the report of his committee on 'Operation Cast Lead'. In the ensuing time its formal presentation to that body and to the General assembly has been stonewalled. That is probably, in retrospect, a good thing, for Justice Goldstone has had, we are told, a notable change of heart in regard to his report.

In an opinion piece in yesterday's Washington Post the good justice claims that had he known then, what he has learned since, that report would be significantly different.

The elucidation he cites is, essentially, that the IDF has proceeded to investigate its peccadilloes while HAMAS has not. Ergo the IDF perspective - that they would not deliberately target civilians, becomes, for him, the lingua franca in which the report should have been written. He goes on to describe how, in at least two investigations that have actually been concluded - somebody, an officer in one case ( up on a charge for careless interpretation of some drone imagery that gave rise to the destruction of a house and the family in it) has been charged. Although the charge has been laid, the case has yet to make its way through an IDF court. And, probably, with the same results that saw numerous military incidents described as 'mistakes made in the heat of battle'. Another investigation saw an enlisted man convicted of theft of a credit card he was careless enough to use to buy some treats for himself when he got back to base.

The good Justice doesn't have much to say about the 'battle' which saw 7 IDF soldiers killed - 5 in friendly -fire incidents, as opposed to 1100 fairly-definable civilians and 300 fairly-identifiable HAMAS fighters. The 'battle' would seem to have been quite one-sided. So much for a 'measured response'. There were other glaring incidents, reported by the Red Cross and UN observers, that have not yet been investigated - like the shooting of an ambulance crew trying to evacuate wounded, and the use of WP munitions on a UN school known to be used as a refuge. Justice Goldstone is convinced it was all done with the best of intentions. Hamas, he's equally as sure, now shares their part of the blame all alone. Actually they share all the blame, for although he doesn't say it, they 'made' the IDF 'have' to do it.

I'm inclined to think that this is an exercise to draw the world's attrention to the story of the Fogel family - mentioned, as it is, in his newpaper piece, and its getting 'lost' amid the news about Libya two weeks ago. The western press may have not played the 'massacre' as well as it might have been, but the electronic 'hebrew blog-o-sphere' certainly 'did it up right'. The Justice would have to be a Haman of sorts, to side with such monsters. In fact he's getting still such a reaction from some of his co-religionists for writing that report (and encouraging such killers) at all. The other half of the crowd is calling to the 'World Pilate' in New York to 'wash its hands' of the report entirely and wondering if 'prestige' levels will improve enough for another 'free hand' in Gaza.

I'm inclined to think another poke at Gaza is the ultimate point. The recent murder of the Fogels put the blocks to another attempt to 'mend fences' between the West Bank and Gaza. 'Abu Mazen's' little foray to the camps had to be delayed so he could lend a hand in the 'razzas' the IDF pulled-off to 'round up the usual suspects'. So far none have been charged. A shipping container of weapons was confiscated from a Turkish ship sailing to Egypt. A number of rockets and a fairly large array of mortar bombs and tubes were displayed for the public. One of the results was an uptick on fence security at Gaza with a spate of bombing and shooting incidents along the perimeter, and the launching of an increased number of retaliatory rockets and mortars. Noises being made last week, when a rocket actually hit a house, were reaching the "intolerable" level and the 'price', Cast Lead 2, was being tossed around.

Mr Netanyahu is doing his darnedest to restrain the 'war dogs' in his cabinet, but even his 'patience' is worn thin.It wouldn't take much to unleash another live-fire exercise on the Gazans. Maybe Mr. Goldstone, by recanting his report on the last one, has set the stage for the next one. Ironic, sort of.

Hey! Look at Me! Look at Me!

2011-03-21T16:55:00.004-04:00

Somebody once asked a rocker (it might have been Keith Richards) what message he thought rock and rollers were trying to get across: he said it was, "Hey everybody, look at me!" That seems to be a common thing in the world ,too. There are a couple of countries that seem to be unable to stand being ignored. North Korea is one, South Korea is another. Gaddafi was good at it, and America, because of its importance, has not yet really been tried since its early days, which then had some promise. One of the best 'crier' is gallant little Israel.

Maybe it's because the 'threat' never really goes away. Maybe it's because it has been a nation-in-arms for the past 60 years. Maybe it's because it has kicked the tripe out of every one of its neighbours, some of them twice or three times, in that 60 years, or maybe it's just because the cash might stop coming if the crying stopped. But Israel makes a lot more noise about 'needing' than many other places far worse off, or with far greater needs.

Israel started advertising itself as the place that 'made the desert bloom' back in the fifties and although they've turned the place into an Arizona look-alike since then, it's probably had as much to do with having tremendous financial resources available, almost from the very beginning, than it's had to do with hard work. For, since the first Zionists arrived, they've been hiring the locals as day labor. It's not much different to-day. For a lot of Jews in Israel, the 'job' is just being Jewish, that aggrevates the non-religious Israelis who actually have to work for a living. When you look at what Israel actually exports to the world you find that, for all its modernity, it doesn't actually produce much at all. But you wouldn't think so from looking at google world. Israel is a lush green colour surrounded by dun-coloured neighbours. How could this be possible, with only a little help from friends and an 'edge' on the local resources.

Considering it has no oil production of its own and one of the highest ratios of citizens to automobiles on earth, and an active military, you have to wonder why you never hear Israel moaning about gas or oil shortages. If there is anywhere on earth that should have them, given the hostile neighborhood, it's Israel. But Israel never seems to have to scrimp at home while running a war anywhere else. Why is that? Well it could be because Israel, by some strange twist of kismet, got itself located at the end of an oil pipline from Jordan to the sea that exports mainly Iraqi oil, for Jordan has precious little of its own, either. For all their wanting to 'destroy' Israel, its oil rich Arab neighbours don't feel any constraints about oiling its war machine. Strikes me that, if they were as serious as the Israelis say they are, that tap would have been offed long ago.

Egypt controls the Suez but the thought of making Israeli shipping take the long way from Ashkelon to Eilat doesn't seem to have occurred to them. Even lately, the Egyptians were letting Israeli subs through their canal while the Israelis were whinging about a glorified Iranian tugboat being allowed through for the first time since the Ayetolleh was Homeini. Once again one would have thought, that, to 'strangle' Israel wouldn't have been such a difficult thing to do. The Arabs may have navies, some quite powerful on paper, but it's the Israelis who range the eastern Med fending-off those 'existential threats'.

This week the blogdom of the Jewish world lit up with the news that a settler family had been 'massacred' in one of those west bank outposts. It was unremarkable in that every one that I read stated, without any doubt that the Arabs had done it, because 'that's what Arabs do'. And the other unremarkability was the bloodthirsty nature of the proposed 'price extraction'. This week Jewish blogdom is riven by arguments about whether, or not, the on-site photos of slashed parents and bloodied babies should have been used to illustrate the story. While the effect of such lurid details was debatable; whether the Arabs might actually not be guilty occurred to only one or two Jewish commentators. Or whether the actions of the IDF and settlers in the nearest Arab village, or whether the extension of that particular settlement onto newly 'abandoned' Palestinian land (suitably named from the initials of the 5 dead) were appropriate reactions to such a horror, were noted by very few bloggers and commentators. Those commentators were, naturally, greeted with the 'meshuggeneh' reaction.

Without getting to deeply into what seems to be 'an on-going investigation', in this instant we have what an American in Iraq once described as "what happens when you bring your kids to a battle". This particular family of settlers, the Fogels, were among those who had 'settled' in Gaza, and had then been removed by the IDF. Funded by the Israeli government they moved into a West Bank settlement on what was considered to be 'legitimately-appropriated' land. For some reason they left that established home to break ground in a new settlement near Hebron. Since it was started, the settlement has been in a literal 'war' with its Arab neighbours. People, on both sides, have been beaten and killed, the notion of 'extracting a price' from Palestinians in destroyed property started near here, and numerous Palestinians have been arrested and jailed under a military administration that often fails to identify settlers involved in provocations or violence. The Fogels may have been raising their children 'well', but that included a readiness, in that community, to meet Palestinan "violence" with even more violent Israeli offensive "defence".

Along with a general round-up of young males in the nearby Palestian village (two policemen were identified immediately as suspects), the Israeli police also rounded-up all the 'foreign workers' in the settlement itself. These settler camps, like many other places in the middle east, make use of the cheap labor of Thais and Philippinos to build or tend to things the settlers apparently don't have time to do. Some commentators have posited that it was one of these workers who may have killed the Fogels. For an outsider to enter the 'front line' camp, and 'execute' the family of two otherwise healthy adults, (one an IDF officer) - missing two of their children at home (who may have slept through the mayhem) and a third who was out at a meeting - without raising any alarm and then exiting the village undisturbed, just seems to verge too much on the miraculous.

Both sides in this sad story have their martyrs, and their martydoms. Neither is particularly conducive to peace or reconciliation. No one, especially children, should have to suffer for the sins of their parents, but that, once again sadly, is, often, life. By the same token, no one should be dispossessed of their homes for anyone else's previous or historic 'rights'. If that were the universal case, there would be few places on earth that wouldn't be challenged by 'former' owners. I really don't think that Jews from anywhere, other than Palestine, have any 'right' to land there, particularly if it currently belongs to a Palestinian. They should, perhaps, have a right to buy, if a Palestinaian wants to sell, but there is a lot of 'buying more than was sold', or buying rights to property from someone who doesn't hold them, and then using the courts and the law to gain freehold after encouraging the residents' 'abandonment' through intimidation and violence.

As things stand now, with Israel continuing to 'cry out' and be heard by Americans and their government, nothing fair or equitable can be expected. What the world will get is more violence, for those like the Fogels, who claim a 'divine right', have no place for any non-jew in "Eretz Yisroel". Their only solution is ethnic cleansing. The non-religious Jews might be more temperate, but many of them see that they're in the same boat with the others, that the best way to keep 'safe' is to keep on top of the Palestinians, to make sure they can't go anywhere, be anything or do much but labour for scraps, if they stay in, or even near, Israel. Which leaves Palestinans with no real choice other than to give up and hope for some change of heart, or to keep fighting, and breeding, in hope that either they drive Israelis to do them what the Germans did to their sires and become 'pariah' to their supporters, or until they outnumber their masters and their masters have no choice but to change.

For all the crying, the world isn't helping by running to 'pick up the baby'. It's already been spoiled, so there is no easy 'cure'.

Kill Khaddafi!

2011-03-21T13:01:00.001-04:00

The latest bit of 'UN-sponsored', first-world industrialized destruction is being rained down upon one of the world's "bad guys", again. The leaders of the 'free-world', or a chunk of it, have decided that a robust military response to the 'terror' Muammar Khaddafi is inflicting on his own country is the best way to remove him from office. It's another one of those "freedom for ______" (fiil in the blank) exercises the 'good guys have been doing since the late 80's. If it wasn't that such exercises usually require somebody getting bombarded from the air, and, to date, haven't accomplished much more than some good will and honest brokering might have done, I'd be all for them.

Not that I have any great affection for Khaddafi, but it strikes me that he's doing exactly what the other 'allied' leaders of the middle east are doing: 'keeping their houses in order'. And they would be doing it exactly the same way (wouldn't we too?) had their protesters there been able to access an arms dump, as was the case in Libya. The army is 'defecting' in other places too, and supporting the protestors, as some units did in Libya. There are, again in all instances so far, forces 'loyal' to the government available to wreak varying amounts of mayhem, or order, as the case may be. In Yemen it's called 'mayhem', in Bahrein it's called 'order' for example. Some people are calling Libya a 'civil war', others a 'revolution' or 'putting down an armed insurgency' - the differences are solely in the optics of the observer. Libya, like Egypt and Tunisia, is not a failed state, yet. Until very recently Khaddafi, for all his warts, was considered a world leader and Libya considered friendly to the west. Khaddafi had claimed for himself the mantle of Arab 'leader' against radical Islamicists. So why all, of a sudden, the need for regime change?

Well we had better ask Obama's female advisors, for they, apparently convinced him it was time to 'go kinetic' to save their Libyan sisters. More likely it's being seen as the need to do something, as opposed to being accused by teabaggers of doing nothing, that has goaded the American President into 'joining the fun'. Sarkozi may be getting the credit for 'leading', but everybody knows the only state capable of 'getting her done quick and professional' is the US of A. And there, as the old saying goes, lies the rub. America, or the rest of the free world for that matter. needs another fast and professional military solution to anything like it needs an outbreak of plague or another economic melt. (In actuality it seems that there may be more to American involvement that we were led to believe, as comments about the CIA being involved "for weeks" and rumours that Obama had signed the orders to assist the rebels well before he told Americans he was considering it. The reason, however, is not yet clear.)

'Quick and professional' sounds good going in, but as the warriors are so fond of telling the rest of us, the best laid military plan does not survive the first clash of arms. They've obviously gotten over the 'cake-walk' and 'home for Christmas' ballyhoo learned in such outstanding vic'tries as the Falklands, Grenada and Panama, for the latest applications of military 'science' have reverted to the classic styles of fiasco or quagmire. Even the best of such operations, as in Kosovo, wind up being protracted military 'peace-keeping' operations. There are still NATO troops 'standing watch' over Kosovo, although the war has been over for almost a generation. While Libya is no Iraq or Afghanistan, it's not going to be a Kosovo either. It definitely won't be a push-over like aforementioned 'vict'ries', if Kaddafi chooses to 'fight it out', particularly without any 'boots on the ground'. But that right now is not part of the 'plan'.

At present there seems to be no plan other than bombard, evaluate and re-bombard. Once again there is the impression that somebody wants to kill Khaddafi (although EVERYBODY says Khaddafi's NOT being

targetted), unless he's in the habit of pitching his tent right next to valuable military targets. Ronald Reagan let somebody talk him into blasting the beast in his lair. The result was an ugly press relations situation featuring Muammar's dead baby daughter. Ronnie never tried 'second time lucky' on that mode of 'reasoning'. Shortly afterward an American jumbo jet, full of citizens, came to an unscheduled landing in Lockerbie, Scotland. Muammar got some 'payback' for that assassination attempt. (As an aside, to get back in the 'good books' he recently paid off the monetary damages for that bombing. The 'convicted' bomber ( he still pleads innocent) was granted a 'humanitarian' release from a Scottish jail. Maybe he's being targetted now, too.). There are, at present, no plans to put boots on the ground in Libya. So the UN/NATO is depending on an untrained armed jacquerie to put paid to Khaddafi. They'd better be prepared to send in a kill team. Of course to arm, supply and train the protestors would take more resources, and a lot more time.

Other than that, there is a split in world support - China and Russia could have vetoed the adventure, but didn't, they haven't been verbally supportive though. The Arab states offered some lip service to their best customers, but once again weren't able to actually do much. The African Union is adamantly opposed to the move. I guess they're getting the feeling that, since Asia's a bust, the next great hope for western 'progress' is Africa. Progress being the process in which the west's bi-lateral 'interests' open a country up for economic (viz business) 'cooperation'.

In the short run, though, the Libyan adventure is just another great opportunity for something else to go wrong.

Of Cabbages, and Kings

2011-03-15T10:38:00.003-04:00

I was remarking to a friend the other day about the way that events tend to happen and louse-up the best laid plans. I was thinking, at the time, of the numerous occurrences that changed Bushco's great Asian adventures into General MacCrystal's 'bleeding ulcer'. And how the same things keep happening to stop Afghanistan from becoming the out and out success that some prognosticators say they're already seeing. I'm surprised that North Americans are still willing to invest their grandkids future on the chance that, one of these times, the Afghan dice will start coming up 7's or 11's. But this ain't exactly like just tossing dice. With a dawdling to non-existant economic recovery - unless you're counting the massive sales of paper that did so much for stock portfolios prior to the last crash, and some other crises lingering on the near horizon - I'm surprised the 'cut the losses' crowd hasn't been more vocal. Or, could it be, that those losses are now so massive that they're in the 'too large to....' category?

Japan has been having its problems too, economically and, lately, politically - there doesn't seem to be any one strong method being put forward to advance the place. But those problems pale to some insignificance when one considers the events that have occurred there in the last four days. "Catastrophe" comparable to WW2 - it's being called and World War 2 was not gentle on Japan. But, thank goodness, such massive damage seems to be fairly localized. What may not be as local, and certainly more long lasting, are the potential effects of a catastrophe all on its own at one of the Japanese nuclear generators. The Earthquake did minor damage to the installation, as did the ensuing Tsunami - even though the atomic station is built right on the coast. The damage the tsunami did do howver seems to have been mortal - it knocked out the main diesel generators. Without these, the pumping system that cools the reactors couldn't be operated properly. The earthquake may have damaged the reactors themselves too, for it triggered their automatic shut-down processes. That shut-down was incomplete when the tsunami struck and stopped it completely. The cores started heating, sea water was deployed as an emergency coolant. First one, then a second reactor, then three and their containing buildings suffered violent explosions. This was written off to a build-up of hydrogen in the building which, I guess wasn't being vented - but the explosion was markedly violent enough - being 'felt' some 25 KM away - that a gas build-up in a light building was probably not the only cause. As we write, Japan could be on its way to giving Chernobyl a run for the money. The lids are off three reactors in which the core has been exposed, it's not cooling any more and a fourth is now 'on fire'.

One of the safety features of atomic power generation, about which I think we've all been led up the garden path, is that, once the reaction process has been started, it can be shut down a) rapidly and b) safely. What we're seeing in Japan is that, under a worst case scenario, the best prescription might be that old saw about 'bending over and kissing your ass good-bye'. Shutting down an atomic reaction in 'an emergency' takes weeks, if not longer, and it has to be carefully staged and executed, two things the 'need' for immediate safety might very well preclude.

Another consideration I think is important, is that building such inherently dangerous and delicate systems on a seismic fault line might not be a full application of conventional wisdom. Add to that, the wisdom of building one at sea level beside the sea, or beside any large water body that could be affected by a seismic event enough to generate a 'tsunami', or even just a large wave, without some robust precautions to minimize the effect of water damage. Neither of those are evident in the Japanese situation.

If there is a good thing coming out of this it is that, at least, the Japanese seem to have worked effectively to minimize the deleterious effects on near-by residents. Evacuations seemed to timely and efficient, considering the other problematic situations abounding. Unless, of course, as seems to be the developing case, there has been some of that 'face-saving' going on and this 'minor difficulty' is turning into something potentially worse than either of the natural events that gave rise to it. The atomic 'crisis' has not yet reached a climax.

Almost as a 'microcosm' in comparison, it seems, is the other 'little' tragedy of the week, going on in Libya. It would appear that Gaddafi has regained his composure, and is now set to 'take back' what the 'rebels' grabbed. For all their encouragement, and/or bluster, nobody seems willing to get more involved as Gaddafi cleans things up. We'll have to see what happens this week, as NATO, the EU, the Arab League, the African Union, and America's 'resolve' seems to melt away like a highwayful of AAA pick-up trucks. It could be that destroying the rebels ammunition dump was the smartest move yet. It certainly seems to have been a game changer. Thank goodness they don't have any atomic plants, like the Iranians or Israelites, sitting smack dab on top of a potential Japanese experience.

It's good that we don't know about some things. FAP!

Holy Moly Things are Changing

2011-03-15T10:32:00.002-04:00

Leave for a while to visit the 'socialist paradise' in the Caribbean and what happens? 'The more things change, the more they say the same', as some French wit once remarked. It seems like it's been THE month for popular uprisings - Tunisia and Egypt, now Libya with ongoing rumbles on Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, the Gulf States and the counterpoint that's been part of the background noise in Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan for years. All this, supposedly about 'democracy'. What's really amazing is the lack of such 'popular' uprisings in those pariah states where, we're told, the tyrants are on the bones of their ass - namely Iran, North Korea and Cuba.

Let's take a look at Cuba for a minute. I was in Trinidad recently (on the south coast half-way down the island). The town is a world heritage site as, apparently, it's location, (inland a bit), stopped whatever predators have been known to burn down parts of Cuba in order to assist regular urban renewal, from torching the place much. The city buildings are of some antiquity and hence are archtecturally interesting.

Things haven't changed much in terms of infrastructure, if you don't count a new airport building and two markedly upgraded 'cafe' businesses just outside the terminal at Cienfuegos. Trinidad is a very old city sprouting some of the appurtenances of modernity. The city itself is remarkable for a recent outburst of housing additions - building an extra story on the roof. Some of these look like a 'dodge' of city planning ordinances and don't look like they could be trusted in an earthquake. There is also some new 'foreign investment building underway - a couple of Novotel projects in the works. The 'casa particular' (bed and breakfast/lunch/dinner) operations seem to be expanding along with a number of private restaurants. It could be a sop to the 'new economic reality', but it is a sign that the Cubans are doing something.

In like manner a host of newly-built (in the last 8 years) communal housing developments in rural areas are noteworthy. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to having them located as they are, except for one in the middle of a cane plantation of some size and another, under construction, nearby what I was told is a Cuban holiday spot at the mouth of a river. The schools look more dilapidated than before, but the kids seem just as clean and well-turned-out as ever.

The resort we stayed at was in turmoil of sorts while we were there. The government austerity plan announced last summer - which was to see the civil service and military reduced by 30 percent, had worked it's way down to the tourist spots where the wait staff and cameraras were being told which of them was soon to be out of work. As a friend noted, 'connections' seemed to take precedence of actual ability, for those bartenders and waiters with the laziest streak seemed to be the ones who were 'OK'.

For the first time, we met Americans who had 'sneaked' into Cuba - taking a flight over from Cancun. They seemed nice, but were the sort who were either 'sorry' for what America was doing or self-described as the "last socialists in America". Nice to see them, they certainly made a less gaudy show than the returned 'Miami Cubans' with their rented 'bling' and 'boss' attitudes. The Cubans seem to really enjoy 'banging' them an extra 15 percent for exchanging their US dollars. Maybe, if they were staying with family, instead of at a tourist resort, they'd be better received. It was also surprising to note the lack of full-time resident tourists this time round. The place was virtually empty most afternoons. The Europeans all seemed to be on bus tours that pulled-in in time for supper and left right after breakfast. The entertainment staff must have appreciated the evening crowd. I'd say, however, that tourism seemed to be way down, so that has to hurt the economy.

One would think the Cubans had every reason to be 'out on the street' - unemployment way up, an educated population of underutilized young people, etc. It isn't for the lack of cell phones - as every second Cuban I saw had one. So it must be 'fear of repression', or just not feeling they have to.

In like fashion the Iranian young people have hesitated to throw themselves under the bus of freedom and the North Koreans still seem to be content to goose step around Red Square and make moues at the fightin' forces of liberty around Panmunjom. But maybe they're just the well-fed ones, keeping the others down.

In Baghdad it's different - they're protesting about economic conditions and a government's failure to 'get going'. In Afghanistan they're still protesting about the regular killing of civilians by ISAF, and ISAF's failure to be able to protect the others, killed by the insurgents. Even in places like Madison, Wisconsin you have Americans out on the street protesting. OK, the latter are middle-class types like teachers, cops and firemen coming face-to-face with a reality that the local governments they work for have failed to meet their obligations to fund retirements and other employment benefits. Now the 'debt crunch', caused by too many tax cuts, has come home to roost. Rather than raising taxes on business or the 'haves', the only 'solution' the latter-day neocons can see is to level the playing field between the US and the Third World by making those who don't have, take less. The poor have already had their 'screwing', and it's not as if all that 'negative' social spending on hand-outs was really the problem. Those 'savings' weren't enough to change anything. The solution now is to take more from the middle class, particularly public employees. But those savings won't be enough to change anything either so, who's next? Ordinary Americans - like ordinary Egyptians Iraqis, Tunisians, Moroccans and most of the ordinary people on earth are about to undergo a serious change of lifestyle because of the economic shenanigans of the 'elite'.

Prices are rising just like those who have to raise prices said they would. Amazing that the same guys who couldn't see an economic hurricane bearing down on Wall St. have such clairvoyance about rising prices. Actually there's no rocket science there, either. Raising prices is the one thing these guys can, and do. Just like fleecing suckers. Right now they're making noises about how world events - that changing weather we don't have to worry about, and increasing numbers of people starving, or dying from imported lead poisoning, are the 'natural forces' making us all pay more. But just maybe, one of these years, when they report another surge in profit, dividends or compensation levels, the sheeple will just 'go nuts'.

Big Ol' Jet Airliner

2011-03-08T12:14:00.002-05:00

There may be three years of Canadians flying into Afghanistan left before the scumbag killers get their final notice, but it's never too soon to figure out how you're going to get their kit back home. Well the Canadian forces aren't sleeping at any switches, even if the the "Harper Government" - best war party to be almost elected in decades did cock-up the supply conduit. And so this recent piece on how things are going without the stopover in Abu Dhabi.

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Massive+transports+helping+Canadian+Forces+deal+with+banishment+from/4193099/story.html

The Vancouver Sun, and other papers which carried the piece - no doubt emanating from a military source, outline a complicated process of getting our troops home via Germany. Now that couldn't be as much fun as the SOP of getting them home through the gin joints of Cyprus. But I think some recent misbehaviour on those 'ROTO decompressions' have done 'an Abu Dhabi' on the Cypriots. The latter putting a greater value on their tourist trade than they do in entertaining CF personnel on a piss-up. Maybe we're banned there, too. But I digress.

The way home follows the old route, non-stop and then takes a sharp right to fly across south-eastern Europe to Germany. I'm wondering why? Wasn't there a load of ballyhoo about the Russians allowing free transport of non-lethal supplies across it's territory. Now, I know the troops are all 'lean, mean, killin' machines' at least in Gen Rick's (ret) estimation, but surely a planeful of the troops disarmed, in mufti and on their way home would qualify for a free pass. And wouldn't a route over Russia, or at least across the friendly ex-SSR's and the Black Sea, be more direct? Or maybe there's some ATC problem with going the short way. Any way they're taking the long way home.

So supply and replenishment isn't a problem, and isn't considered to be a potential problem. The four C-17's of the CAF fleet can get that job done. But the other stuff will have to find some other way home. A fleet of trucks will be bringing heavy equipment and 2000-odd storage containers through Afghanistan and into Pakistan for shipment home by sea. The C-17s - or other 'rental transport'* will be moving sensitive equipment, 3 containers at a time, to the safe base in Germany at the rate of two flights per day. That doesn;'t mean 8 flights per day but more than likely exactly what is said, one, or two, of the 17's making the trip, twice (or once) per day.

I'm wondering what's going to happen to some of the equipment, like those Leopard 2's for instance. I was under the impression that Canada had bought a number of these tanks, used, from the Dutch, but from things I 've read lately, that 'purchase' may have been more in the nature of 'a lease'. For we're giving the tanks back, long before we're going home. The Marines are deploying tanks to take our place. So who pays to get these babies back to Holland, or wherever they're going? I know we rented the Ruslans to get them to Kandahar. The Dutch aren't all that stupid, so I'd imagine we're paying to send them back, too.

And then there are the Nyasas and all the bomb-resistant battlewagons we've bought to keep 'our boys' safe. Ideally they'd stay in Afghanistan, for as sure as hell they're going to be of little use in western Canada. They're clumsy enough on the Afghan tarmac, they'd be tipping all the time on Manitoba's back roads. But leaving them in Afghanistan would mean giving them, or selling them, to somebody. That means giving them to the Afghans, or selling them to America - which is paying for everybody else except the French, Brits, Germans and Italians (who already have theirs). And since the war is the best economic stimulus America has these days, selling second-hand to America is a no brainer, as well as a no-starter.

* Rental Transport? The ongoing saga of 'we shoulda, but didn't'. Those Ruslans will be rented to haul stuff home, so much that the article posits buying another one or two C-17's is needed. That would mean we'd then have 6 C-17s. Enough to respond to a good disaster anywhere and 'only' for another billion and a half, or so. Scratching open the scab on the sore that we could have had all 27 Ruslans for about that much, spares included and have been renting some of them out ourselves. Another "Harper Government" foul-up?

Adieu Marty.

2011-02-01T18:15:00.003-05:00

My little Brother, Marty, died November 27th.

I had seen him about a month before that, a somewhat diminished version of a previous self, spare-haired and pinch-featured and that knowing 'look' that cancer patients get at endtimes. He told me he was in palliative care, that his new doctor had told him she would do everything she could to keep him comfortable. And he was comfortable with that.

We talked about some old times but spent most of our time together solving the problems of the world, as we usually did. We tried his wife's (Jane's) repast, the lunch and dinner she had laid out for us. Eating was difficult he said, but he tried and managed a bite or so. For a notorious 'pieman', who had always enjoyed a good meal, this was a telling point. He said he slept a lot, but he stayed up to be with me. He said he had a 'feeling inside' like a shake that at times was bad and made even sitting up uncomfortable, but he sat up with me. I left him at his table the next morning, going back to celebrate a 'new' life and knowing that we, he and his, were preparing to mourn the ending of another. "I'll see ya, Brother. I love ya!", the last words I heard him say - after a lifetime of that, 'I'll see ya'.

Marty came into my life when I was almost five, four days before my birthday in February of 1951. What was remarkable is that he appeared, overnight, in my Mother's bedroom - a morning present for the family. And so he began. I can't remember much of his babyhood except that he used to hold his breath and turn blue, thoroughly frightening our mother and getting her immediate attention. That all stopped one day when she took the doctor's advice to leave him be. He started breathing, turned pink and went about his play, he didn't bother repeating that exercise again. Another day he retrieved the poker from the fireplace - we had one of those- and succeeded in scarring his leg for life. That scar was fascinating to me for some reason. By and large his childhood was happy and fairly unremarkable. We emigrated to Canada when he was two and for a couple of years, at least, he was not a memorable object of my attention.

It was during our years in Orillia that Marty grew into my pal - my partner in adventure. He was Will Scarlet to my Robin Hood (or vice versa in his opinion), he was the other side of play gunfights. At Christmas time, generally, we both got the same kind of toy, so we could play together, and so our Christmas 'snaps' always featured Marty and I sporting the same pistols, or outfits. It was in Orillia, too, that Marty fell in love with fishing. Mom insisted he go with me and he learned quickly the art of baiting a hook and catching the wily sunfish. He landed a nice bass one day, and he was hooked. Fishing was something Marty enjoyed, we both did, for a lot of years - it provided a lot of our stories.

We moved to other places and Marty continued to grow. He was good at things I was not. He played hockey on a 'real' team, with 'real' hockey equipment. His playing goal in Weston was something our Dad went out of his way to see. Marty had a cuteness - dimples, black curly hair, the 'gift of gab' and a mischievous side that 'charmed the ladies' starting with our Mom. That 'talent' came in handy, later, too.

Marty also developed a real interest in the out-of-doors. Starting with an early and thorough introduction to the effects of poison ivy and developing through a series of wild 'pets' - of various species, Marty developed an affinity with all things natural, with creatures great and small. He kept a pet rabbit and he had his own dog -Simba - at the family home. But he also retieved and raised a baby squirrel that grew into destructive adolescence before our Mother banished the critter from the house. It bit Martin on the thumb the day he had to let it go, miles from where we lived. A year later a squirrel 'attacked' a neighbourhood girl playing on our backyard swing. Same one? Marty brought home an owlet, and was forced to take it right back, once again to a great distance in some school yard where he had to 'shinny' a fallen log to replace the bird in a nest hole some thirty feet up a tree trunk. That's where he was when one of the parent birds laid into him with wings and beak and talons. The 'critters' would become an important part of his life.

When he was 13, we, Marty, my sister Kitty and I made one of those pilgrimages 'back home' to visit our maternal Grandparents and renew acquaintances with a battalion of Belfast cousins. The holiday was exceptional fun: the 'Ban the Bomb' movement was in full-swing, the music was great, hair was growing and Marty got right into it. In a little seaside village we spent a pleasant week, or so, living without a lot of supervision, with cousins from two families. Marty and 'Ski' Gorman had a hoot - from stealing smoked salmon, to squiring the local girls to, it is rumored, setting the dune grass on the beach alight and nearly burning out a summer camper park.

Marty - the mini beatle- was a big hit in his grade nine year. He switched to another school for grade 10 and got himself elected the student rep for one of the big downtown-Toronto department stores. I was in that store at Christmastime that year, in the department where all such reps' pictures were hanging. Next thing I knew I was accosted by a pretty-looking girl who knew me to be Marty's brother, and she wanted me to meet her Mom - like I was important or something. Marty parlayed that 'rep' thing into a part-time job at an exclusive men's wear shop on Weston Road. For a while all his clothes were 'made-to-measure' and very expensive. He even fixed me up with a 'haircut' appointment with 'his stylist' on Yonge St. 'Afif' spent his cutting-time talking about his success at the race track and giving me his 'signature style'. When he was finished, the tab was $17 and he wanted the other three for a tip. Quite a shock to somebody who'd been getting 'momcuts' for years, for free. Afif's 'do' didn't last, the first gust of Yonge St. wind totalled it while I was admiring his handwork in a store window. Afif's work didn't 'sit' as well on me as it did on Marty, maybe I needed to be more 'regular'.

In one of those life changes we all have at times, Marty was 'given a break' by guy called Pat Hogan. This break set his life off in a new and positive direction, coming as it did at a time when Marty was looking for something he hadn't been able to find, by doing a lot of other things. Pat Hogan went out of his way for Marty and gave him the job that set up his next stage of development.

Let me back up a bit. I had mentioned that Marty had a charm for the ladies. That acquired him a number of very pretty friends as he was growing up. One particular Sunday my Mom sent me to track him down as he hadn't come home the night before. I found him being served breakfast by a very pretty blonde girl in her girlfriend's house. Marty wasn't interested in her, so I asked her out. We were married 20 months later. Her Father was Pat Hogan.

He did well at his new job in sales at Aqualine, a retail plumbing supply company, working for them or 8 or 10 years and becoming their northern Ontario sales representative. That allowed him the time and the latitude to do more outdoor things. He would come visit me and spend all weekend fishing out of his 'Aqualine van'. And his job 'on the road' took him places he was interested in being.

For a while it looked like he would turn into a solid joe citizen. Marty moved to Kitchener with a cockatoo and two vizlas - " the boys". While he was in Kitchener, Marty joined the local hunt club and added a new dimension to his social life. He met his gal, Jane, at the club. She was to be the most important part of his life. Shooting sports became part of his repertoire and deer and bird hunting were new avocations. He developed an interest in primitive weapons and took up a study of Native American lifestyle and culture. He made his own buckskins and developed a 'mountain man' persona. Marty the Trapper was born.

Marty got a trapper's license but getting a trapline in southern Ontario was an non-starter. Applying for a trapline led to one of the few vacancies - on the Montreal River, a tributary of the Agawa River that flows into Lake Superior. He started making plans for his first season of trapping.

This is the first of Marty's trapping stories.

Marty ktted-out for an early season preparation trip. He was in Owen Sound when he got a line on an old Willys jeep (circa 1950) which he bought and, with a pick-up truck driven by Jane, a small trailer loaded with his gear, guns and supplies for three or four months of bush living, they headed for the Agawa Canyon railroad in May. Now Marty had 'scoped' his place out on a 'top' map, and he saw that there was a logging road cut into the bush from the railway, that stopped a matter of meters from the log cabin he would be calling home. He figured that he could get dropped at a siding, haul his gear by jeep down that logging road and set up camp in a couple of days. He was half right. The logging road was there but, since it crossed four unbridged streams, it was, to all intents, useless. So as he came to them Marty had to build bridges in order to 'ford' his stuff. He did it and in less than a week he stood with his cabin in view ... at the base of a hundred foot cliff. Had he asked, somebody might have been able to tell him about contour lines on that 'top' map. The only course was a retreat, first to the railway and then to Hawk Junction to see about a fly-in. The trip down the refurbished logging road took less time than the first round. But the propect of a wait for a train and a flag-down re-load, led Marty to think that, by cutting the chain on a gate across the tracks and running down another logging road through the Agawa Provincial Park, he could save some time, effort and money. He may have saved the money, but that road was another experience. It was, roughly, sixty miles of bush and sand dunes, he said. Driving the jeep up and winching the trailer up afterward. The jeep lasted, as did the winch, and he found himself cruising a virtually empty highway heading west under summer skies. Until he noticed the smoke. That smoke was coming from his trailer which had been set alight by an overheated wheel bearing. That trailer contained a quantity of naptha gas, in cans, that made the prospects of retrieving much more than his ammunition a problem. The gas cans exploded and the trailer burned. He photographed the pyre while he sat and had a few smokes by the side of the road. As he said, at least the fire 'seasoned' his traps. But he had to return south to refit and resupply.

While he was living in Kitchener he had met Jane, a pretty little german girl who shared his interests and sense of adventure. She was 'in on' all his adventures. Probably providing some common sense and clarity, as well as the requisite muscle, good grub and good company, not to mention most of the money he needed. The first attempt may have gone up in flames but the second attempt was the one that worked. He and Jane worked on the cabin, and prepared the trapline for a season of trapping.

Our Dad died on New Year's Day of the following year and Marty was completely out of touch, trapping. When Marty and Jane walked out of the bush at the end of January, it was right into the hospital in Hawk Junction for him. He was transferred to Sudbury and then to Oakville while his frozen feet were attended to. When I saw him, he looked like Che Guevara on a bad bay. He weighed less than I did, and I was skinny. His feet rested on pillows at the bottom of the bed and looked like an ice cream 'treat' of some kind - vanilla and strawberry and chocolate fudge. It was a minor miracle that they managed to save any of those toes, but they did. Although Marty made 'funny' footprints for the rest of his life. The only other casualty was the tip of their cat's tail. Jane had 'good' snowpaks - with a felt boot-liner, not just the soles as Marty had; her feet were fine. We had a couple of beers right there in his room, as Marty was permitted three or four of those a day - to put some weight back on. He had a couple of cases in a cupboard by his bed and the nurses even kept some in their fridge for him. Having a recuperating Marty around gave my Mom something to take her mind off things. Small mercies.

For four or five years the fur business was still doing quite well and Marty made a few bucks for his efforts. He would return to trap the Montreal for a decade. But PETA was growing in importance, the fur auction moved to Las Angeles and the joy went out it. Marty trapped for the sake of keeping his line and his license. But he needed to refocus.

Marty and Jane were married in 1983. It wasn't long before they relocated to the Sudbury area to be closer to his work, and his interests. In short order they acquired a house on some bush acreage just outside Estaire, Ontario and Jane started staying home to raise their growing family. For, in short order too, Jane presented Marty with a son, and two daughters. As the family grew, Marty looked for a living closer to home and so 'Bear Paw Outfitters' was born.

Marty took a license as a bear hunting outfitter. He and Jane ran a camp on their property and Marty baited bears in a number of locations as far south as Killarney. Hunters came from as far afield as Finland on hunting holidays. The business thrived.

When the government of Ontario decided to ban the spring bear hunt in the province, Marty took a leadership role in the outfitters' association doing educational work with sportsmens' groups and the government. He appeared on TV and in the media educating the public to the needlessness of the ban. Ted Nugent, the Detroit rocker, was a personal friend. The Irish cousins report seeing him on the BBC news, talking about bear hunting and the royal guard regiments' bearskins. The campaign was unsuccessful, but it gained the outfitters some funding to help them to realign their business.

Marty had maintained his interest in primitive weapons and ran such a hunt to extend business over that bear season. He also hunted deer with both modern and primitive weapons. He travelled to West Virginia for a fall hunt every year with folk who came to hunt bear with him. He became expert in bowhunting and wrote for the Deerhunters' publications in the States. He opened 'Midnorth Archery Supply' in a new building he raised in Estaire and his operation became the centre for training and even competitive archery shoots. Marty taught his kids to shoot with the bow and even his girls took part in archery competitions. Marty maintained his businesses up to the end.

Mart had a ton of stories about things he'd done and things that happened to him. He'd let himself go, on occasion, so conversation with him was never forced. He certainly enjoyed swapping tales, more than telling his own, although he did that too, very well. A couple of Marty stories:

A fish tale. One cold November Marty came for a weekend visit. He wanted to do some fishing. The Saturday was raw but we were out early, fishing off a small wooden dock on the river that flowed through town. We'd been there all morning with not a nibble, when a neighbour showed up and in short order had three beautiful rainbows on the bank. He left to sell them to a restaurant, and he left Marty with some of his 'magical' brown trout roe, tied in light blue nylon sacs. I went home for the afternoon but Marty stayed, fortified by a 'mickey' of lemon gin and the prospects of that 'lucky' spawn. I went back down to the river about 9 pm with a sandwich and a thermos of tea. The weather has worsened and a noticeble breeze out of the north drove light snow in a slant into the oily, black river water. We stayed there for another two hours. About an hour into my penance, one of the local 'gentlemen' of the town happened by, he looked in a tree trunk nearby on the riverbank where we were fishing when Marty turned, noticed him and said , "Hey buddy! That's my mickey!" After a mumbled apology, and a longing look as he replaced the bottle, he made as if to leave. Marty offered him a 'poke on that jug', which he attended to with some dispatch. About quarter past eleven, with toes tingling and fingers long past having the ability to articulate properly, Marty's rod gave a lurch, then bowed. When there followed a loud 'splash' somewhere in the darkess upstream. Marty was on that pole as if he hadn't been standing there, freezing, all day. The line tightened and slackened in turn with Marty reeling with thumb and palm, or the drag singing as the fish ran and jumped. But the hook was set and, gradually, Marty reeled the fish closer to the dock. In retrospect I think Marty intended to slide the tired fish onto the riverbank, as we had no net. But, as he manoeuvred it past the side of the dock, I thought I might be able to help. Grasping the monofilament, I lifted the trout clear of the water, it glistened, silver, about 8 pounds and I looked at Marty. Just as the fish gave a flip of its tail I saw his face melt in despair. For the line parted as he watched, leaving me holding nothing. "Awww, Kev..."

The Pie Man. After another one of those fishing Saturdays, only this time in summer and in search of brook trout, we had worked-up a thirst and an appetite. There was, at that time, one of the last 'tap rooms' left in the province, in a small village on our way home. The prospect of a couple of cool draft beer and pickled eggs drew us like a magnet. Finding out that the owner's wife was a good hand in the baking department, added to the experience. We both ordered a slice of her strawberry rhubarb pie. Now I don't know if it was the beer, or the companionship, but we spent a couple of hours with a trayful of beer and the other 5 pieces of that pie Marty ordered. Marty had developed a taste for pie - generic pie, any flavour - as a teenager, I had seen him knock off one, or two pieces of pie with some regularity in restaurants around where we lived in Toronto - but this day set a record. At least as far as I know, for I believe Jane was good at baking too, and Martin would still have liked his pie.

Could you put some anchovies on that? Marty liked anchovies on his pizza. But nobody else did. So Marty would ask for the anchovies 'on the side' and garnish his slices himself. In the big city that's probably commonplace but when he ordered a pizza in Owen Sound one day, Marty came face to face with the less creative limits of intelligence. I overheard him on the phone.

"With anchovies, but I want the anchovies on the side. No. I don't want the anchovies on the pizza, could you just wrap them up and keep them with the pizza, I'll put them on myself. What? Well, don't you measure them, or something? Can't you just wrap some up in a paper and charge me for an extra topping? OK, listen. I'm going to tell you what to do. Get a piece of tinfoil or paper and come back when you're ready. OK, when you're picking stuff up to put it on the pizza, do you use your left hand or your right? Good, put that tinfoil in your left hand, got it? Now pick up the anchovies you're going to sprinkle on the pizza, but before you start sprinkling, put your left hand with that tinfoil under your right hand with the anchovies, so that, when you start sprinkling, the anchovies will land on the tinfoil. Ready? Start spinkling. Done? Good, now wrap the tinfoil up and when the pizza's ready, put the tin foil inside the box. We'll come pick it up."
It worked.

Carven's Old Man Marty, ever the storyteller, must have charmed Jack Carven's dad with stories of 'opening night' on the Bighead River and so it really wasn't much of a surprise when he phoned one day to tell me that, although he was 'going to have to take a pass', Joe Carven's dad would be there, and, if I could, "Would you keep an eye on Jack Carven's old man? He really wanted to fish the Bighead."

Well, the Carvens were 'gun club people' and I'd met Jack, was a buddy of Martin's, so I said, "Sure".

Friday, the opening night, I appeared at the spot to find that "Carven's Old Man" had no trouble reading a map and had his camper truck parked neatly in the ditch adjacent to the bridge over the Bighead. Carven's old man was in back of the camper, with Mrs Carven and what I took to be a girl with some mental deficit. And he was getting ready for 'the opener' with a 40 oz bottle of good rye. At midnight we slid down to the stream where Carven's old man lasted about the length of the drink he had with him before heading back for a refill. I caught a decent fish which I showed to him and when he admired it, I gave it to him. He retreated to the camper for a celebratory drink and I headed across the road to my customary spot. During the night I caught a small brown trout, but that was about it. I told Carven's old man about that when he came out for a pee once, but I didnt see him again until about 7:30 the next morning. He called to me from the bridge."Could I borrow that brown trout for a coupla minutes?", he asked.
"What for?", I answered.
"Aw, I was walking down the river over there an I met these two guys and I told them there were browns in here. They said I was full of shit. So I wanted to take that fish back down there and show them."

'Sure," I replied.

I noticed Carven's old man staggering across the bridge a couple of hours later. "Hey, I called. Where's my fish?"

"Ah, I gave it to those assholes down the river."

I thought it was time for Carven's old man to get some sleep as, apparently, he'd pretty well knocked-off the one bottle and started his second during the night. With a little coaxing, and some help fom Mrs. Carven we got him tucked in, all good, I thought. About 11:30 in the morning I decided I was done, packed my gear and took a peek at what I thought was Carven's old man in his bunkie - said goodbye to Mrs Carven and headed for town.

About 5 kilometers up the road I spied Carven's old man staggering down the middle of it. His plastic mug was empty and he said he was trying to get back to the camper. I took him back and waited while Mrs Carven got him settled in the bunkie, again. And I left.

Marty called about 3:30 Sunday afternoon wanting to know if I knew were Carven's old man was. He was supposed to have been home Saturday night but hadn't appeared. Marty mentioned that the family was worried that, having already lost his license for drinking and driving once, he could have done that again. I said that that was a distinct possibility, given all the drinking I'd seen and offered to phone the local OPP. As soon as I described Carven's old man and where he'd been, the police knew who I was talking about. It seems that, on Saturday afternoon, one of their units, doing a back road patrol, had picked-up the wandering Carven, again hiking the byways of Grey county. They'd taken him back to the detachment cells to sleep it off and had driven him out to his camper on Sunday at lunchtime. They'd confiscated his booze. They'd watched him leave and warned him about stopping before he got home.

Marty wasn't there for the Carven's old man story, but he authored it.

Marty's Big 'Egg Boil'
One of the fishing adventures we tried a couple of times was a bass fishing/camping trip to Honey Harbour on Georgian Bay during the summer. The third one of these was the most notable, and probably had a lot to do with not repeating the exercise. I and a buddy from OS were to meet Marty, my brother-in-law and a couple of guys from Toronto at the boat launch in Honey Harbor on Friday at suppertime.

That was the first thing that went wrong. They didn't show up until close to 11 and when they did, most of them were 'in the bag' after drinking their way up from the city. Marty was good to go, but since we had no running lights on the rented boat and since the 8 of us and all our gear would have sunk it, we decided that we'd best just pitch tent for the night and get an early start.

That was the second thing to go wrong. When we woke at 6:00 the next morning the boat was gone. So was Marty and my brother-in-law. They pulled back into the dock about 11:30, they'd 'gone fishing'. The trip out to our island campsite took another couple of hours but the fishing was good, the water was swimmable, we had lots of booze and all was golden.

A Saturday night run into the "Delawanna Inn" in full, cologned mufti ended in a reef of floating beer cans and bottles after we spent a couple of hours 'marooned' in the middle of the lake. Somebody had his foot on the gas line and we were too pooped to consider that when the motor cut out. We checked the gas tank, almost full, and tried to restart it but that was rocking the boat too much. So we sat, and smoked and drank the beer we had the foresight to bring, signalling to passing boats with the flashlight we accidentally had with us. Until one stopped and gave us a tow.

The evening was rounded off with the late-to-bedders having a plinking competition with a pellet pistol Marty had thoughfully brought along.

The deal was that some of us had volunteered to cook. I signed-up for Monday morning breakfast. When my turn came I went to get the three dozen eggs I'd brought, to make omelets, from the cooler. There they were, or rather, there it was - for there was only one egg left in the three cartons."Hey what the hell happened to the eggs?", I called out.

Marty said, "We had an egg boil."

"When?" I asked, wondering how I'd missed it. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Marty replied, "You were asleep and we knew you'd figure it out eventually".

I guess plinking helps work up an appetite. They'd eaten all my breakfast eggs. We had 'bass pancakes', which didn't turn out too bad - with onions, peppers and mushrooms - and one egg.

Four vignettes from a life of a thousand stories, most of which I don't know. So I'll have to leave their telling to his good wife Jane, his kids and to my brother and sisters. We were all privileged to have had Marty in some part of our lives and we'll be poorer without him. Rest well Marty, we know you won't catch all the fish.

And the Leaks Go On

2011-01-28T15:33:00.002-05:00

Wikileaks continues to get take the blame for the world’s problems. This week the people of Tunisia decided to do something about the president, who has been continuously in office for the past 27 years and his family who, apparently, have been looting the country. Wikileaks is apparently a major cause of the problem because it published American diplomatic mail that discussed their corruption. What a laugh!

Now mind you initial responses laid the ‘blame’ on social networking sites such as tweeter and facebook which, it is charged, allowed the protestors to ‘coordinate their action’.

It seems to me that the real problem was the President and his family, whose activities were very well-known to the Tunisians even if the Americans were not aware of it. You can’t be President of a country for a quarter of a century and just ‘go sour’. Not after you won an election that was billed as a ‘wonderful demonstration of democracy’ and that gave you an 87 percent majority only 7 months ago.

Did anybody hear any protests about a ‘stolen’ election in Tunisia? No? That’s because there weren’t any, until now. Now, all of a sudden, because they’re “concerned”, the west, led by America, is taking steps to ‘shape’ the outcome - to see that the people get the kind of government they need. And that won’t be any ' muslim theocracy', even if that’s what they want. Seems although Al Numnnuts the president-unelect may have been a thief, but he was a real ‘pal to freedom’. And the US doesn’t have enough of those in the middle east.

News that the Army is taking steps to ‘restore order’ and that the Prime Minister is preparing a slate of candidates will come as no surprise, as the Army will be affected by its main arms supplier and the prime minister, and the powers that be, will respond well to a few dollars wisely-invested.

Meanwhile there are protests in Egypt and Yemen. But you won’t hear any stated support for the people there, as the two respective presidents are long-time old hands at ‘keeping the .lid’ on dissent and of course on ‘fighting terrorism’. Once again, if Wikileaks hadn’t printed American commentary on some of their double-dealing, the people would have been content to have them choose their next leader. Someone wise and just, not like the doofus Kim Dong Il is choosing to run North Korean. No Wikileaks embarrassing him, and that’s why the people aren’t out in droves to protest. Right!

In all three of these, massive increases in the price of basic food stuffs may have played absolutely no part, although, in all three, the first thing done to head-off trouble was to announce continued government subsidies for food. Basic food prices around the world are spiking upward in as much as 100 percent hikes. Prices like that force an awful lot of people in the world to reduce their eating. Maybe some Americans, too.

Another little stew is boiling in what may, one day, be Palestine, and again ‘leaks’ are at the root of the problem. This time Al Jezeera, the Arab media giant, has leaked purportedly confidential documents relating to the peace negotiations with Israel. First reading of these indicates that the Palestinian delegation has discussed, and were prepared to move on, every ‘trigger’ issue for Palestinians - the right of return for refugees, Jerusalem, the Al Aqsa Mosque, the territory of the West Bank, Israeli Arabs, the independence of the Palestinian state, etc. Only problem was the Israelis said it ‘wasn’t enough’ to make a deal. Maybe, if Jazeera could have gotten the Israeli documents, the world could have gotten a look at their ‘concessions’ - but, given the rejection of the ‘greatest Jerusalem of all time’ in return for one small arab subdivision there, ‘concessions’ might not be the best descriptor to use. Needless to say, the news hasn’t been warm and fuzzy for the Palestinian authority ( FATAH) who are ‘holding’ office until (they hope) Hamas gets un-elected, or wiped out.- preferably the latter. Al Jezeera is now 'seen' as the Arab equivalent of Wikileaks

It has to be very inconvenient that somebody would ‘blow the whistle’ on the world’s superpower while it’s doing its darndest to save the rest of us from the horrors of fundamental religion and bridled capitalism. It has to be embarrassing to set yourself up as the epitome of everything good, right and holy and find yourself pilloried for back-stabbing and crooked-dealing. Lying and cheating, killing and plotting like the bad guys who hate our freedoms and who do that stuff so, apparently, openly, while America prefers to do it, for good people everywhere, behind closed doors. It’s just downright shitty when the bad guys can ‘make you’ be worse than them. And what’s worst of all is that the ‘hero’, Assange, is such a dishonest, pipsqueak, wannabe, low-life, sex pervert with a BO problem ... or at least that’s what the good guys are saying.

All the while there are some real repercussions coming from Wikileaks. Just after Christmas the US government mounted a campaign to isolate Wikileaks and Assange by closing its servers and pressuring American-based companies to disrupt its finances. This resulted on a number of hacker attacks on various American and European organizations. The first outbreaks were highly published. But, as in other wars, there has been a 'blackout' on the effects of these attacks, which have continued. To-day, for instance, there was a mass-action that saw what's left of Egypt's electronic infrastructure bombarded with a storm of Wikilieaks 'cables' mass-faxed to that country's servers. And, to-day, 5 hackers jailed in England for such activities were released on bail.

If Wikileaks serves any useful purpose, in my opinion, it's to add to the number of ‘balls’ America gets to juggle at one time. The more problems it has, the less the likelihood that Americans can be conned into another attempt to start that Great American Century that Wolfowitz, Cheney, Perle and company still so earnestly desire. If there’s an Allah he’ll keep on letting them drop bits of junk into their own works.

Fast Away the Old Year Passes

2010-12-29T14:56:00.002-05:00

There have to be a ton of people looking forward to the advent of the new year in the hope it will be better than the one coming to an end. At this time, annually, we reflect on the state of the world and of ourselves and make resolutions to improve things. It seems that every new year starts that way, even the last one.

The peace of the world seems no more assured than it did this time last year. The searches for more 'security' at home and less peace elsewhere, are both up, now, from what they were 365 days ago. The world's 'trouble spots' in Asia are no more tranquil, just the opposite. And new areas of concern in Africa, for instance, have arisen over the course of he year - with war and threats of war, civil and religious strife breaking out in many places.

Christmas was a real 'blast' for some churchgoers, bombs exploded in the Nigerian town of Jos and in a Philippine church, and Iraqi Christians celebrated the season in what could be described as a fortified bunker. None of these were totally unexpected, for religious 'problems' have arisen in all three areas - and all three are loci of American 'influence'. The first as an 'oil producer' and 'study object' for the US Army's AfCom, the second as part of the 'great war on terror' which has been going on there for 20 years and the third, which is self-explanatory on both counts.

As far as the 'war zones' go, Afghanistan will continue in that sad plight at least until 2014, so no happy new years there for a while. Iraq is tranquil - if you don't count an on-going insurrection in the north east , a growing independence movement on the north west and recalcitrant bombers in the central areas. The US army garrison may not be directly involved on a daily basis, but the US Air Force still feels the need to fly as many tactical air missions over Iraq as it was doing while there was a 'real' war on.

Afghanistan remains bloody as ISAF/NATO enters year 11 of trying to put 'the kibosh' on theTaliban. Military operations are in full swing all across the south, and in those parts of the west, north and east where the Taliban have either reappeared, or have never gone away. This is accompanied with an even more massive bombing campaign - which is larger now, in terms of bombs dropped, than the carpetbombing of the Hindu Kush that accompanied the original invasion. Most of this is aimed at destroying 'unoccupied compounds' to deny the Taliban, or anybody else, winter shelter. Being they're 'unoccupied' means there are no civilian 'collateral damages'. At the same time, all across the country and especially in the 'secure' areas, there are large scale, covert 'COIN' operations underway. These use US special forces units, or Afghan SF units - some of dubious origin and purpose and the large number of 'private operatives' in the country. The jail population is presently at its greatest, ever. Even the communists didn't have as many people behind bars. Needless to say, the government remains largely ineffective outside the larger centres, and prisons, of course. The light in the tunnel has yet to appear, other than in perennially optimistic reports from the fighting forces.

Along with the man-made storm of wars, there are also those Mother Nature delivers.

Christmas this year was marked by crowded transportation hubs notable for the numbers of people travelling, or, rather, not travelling. Airports across eastern North America and western Europe have been shut my unexpectedly large snowfalls. That snow has also shut down land transportation and clogged cities which otherwise wouldn't have that particular experience. In the southern hemisphere massive rainfalls have flooded large areas of South America and Australia. Early season blizzards in America were so violent that deaths due to exposure were reported and people were stranded for days on closed highways. Many of these occurrences were in the 'of the century' classification. Spring-level flooding is now expected. If Al Gore was right, this can only get worse.

So 2010 rolls on into 2011 without much prospect of anything getting much better and few indicators that things could get much worse. Let's hope I'm wrong.

St. Julian the Apostate

2010-12-21T13:06:00.001-05:00

Julian Assange has certainly made a name for himself. Had he been equally as financially successful, he might have given the 'facebook kid' a run for Time 's 'Man of the Year' contest. But multi-billion dollarhood, especially the kind you 'promise' to give away when you're done with it, I guess, trumps the altruism of just keeping people in the know.

Assange has been running a website called Wikileaks for almost 10 years now. Over that time it has featured a number of leaked documents and information on a number of topics, mostly inconsequential, and from a wide range of sources, mostly forgettable. Up until fairly recently, even posts that involved the US government - and there have been some notable ones on CIA operations - didn't break many 'radar horizons', or at least any the general public heard about.

That all changed last summer when Wikilieaks aired some fairly dated imagery of an 'Apache' helicopter strike in Baghdad. This footage answered the questions asked after a journalist working for US media had been killed there three years ago. The media wanted to know what had happened. The military powers were, understandably, obfuscatory. The Wikilieaks release made it clear why. Even in the best light, the incident couldn't be seen as much other than an indiscriminate and deliberate killing of a number of Iraqi citizens under the most 'cocked-up' of circumstances. Even with that 'embarrassment', the 'fog of war' prevailed and the incident passed from view.

The next incident was the release of a number of after-action reports from US military units in Iraq. Once again the microcosmic view of the war put the lie to any claims of humanity in action. It was announced that Wikileaks had acquired a substantial database of such information and would be releasing it.

There followed another dose of 'sitreps' from Afghanistan that were no more positive than the previous round from Iraq. Another posting of further Iraqi 'sitreps' led to more embarassing revelations for the US and the 'forces of democracy' at work. For one thing the unreleased information that as many as 50 000 of Iraqi civilians had been killed, than had been admitted by the military. By now Assange was well into the public spotlight, as media sources in Britain, the US and Germany had undertaken to organize the flood of information. At this time the US started making noises about the 'dangers' of these leaks and the consequences for those involved.

In fairly short order a US Army soldier, Bradley Manning, was arrested and jailed for his alleged role in the leak. He was 'outed' by a chat line correspondent with whom he is supposed to have confided his misdeeds. No official charges have been laid against Manning, but he remains in solitary confinement in the hands of the US Marine Corps.

It was the further promise of the publication of a mass of diplomatic 'cables' that put Assange well outside the pale of US opinion. Residing temporarily in Sweden, the expat Australian and now 'world-citizen', was highlighted in a number of media appearances and interviews. He claims his secretiveness is essential to his security. He is reputed to use no communications or devices that could be traced to place him. He lives like a third world dictator-on-the-run, staying with friends and supporters and moving frequently, as well, apparently, as mooching on a 'royal scale'.

It was the mooching, perhaps, that led him into a new dimension of trouble. For when, we are told, he mooched accomodation with his female 'point person' in Stockholm, and, later, train fare from another 'fan', the 'giving' progressed to that of a more intimate nature and finished with his being charged with rape, sexual assault and a number of other 'personal' crimes.

He denies any wrong-doing, of course, but that hasn't stopped an Interpol arrest warrant and his incarceration, pending deportation, in Britain, for 10 days or so. He is currently under house arrest pending further judicial action.

That there will be judicial action of some kind seems apparent, for he is 'bete noir' in a number of countries. He has been decried a 'traitor' in Australia, America and Great Britain. Calls for his execution/assassination have been mede by some people in high places. The Vice President of the United States wants him declared a 'terrorist'. That latter, no doubt, so the 'special' judicial processes, used to 'combat terror', might be used to 'shut him up'. The US would dearly love to have him a guest in Guantanamo. Although it's every bit as likely that any court in the US would convict him of, virtually, anything.

So Wikileaks are being blamed for a plethora of 'problems'. But in actuality the 'problems' exist independent of Wikileaks, it's just that now they're 'out in the open'. For if US diplomatic and other staff have negative considerations of foreign leaders they are willing to report to head office, those considerations remain founded in some substance, or not. If there is a 'problem' reported by Americans, placed to report them, Wikileaks only demonstrates what sort of things are reported. The 'problem' still exists, or existed. Wikileaks didn't make these reports up. Publishing them could, would, or should have happened eventually. That somebody 'looks' bad, now, is no more caused by a leak, than it was when they were 'in action' If they 'look' bad it's because they were bad, the same would be true with 'good' as a descriptor. That there are more bad stories than good ones may be a fact of life, but none of the good ones are being released, either. One would think that, if they existed, they would be, if only to counterract Wikileaks.

The latest American effort is to charge Assange with collusion or conspiracy to 'help' Brad Manning 'steal' those secret e-documents. Maybe that's why he hasn't been charged with any wrong-doing, yet. Assange's willingness to publish being seen as the greater 'crime' than appropriating the information in the first place. Brad Manning would have to 'testify' that Assange held his hand while he downloaded those files. If it meant a fixed sentence in a civilian jail as opposed to indeterminate solitary confinement in a Navy brig, I would. But even all this 'counter-conspiracy' smacks of more of the same 'badness' that's embarassing America now. It's just more fodder for Wikileaks.

Perhaps the most telling thing is that these threats to Assange are arising as Wikileaks prepares a tranche of banking memoranda. Who knows if the 'great banking collapse' of double ought nine actually transpired as it was reported, or if that, too, was another example of the screenwriters' art.

He's no angel, but the world needs more Assanges. He comes off a lot more honest than the 'good guys'.

Airport Security? Fly Air Apparent.

2010-11-20T09:17:00.001-05:00

One of the phenomena of our times in Airport Security, which now must be beginning to be the major employer at airports around the world. When some prognisticator of the future portended an exponential increase in Air Travel and massive growth in the aviation industry back in the late 70's, they weren't thinking of the 'security' aspect which, aside from an airport traffic detail, hardly existed at all.

The terrorist attacks on passengers at Lod and other airports were seen as dangerius anomalies rather than virtual certainties, but the notions of entering a strange new world at the airport were beginning to rise.

So the latest developments in the art of finding the needle in the travelling haystack have ordinary travellers lining up to have their most personal possessions scrutinized in an on-going effort to make all aboard 'feel' safer. I say that because common sense tells me that all security also tells me 'you never know'. And that, dear friends, is at the root of all because, if you'll never know, neither, obviously, will the experts.

When it comes to 'terror' we all must be on thorazine, or the security equivalent of it, for the only thing that has,apparently stopped terrorist-engendered air tragedy is the inability of those explosive experts to make an efficient explosive device. We have to remenber that all our recent security 'successes' - the toning cartridge bombs, the sparking underwear bomb, the mix a liquid bomb and the ever-famous light-a-sneaker episode, had all made it past security and onto a jet full of people, or, in the last case, cargo. Getting past security wasn't the problem, getting the bomb to go off was. The case is also amply demonstrated by the fact that there have been no aircraft losses ascribed to terrorist action since 9/11. If those bozos could get on board, though, so could those who know what they were doing. So, as a conceptual construct, 'security' seems to be a lot of overkilll for very little actuality. Some would say that's good. It's actually reactive, rather than proactive and fundamentally stupid. And growing to become a feature of government expenditure as costs to do it continue to balloon.

But it's important. The travelling public want to be assured that it won't be the jet that they're on that develops an airborne problem. Or they'd quit travelling, see? Remarkable that in the 'bad old days' of air travel when downed aircraft were a regular feature of the news, that the numbers of travelling public actually continued to grow. In the 60's, the odds of you dying in a traffic accident were said to be greater than those of a similar fate while flying. And that was before the trillion passenger miles, crowded skies and 'jumboed' travel of to-day. Statistically, dying in an airliner has to be up there with getting trampled by a herd of emus. Dying in a terrorist-stricken airacraft would have those emus with painted toenails and breast implants. Flying authorities want to assure you that, although they can't stop a psychotic killer, an anti-bather, a medicated sleeper, a drunk or somebody carrying unbangi digititis from sitting beside you, if you have to subdue somebody shouting 'allahu akhbar' and trying to 'pull his wire', it's a hit of kismet. Whatever he did to get on that plane will not be done again - in spades.

The internet funny about a terror-proof airline where nobody wears any clothing isn't too far beyond belief. If that last guy hadn't had anything on, somebody theoretically would have noticed his explosive 'junk'and the detcord hanging off it. "Take yer stuff off while we take 'a looky'" is a lot cheaper than hitech scanners that somebody, who might at other times had a career in a box store, will 'interpret'. And, probably, a lot more effective, or not. For it's always the one that doesn't get noticed that gets ya.

Would the travelling public go for that? Checking in another hour early and wearing stuff that can tear off and velcro back on? In order to be sure they're not the first one killed when the guy beside them blows up, fer sure! Look what they're putting up with now.

But all this aside, it's the mentality involved that's the real problem. If the dickhead who runs the US airport security apparatus - a snakeoil salesman of the first water who uses all the jargon and catchphrases of the security industry, and such genuine 'nice folk' as Joe Biden and his wife, who showed up on Larry King to talk about the family,and Thanksgiving traditions and the current "real" threats Joe gets briefed about "every single day", are peddling this 'helping keep you safe' poison, well, it couldn't be all that bad.

Veep Biden, then, probably got briefed on the 'intel', probably derived from the questioning of somebody detained recently in the middle east, that Germany was on the hit-list hot-seat. The Germans went international with the news themselves last week. And then: 'kerwhammo'! They pull a bomb-laden suitcase off the loading ramp on a Gernany-bound jet at Windhoek, Namibia.

"Namibia" must have caused a flurry of atlas consultation and Googling at Fox News, but the true believers probably figured the name was close enough to 'arabia' to make that research moot. It's likely this story would have had longer panic stricken 'legs', but one of the investigators let slip that the the 'bomb' had a sticker on it claiming it was made by a company in California. It turned out the 'bomb' was, in actuality, a "security-testing device". But that won't stop some American bozo mentioning that the 'latest' terrorist bombs seem to be more sophisticated and professionally-made, probably in Iran.

PS: Nobody knows who dunnit. Or even how the test device made its way to Namibia. But 'Gipetto the bomb-maker', who runs small machine shop doing military contracting (ammunition) among other things, is offering his story to the world press for $200 000. And access to 80year-old 'Granny', who assembled it, for few dollars more. That's free enterprise, which is, really, what the struggle against terrorism is all about.

I Hear Them Presses Hummin', They's Rollin' off the Dough

2010-11-05T21:42:00.002-04:00

Next week the G20 nations have another security exercise-cum-fancy luncheon in Seoul. The topic this time, as it was last time in Toronto, is what to do about getting the economic ball rolling again. And this time the focus will be on trying to get everybody 'onside' to do the same thing when everybody is starting to make gestures that their situation is different/more serious/more deserving than anybody else's.

Harper the Debtless is calling for some concentric approach to monetary policy and exchange rates. This because big money seems to be prowling the earth in search of profit derived from currency fluctuations. Naturally such 'investments' are ephemeral in their effect - here one minute and sunk in another currency elsewhere, the next. Since the investment industry can't stop this from happening, governments have to take steps to minimize the effects..The first minimization should be a flat 20 percent surcharge on all money going out of the country. That would slow the high rollers down a little and certainly slow down the foreign trade imbalance. But that would not be in keeping with the spirit of the 'free market' that caused most of these problems in the first place.

Hanging over all is the Damoclean sword of debt. Not everybody, thank goodness, has it, but everybody is affected when the biggest economy on earth is raddled with it. It is that debt that is hamstringing the American recovery, and, perhaps, the cost of a war or three and good old global domination, that adds to it daily. Like a fat, drunk uncle on a picnic hike, America's demanding a lot of support from the 'rest of the family'. Particularly in parts of the EU and elsewhere, where the good times were rolling along with those dud mortgages, the sword dangles equally menacingly. Some countries in Europe have America's problems in spades.

Naturally America sees China as it's biggest monetary problem. The Chinese have been buying US bonds and T bills for more than a decade, actually they been taking them in trade, and buying them with those greenbacks they get from the dollar stores. So now America wants to raise interest in, and hence the price of, those bonds. How they going to do that? Well, buster, just you hobble yer horse; they're going to print 500 billion in not-yet-existing greenbacks and buy their own bonds. So the banks that market the bonds will get another 'cash infusion', or in this case a "quantitative easing" - to not loan money to people who can't borrow it because they have no job, or the rich who are going to risk it on the money markets, or just to pay out a few more dud mortgages. Obviously the undiscredited Chicago School of 'go big or go home' economics is still at the helm. They must really believe that Keynes got it all wrong about the inflationary effect of printing money that isn't directed to creating jobs.Apparently they aim to prove it.

What about China? China is letting its Yuan do a 'test float' with the market and it has lost some value. I may have gotten a C- in econ 101, but it strikes me that a devaluing currency has the wrong effect on a trade deficit than the one the mavens of Wall Street want. Shouldn't the Yuan be increasing its value against the buck? That would slow imports a bit and make buying back some of those T bills and bonds a little easier. But not if the Chinese think they're getting monopoly money. The inscrutable orientals aren't as stupid as they were once cracked-up to be and if the US thinks they'd like to take some inflato-bucks for that reduced trade, Bernancke needs to get his earhair trimmed.

What's It All About Stevie?

2010-10-25T20:19:00.001-04:00

This week among the more salient news of military victory and winning Afghan hearts and minds comes news that NATO has given the nod to President Karzai's senior council making negotiations with the Taliban. Maybe not the bitter-ender Taliban but the middle managers who have been so much in the laser designators of USAF drones. Not only that, we're now being told that both the US army and the CAF have been instrumental in granting safe passes to Taliban who want to go negotiate in Kabul.

I would imagine that the safe pass would also include passage to and from Kabul.

One could imagine how that particular aspect of the battle would play out. PsyOps broadcasts and airdropped leaflets letting those mid-level guys know that the high command was selling them down the river in return for safe harbor and a gas station in Kabool. Some salient statements at local jurgas about a 'free all-expernse paid trip' to Kabul to meet with government officials for some free flashlights and sneakers. The 'bus' leaving in a military convoy running the 'Taliban' representatives up to the capital. The real head honchos transported by chopper.

What one couldn't imagine is those representatives and commanders being allowed to walk around free for long, or not accidentally falling off the bus or out of the chopper. For what warrior worth his 'ethos' wants to talk his way out of the Afghan turkey-shoot? This is the best military fun since Grenada, only with far more latitude to shoot things and bomb stuff. When this is over there'll be a lot more CIBs on blouses than there were coming out of Iraq, and for relatively little cost.

Besides that, with all the talk of successful operations, the talk of negotiations just re-whets the suckers' appetities for victory, along with the weird notion that all the waste has been 'worth it'.

Sad to think that this is just more unadulterated horsepellets and that next year there'll be another 'slant' on the 'saga' of what some are planning to be an intergenerational war. It's just as true that the Taliban can't defeat NATO as it is that NATO can't stop the Taliban. It's also true that, like all gamblers, the taxpayers of the west hate to realize their losses by giving up the dice. Where there's life, or the expenditure of trillions, they say, there's hope.

Making the Hard Harder

2010-10-25T19:33:00.001-04:00

One of the major 'problems' facing the Canadian operation in Afghanistan is bringing five years worth of battle resources back from there. Canada has deployed a tank unit and an artillery unit along with the heavier equipment sent out: the choppers, LAVs and other vehicles. Add to that the other paraphernalia required for waging modern war and the 'stand down' of Canada's warrior contingent, slated for 2012, and the time-line involved for a Canadian withdrawal, assumes some notable proportions. Until last week, that was.

Last week a zit that had been in formation for a year or so came to head in the form of a nasty boil that popped, stopping Canadians from using Base Mirage - the military staging area in the UAE. "Wha happen?", as Desi Ricardo used to say.

Well to make a short story, the Canadian Ministry of Transport refused to grant an extension of landing rights to Emirate Airlines, who foolishly thought they might extend their direct flight services to Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. Air Canada complained to the government that, although they aren't interested in direct flights to Dubai, the Arabs would be 'stealing' some of their custom - mainly the travellers who like to stage into and out of the middle east through a European stopover and change of carrier.

The Dubaians took this Conservative negativity with some opprobrium and told the Canadians they could close Base Mirage, which had been running since 2001. To make the point clearer, the day they made the announcement, the Emirates also told the CAF flight carrying the CinC and the MofD to find another way home, forcing their flight to divert to Italy. Canadian flights are no longer welcome in Emirati air space. If we're lucky, they won't cancel the two weekly flights they do have flying into Toronto. The DoD has been in the habit of ferrying the honour flights of grieving families out to Kandahar for a photo opportunity on the first class A380 flights run by Emirate. Canadian business types, and government VIPs are also fond of the first-class amenities on the long haul to Dubai. But the fey blades running ther PMO wouldn't know much about that and wouldn't need to ask. Now somebody has arranged to jack the cost of Canada's military un-deployment, possibly sky high.

Talk now is of a withdrawal through the Ukraine or the friendly skies of Russia. Both those will require some high intensity diplomatic activity. There is no reason, given Mr. Harper's bragadoccio and bombastic defense of North American air space from Russian Bison, that the Russians will want to give him a break on costs. The Ukrainians might, but he hasn't done much for them lately, either. The Georgians should, but in this case they're in the 'useless tit' department. I'm surprised he's not asking for Israeli help. But the Russians probably have a problem with their Ruslans landing there. And that's another story.

I mentioned those tanks? The ex-Dutch Leopard II's that have marked the annals of our recent military history with all their air-conditioned direct fire on Taliban targets? You can bet your bippy they weren't Taliban tanks, probably not even taxis or motorscooters, either. More in the nature of those notorious Taliban 'compounds' needing a new doorway, or the even more ubiquitous Taliban mountains. As a matter of fact, there has been precious little press on the exploits of the armored, so I'd bet they've been laid-up around Base Kandahar with come nifty paint jobs for the photo ops. But I digress. Those tanks required the use of Ruslans to get them out there. As did some of the same kind of helicopters we deployed to help the Myanmar floods a couple of years back. They wouldn't fit into a CF-17. Given that this process will be more rushed than the deployment, more Ruslans will have to be rented.

It would be interesting to see what the Ruslan rentals have cost us since we got our 4 heavy lifters. I'm sure the latter will be of some use for something, unless they're tasked to ferrying Mounties into Haiti.

It's a good thing that Canadians have full confidence in their Conservative govermint, for running a war on terror and for tough negotiations over airports and landing rights. They can make us look a lot more stupid than we actually are, but we know the Liberals could be, and the socialists would be, worse. Maybe they'll change their stupid minds this time.

The Inmates are the Asylum and the Meds have been Stoled

2010-10-15T09:22:00.002-04:00

Canadians being fair, open and honest, have always stood up for the little guy unless it's Friday night at the bar and we're standing on the little guy. But generally we like to make others happy and so, in the past couple of weeks, we tried, or at least some of courts tried, to do that.

First it was a ruling that a dependency on street drugs was an illness, the same as a dependency on alcohol. No longer should spending one's time stoned be viewed as any kind of choice. No! Finding yourself stoned is something bad that happens to people. And finding yourself so stoned, so long, that you have to live on the street and beg money to get stoned is not only degrading, it's a symptom of disease. Working on the principal that nobody in their right mind would deliberately do things like that, the judge might have a point. Except that crazy people don't need drugs to get a different perspective and often seek treatment to ameliorate the one they have. Drug problems don't originate in disordered mind, drug problems cause disordered minds. So, in order to help, the courts are ruling that individuals with drug and alcohol addiction should be covered by the 'disablity' provisions of the Canadian Pension Plan. This boon will come as a relief to those trapped and under cardboard and cheap wine in the streets and, as a challenge, to that segment of society that would prefer to make do with 'less' so they can do nothing but smoke, eat and watch TV all day. Get yourself FUBARed and never have to work a day in your life, what a bright prospect for the young!

This is in a province that started off giving 'free' dope to 600 addicts and parlayed that into tens of thousands of methadone dependents in the medical system.

Another nail in the coffin of social sanity is a second judicial ruling that struck down Canada's laws regarding prostitution. Until the ruling itself is overruled in a higher court, or until new legislation is drafted, it's going to be a 'happy time' for those who make money off the Sex Trade. That may not necessarily be true for those who make a living off the sex trade, the ones who actually have to put-out for strangers. But for now the bordello can make a come-back, and what happens in massage parlours won't necessarily merit police raids any more. The world's oldest 'victimless' crime can get hi-balling! No longer will hookers be restricted from travel - all those gals from Moldova and Bulgaria, the Philippines and Hong Kong looking for a new start in Canada won't have to lie about being 'dancers' or 'domestics'. We're going to make 'nudes of all nations' a reality at last! As they say in French quarters, 'laissez les bon temps roulez!'

All that's necessary now is for that disability clause of the CPP to be applied to the sex trade. That would enable no one to have to screw for a living. But I'd bet it would be as successful as giving alcoholics some free drinks or allowing druggies to risk blowing their rent money on dope.

Moaning and Weeping in this Valley of Tears

2010-10-15T08:14:00.002-04:00

Well mostly moaning, for you won't see a real conservative weeping. When you're right, there's nothing to cry about. But that hasn't stopped Stevie Wonder and the gang who run the Great White North Inc from feeling blue that 'nobody likes Canada' at the UN. After 6 years of acting like assholes and backing the 'greatest force for good on earth', no matter what stupidity it decided to do, Canada's UN reps are all depressed that their 'trade trinkets' of maple syrup and Avril Lavigne posters didn't garner them a podium spot at the Security Council.

So to-day it's called, 'We gotta blame somebody and it sure as hell ain't us." The somebody in question, why that would be the United StaKes of America, of course. Not that they blackballed anybody - like back when somebody nominated that evildoer Chavez. It more like they failed to 'go to bat' for the good guys - like the time when they bankrolled Guatemala to get that seat away from the evildoer Chavez. Yes, the dirty Dems in Washington wouldn't countenance a voice of sanity at the Security Council and allowed the Portugese (weren't they in the slave trade at one time?) to win. And those Portugals weren't even passing out the Madiera! They were just acting like it didn't matter and hadn't lined up written committments from most of the General Assembly, and verbal comments from the others who aren't communists or anti-semites, or nothing. And THEY WON????

Quelle embareassment as 'they' say in Shawinigan.

I'm inclined to think that there was witchcraft involved. Like how could so many committments change their minds? It could only have been a spell cast by that US ambassatrix Ann Rice. When you write books about vampires, maybe you shouldn't be sitting in the UN. It's remarkable that she bears such a strong resemblence to Condoleeza Rice, must be that shape-shifting.

Larry Canyon, ambassadeur deluxe and foreign minister, tells a funny tale about rice. Once when a lad at UCC, he had the occasion to be involved in some hijinks before vespers with a rather wealthy individual - whom we'll nickname "Spanky" and the only person of the coloured persuasion at UCC, other than one of the janitors, whom we'll recall, as he was called, "Buckwheat". Now it just so happened that the pre -vesper pillowfight was underway in quarters when things got a little out of hand. At the end of some rough and tumble when Spanky was applying some hearty noogies to the back of Buckwheat's cranium, he happened to remark " EEEEW, Buckie you've got rice in your hair!"

It was simultaneously observed that these weren't rice, they were nits and that Buckwheat had 'cooties'. Well, Spanky, let up and ran for the showers, as did most of the other protagonists. What followed was a protracted session of scrubbing and shampooing that Larry admits has coloured his perspctive to this day. And that is why he wasn't getting too close to 'Vampirella', or giving her any Maple syrup either, after all the Americans bought that industry, too, some while ago.

We won't even mention the Africans, or Asians or those hook-nosed relations of the Chosen People who didn't vote for us. We did get the nod from Israel, and Georgia. We're pretty sure the Haitians voted for us and the Colombians as well. Surely to goodness our NATO allies would have cast their ballot our way. With all the friends we've got, it's going to be hard to figure out just who backstabbed us.

But you have to admire Steve's perspective, as he whistfully tickled 'Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella' out of the ivories he vowed to stay the course, to be the same old asshole we've all come to respect, and pilot the ship of state, onward, to sunlit uplands.

The Right Hand Knoweth not What the Left Hand Scratcheth

2010-10-12T09:33:00.004-04:00

Hardly has fey blade Guy Giorno left the Prime Minister's Office than the caca whacks into the big turney thing. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Larry Cannon, who had been involved for months with Emirate and Etihad Airlines negotiating extended landing rights at Canadian Airports, took the side of Air Canada that such an extension was 'bad for business' and promptly got Canada kicked out of its middle east supply base in Dubai.

The eviction was so sudden that the Minister of Defence, the CinC and the Veterans Affairs Minister found themselves having to fly on to Rome when a planned stop at Base Mirage was panned by the Emiris. The three had been winging it back home for Thanksgiving when the Emirates terminated their air transit rights.

Now the mlitary has 27 days to get their crap out of town. So that means the Ukrainians are going to make a bundle (again) renting us some Ruslans to transport the material to a new supply base in Cyprus or Turkey. Well, what the hey, we were planning to pull out of 'Mirage' anyway. The contract with the Emirates had been allowed to lapse back in June.

But talk about ungrateful, eh? After DoD has spent all that money flying grieving families, and VIPs, out to the middle east 'staging area' on their way to Kandahar, first class on the 'deluxe' Emirate Airlines A380's. You'd think all that business would be worth more than mere 'skywards points'. But then Emirate is the only airline, including our flagship Air Canada, flying direct from AbuDhabi to Canada. As such, it already attracts more than its share of flying customers - i.e. anybody wishing to avoid an extra stop in Europe. And with what 27 000 Canadians residing in the Emirates - why not? Duty free is as cheap, or cheaper, than in Europe anyway, as is the cost of the ticket.

But where does that leave our soldiers - whose every Joe and Louis, not to mention all the other military unmentionables, have to come through Mirage, or some awkwardly busy US base? Well, not to fear, says the DoD. All those frozen Timbits are already being routed through Akrotiri or Dhekelia anyway. From there it's just a short whiz across Turkey, and a couple of former Russian -stans before jetting over the Pamirs into sunny Kandahar. Hardly take a gallon more of Avgas. And, besides, those Cypriots have soft spot for Canuck 'peacekeepers', especially the drunk kind, decompressing with some combat pay in their pocket. A fellow can have a high time with those Moldavan tourist gals or sun-worshipping Baltic types, unless, he gets punchy and upsets their Cypriot 'boyfriends'. There's been more than one Canuck run afoul a Cypriot slammer after a little post-roto celebration.

So if it's no problem for the military, why should it be a problem for anybody else, eh? If the soldiers aren't complaining, why should those who have so much pre-paid freedom? Well, maybe it's because this is just how Steve Harper and his gang of merry idiots operate, by pissing people off. Sure it's ok to do that in Canada, liberals deserve it anyway. But when you start pissing off people in other parts of the world out of pure stupidity, well where does that end? **It might just mess-up your plans to put a Canadian ass in the catbird seat at the Security Council. Multicultural inclusivity aside, Canada has developed a reputation that aligns it with what is considered, by some, to be the only 'force for good' in the world. So that means many of those other 'little' voters at the UN are going to blackball you on principle.

As if getting blackballed by AbuDhabi isn't blackballing enough.

** Like psychotic or what? It was just announced that Canada is 'giving up' its effort to gain a seat on the Security Council. This would have been the first time in 50 years that Canada has sat on that body. Harper invested two speeches at UN forums and sent Larry Cannon to New York to schmooze up some support. I would imagine that the Abu Dhabi kerfluffle has put paid to the bumming about a Canadian in the president's chair next year. Sort of reminiscent of the doofus who 'owned the mountain', and the doofi who 'owned the podium', at last year's Olympics. Gotta love those Tories, they're all talk, as long as there's a buck in it.

Here They Go Again

2010-09-03T17:15:00.001-04:00

In the words of Ronnie Reagan who put the kibosh on that silly old democrat Carter's stab at middle east peace, "There he goes again!"

The latest silly old democrat in the White House is trying to resuscitate a process started more than twenty years ago. In the meantime a lot of water has flowed under the Allenby Bridge, enough to sink the current process for a long time to come.

To begin with, in the dim days of yore, there hadn't been any antifadas, the Buchenwald of the present, no terrorist bombs at pizzerias or on buses to pose an existentialist threat to Israelis. There have been since, and the current 'boogey' is rockets - ranging from home-made skyrockets to the latest product of Iranian rocket factories (or so we're told).

Iran wasn't a problem back then, either but to-day we're being told it's problem number one - there can't be peace in Palestine with Iran un-chastened. Iran hadn't become Jimmy's nightmare, and Ronnie's election winner, when Begin met Arafat at Camp David for the kick-off. But Iran is Benny Netanyahu's big 'bug-a-boo' and Iran won't let Abu Mazen quietly sell-off the 'birthright' of some Palestinians to get a quick deal with Israel.

That 'deal' with Israel has transmogrified too. Whereas, back in the old days, the Israelis might have been inclined to 'give back' most of the west bank and shared access to part of Jerusalem to a Palestinian 'tribal homeland' in return for peace. Now, it has settled most of the high ground in the West bank and any part of Jerusalem is now 'off the table'. Peace isn't the target any more - it's having a nation of pacified 'step'n fetchits' to do the dog work or, preferably, to have them all gone; replaced with Thai workers and Belarussian au pairs. What's being offered to some Palestinians is a ' cash buy out' and some nice property in the Negev. Some Palestinians, because most Palestinians are going to get nothing beside the opportunity to cram into a smaller 'homeland' than they have now. And refugee Palestinians are going to get nothing at all save a future in those squatter camps or emigration to other parts of the world. Hey, look what a diaspora did for the children of Israel, nu?.

Another large 'fly in the oinkum' is the HAMAS organization. When Jimmy met Anwar and Menachem there wasn't any HAMAS. FATAH and Yassir ruled the Palestinian roost and Arafat was on his way to shedding a terrorist image, much as Menachem had, to reach statesman level. In the interim, after what were seen to be failed exercises in liberation, with a PLO getting fat and sluggish on UN and Israeli money, the Palestinians largely voted them out of office after Arafat died. It was only some timely Israeli police intervention that held the West Bank.Gaza 'went' and, after the settlers had left nothing behind when they were removed , it would take some on-going military action to keep Gaza under control. Even a US-inspired police action went awry when Hamas stole a convoy load of munitions intended for FATAH security that the Israelis had carelessly allowed into Gaza. Whatever deal AbuMazen buys would have to be sold in Gaza. But as with Iran, Israel and the US will do their darnedest to isolate HAMAS in Gaza. Bottom line, it would have to be an outstanding deal for Abu Mazen to be 'bought' in the west Bank, either - or there's another wave of Palestinian refugees on the way.

Personally, I don't think Netanyahu will risk what his daddy thinks about him, by making peace with anybody. If he's successful it will be at the expense of Iran, which, he will claim, has to be removed as a precondition to any peace settlement. To get FATAH and the US on-side he's apt to say that everything from east Jerusalem to a return of all refugees is 'on the table', but there'll be no discussion until the mullahs in Teheran have no teeth, or voice.

Obama is just letting himself in for a great disappointment. But he will have a 'Tony Blair opportunity' to 'do the right thing' by blasting Iran first. Then he'll get to see how Mr. Netanyahu works. We all will, too, if we're still here.

Can ya smell ARMAGEDDON?

That Does It - I'm monetizing

2010-08-23T16:26:00.000-04:00

To-day's Toronto Star tells the tale of a reformed pervert who made $100 000 last year making videos of like-minded individuals reconnecting with their inner Peter Pan by driving home-made 'stunt vehicles' around his farm. It appears he was sole owner, producer, etc of a UTube 'hit', or rather something that got thousands of them. So many that UTube paid him a great deal of money for his uploads.

The Star seems to have dropped the story. here's a different reference:
jalopnik

But it seems that somebody who saw his stuff remembered him from the bad old days of early videography. Seems that Farmer Brown was in on the found floor of digital imaging and directed the all-revealing lens to a couple of fey blades he conjured into a bout of Onanism. He claims that his as-yet-undiagnosed manic-depression was the cause of his reaching out to fondle some flopping 'genitools' - again on camera. That got him a conviction for child molestation, for he was 26 at the time and the pud-pullers were still too young to be doing that for a living. Some of those who knew him then are expressing concern that young men might be attracted to his 'rides' and leave themselves open to other 'experiences' if Farmer Brown is still bent in that former direction.

For his part, Brown is 'coming clean' at this juncture so that he can improve his chances of being reunited with his 'estranged children' . That's a laudable sentiment, if not a little bit late, but probably due to that lithium deficiency. He didn't say what estranged them. It strikes me that you have to be doing something a little off-side of the centre spot to be having your children 'estranged' from you. Courts these days are quite understanding, even if there is mental illness at play, unless it's the kind that results in some physical violence or abuse.

I'd be concerned that Farmer Brown seems to see a value in running a place with the motto 'Where boys become men, and men become boys'".

All this has given me pause to consider that one can actually pull down a six-figure income slapping some videos on the internet - which explains some of the stuff that bubbles up from time to time, and that 'asshole craze' that made some young idiots wealthy endangering themselves. Maybe there's a place for scruffy curmudgeon barging about the vicissitudes of life. Nope, I understand somebody from Yonkers - with a wife beater over his beer gut - has that spot nailed shut.

Maybe I'll monetize this stuff, with the audience I've got I'll be wealthy in another lifetime.

Dudley Strikes/Struck Again

2010-08-23T12:13:00.001-04:00

Canada's best loved icons, barring Bucky the Beaver or some of those 'commando' fiddlers from down-east, have dropped themselves in the doo-doo of hubris once again.

This time Canada's singular police force, cum intelligence service, cum embassy guards battalion, cum only cavalry unit, are being pasted in the press for their interference with, and kiboshing of, the investigation of wee Willie Picton, the pork farmer of Port Coquitlam. It seems that the 'people in red', either ignored the information presented by other police, or dragged their feet on their own investigation enough to allow Willie to ply his trade in up to 30 additional cases of 'rendering'.

willie gets porked

As one policeman testified at the investigation "You can't tell the RCMP anything, they know it all." Well he's sort of half right, being as since they know it all already, it's far better to drop them a few hints and allow them to use the skills acquired from King of the Mounties and Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, to come up with the facts for themselves. For anything anybody else might 'know' isn't worth a bridle full of horse saliva to 'those with real horse sense'. It's a good idea to steer clear while they pursue their 'investigations', too.

Bummer is that the Picton investigation went the same way as some other Mounted investigations - i.e. south. This leads one to believe that 'investigating' isn't their strong suit and might be fodder for an different government enterprise - like a Federal Bureau of Investigation, say? On the upside, these 'fodder' spin-offs, like CSIS, are fields for applied Mountyism - places where retiring red coats can go to be with others who share the esprit, if not the big hat. It doesn't dawn on anybody that making incompetent ex-Mounties the head honchos in some equally important services isn't just letting them breed more of those like unto themselves? That Mountie 'culture' is going with them and this inquiry points out, again, that the 'culture' is at the root of the force's problems. It's stopping them from doing their jobs.

So what is to be done? Well changing the 'hetman' didn't work. The 'cossacks rouges' took three years to discover he was a 'pouf' and to work up the gumption to say something about it. They probably weren't in favour of any substantive changes either, especially if it involved not considering themselves commanding the bestest and smartest if not the most best-looking police in the world. Even then, they went puling to the Minister, himself a wanker of the first water, before ultimately leaking their tale of woe, anonymously, to the press. Nobody wanted to fall on their cavalry lance and risk a pension for the good of the force. That there are ponces running the government who are trying to run the mounted, is only coincidental.

I think the only way out of the mess, aside from letting them carry on in the 'fine tradition', etc, is to turn them into a latter day Corps of Commissionaires. Keep the uniforms, they're sharp. But put them where they won't be doing any harm, like at holding doors at public events and citizenship courts, decorating foreign affairs soirees and ambassadorial banquets, checking the bona fides of visitors at Parliament Hill and in the opposition parties caucus rooms. As far as training foreign police services, well, unless they would like a mounted performance unit - and a lot of places would like one of those, like the red indians, cossacks or the bashi-bazouks, the Khyber Rifles and the Spahis - lots of opportunities. The Mounties however shouldn't be teaching anybody about investigating.

Up to the Neck in It

2010-08-21T08:45:00.000-04:00

The monsoons weren't kind to Pakistan this year. The 'rainy' season caused notable damage in a lot of places. It might give pause to consider more of that 'extremes of weather' stuff Al Gore was pontificating about, if 'right thinking' individuals weren't convinced that extreme weather happens all the time. But I digress. It's not so much that the monsoon, this year, created a mess, it's the effect of that.

Pakistan is a unique country running from the Himalayas in the north, generally downhill to the south-west to the Indian ocean. And that is how the monsoon took it. Beginning with heavy rains in the mountainous north-east provinces, the mountain streams and rivers rapidly swelled their banks. The deluge swept away villages and left survivors stranded on high ground without food or shelter. It was almost a week before we, in the west, started hearing stories of the devastation. Among the first were that the 'taliban' were "taking advantage" of the situation by aiding those affected and that the Pakistani government had no resources nearby to help. Subsequent stories told of floods spreading to the central parts of the country, of dams washing away and again thousands stranded with no help. By that time NATO (the US ) had diverted six helicopters from Afghanistan - these were promptly grounded by bad weather - and the Pakistanis were diverting military helicopters to rescue work. Aside from that, it was noted that western aid was not arriving in any great quantity.

In the west, the story of the Pakistani floods received the same attention as the Chinese floods, or the Mexican floods, very little at all. The President of Pakistan, on a sort-of royal progress around the family estates in France actually got more press for nay-saying the war in Afghanistan. That 'normal' outburst of generous appealing, pledging and sending off airlifts of aid seen in other recent disasters just didn't happen this time. Just the opposite in fact - the 'where are all the muslims' chorus went up.

Along with it was the tooth-sucking about the effect on the war - that the 'taliban' had somehow not been affected by the flood and were 'on the road' to taking back all the areas the government had destroyed fighting them for the past two years. The weather was even taking a toll on the drone strikes which only managed to kill a half company of insurgents. And there was expressed the fear that those nasty 'Talies' would be taking any resources given to the flood victims, so best not to give them anything at all. Let the taliban feed them from their ration dumps. Actually, this is a close to the truth as you're going to get, for those people ARE the 'Taliban', all of them. Now they're wet, cold, out in the open and they have nothing to eat but their kalashikovs, so it's a golden opportunity to put the kibosh on the insurgency with some benign neglect or 'grub for actionable intel' program.

Now the flooding is reaching into the more 'advanced' areas of the Pakistani south and, at last, the clarion call to assist is being blatted quietly. America, as usual, is leading the pack with a promised 100 million in humanitarian aid. Even Canada has 'promised' 33 million - but that's probably money we had already promised and I wouldn't count on a dime until the cheque gets cashed. Our Conservative government is big on letting the little guy pay first and then forgetting to cut the cheque themselves. We haven't heard yet from Franklin Graham's international 'ministry', but maybe they've got their hands full and warehouses emptying, getting Haiti ready for more of the same old, same old but with the real American Jesus and less of that MauMau juju papist stuff. Muslim organizations are mobilizing to send help, at least the ones that haven't been placed on the international blackball of terror list. This is where those 'sanctions' really start paying-off! Too bad it wasn't as wet in Iran. Maybe next time.

Canada's Shreiking Meemie

2010-08-10T15:37:00.003-04:00

I just read a piece in the Toronto sun about Khadr, the Canadian child-mujaheddin who has been growing into adulthood in Gitmo for the last 8 years. The writer of the piece, one Ezra Levant, wonders why anybody could be feeling the least bit bad about Khadr since, according to Levant, he's been the recipient of all things good while he's been staying in that Caribbean workers' paradise. Levant would have us believe he's been molly-coddled, not only by overly kindly guards who attend zealously to his religious strictures in regard to prayer and feeding, but by the Canadian government's department of foreign affairs who send him regular "care packages" at taxpayer expense along with goodies provided by an admiring family. This little terrorist has had too many treats.

Levant describes the idyllic life of Khadr and his ilk, with opportunities for exercise, if they wish, and expensive high-fashion athletic footware, but also nintendo and electronic time-wasters laid on by caring Marines. No doubt he's an accomplished 'killer' at COD5 Modern War. How all this is known unto Ezra is probably due to his exposure to 'Faux-think' in the bastion of freedom. To round off his little piece, Ezra spits out one last sunflower shell in the form of the arcane knowledge that the IEP that killed the first Canadian to die in Afghanistan was assembled by another 'child-terrorist'. How does he know that? The man is truly amazing.

How did Ezra get to be so smart, you might ask. Well, that was due to his upbringing. Ezra is the grandchild of Russian Jewish emigrants who homesteaded out to the Canadian west to find a new life. Whatever their new life was about, Ezra managed to attend Jewish school and later took his degree in law from the U. of Alberta. At a young age he developed a negative sensitivity for those who might get an easier (free?) ride due to their 'special' circumstances. This offended Ezra so much that he led the charge to overturn some civil rights and equal opportunity nonsense the university had started. Ezra became a poster boy for the reactive right. Lashing out to restore a sense of real social value and the natural aristocracy of smart.

This led Ezra to configure himself as a conservative thinker - he dislikes anything 'special' - like unions, Quebec, or anything east of Winnipeg. He wants government to get rid of those hindrances to progress - like the minimum wage, universal health care, public pensions and subsidized education. Ezra might very well hallucinate that Canada could add 10 new stars to the 'spangled banner' not to mention a few territories and a whole whack of cheap resources that the 'talented' could better manage in lieu of the socialists. One might almost think he aspires to join the constellation of holy hebrews who wag the dog in Washington. Along with all this arcane baggage, Ezra holds a little bit of a hate for such as Khadr.

It could be because of all the free medical and dental care he has received at Gitmo. It could be because Khadr's family have piled on the Canadian haywagon much as did gran-bubbi, only with far more public assistance. Or it could be that Khadr's gotten all this notice and press about being the youngest terrorist to be 'tagged' by America. Or, finally, it could be that Khadr seems, to this point, to be a far more sympathetic character than some pudgy prick of a western lawyer. At least Khadr had the moxie to bounce back from a USAF bombstrike, a SF assault and three of their best in his back. Not only that, cheeky bugger, he had the fearful temerity to, reputedly, toss a hand grenade that, supposedly, killed a "medic" and all-round dad and nice guy who happened to be in the assault squad that day. To Levant, this is all chapter and verse even though there are members of the assault squad who deny the 'conventional wisdom' of the action report - twice written and filed months after the action. Khadr is guilty because he was caught on a video tape miraculously found on the battlefield afterward, and because he 'fessed-up' to 'friendly' American guards, one of whom was discharged for beating an innocent Afghan taxi-driver to death. Levant is right only in saying, in his blog, "Canada's little terrorist is as good as done."

Khadr can't not be found guilty - there's an empire at stake.

If there's anything that we shouldn't be 'crying' for Khadr about, it is that he has such antagonists as Ezra Levant. I'd like to think that when Khadr thinks of his God taking revenge on his persecutors that he's thinking of assholes like Levant. We should be crying for ourselves, for, all too often, that 'revenge' falls on the innocent, not the bigmouths who might truly deserve it.

No Honour Among Thieves: Buyers and Sellers Either

2010-08-06T10:14:00.002-04:00

One of Toronto's more picaresque attractions are the TV advertisements by those who offer "cash for gold". There are two in particular Russell Oliver - who's been a provider of chintzy TV ads for a number of years, and a recently independent protege, one Harold the Jewelry Buyer. There are others, a mail-in-your-old-jewelry-and-we'll-cut-you-the-cheque outfit and, apparently, the subject of this story.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/844356--cash-for-gold-employee-charged-in-alleged-murder-plot

It strikes me that societal circumstances must have reverted to a previous time when 'jewelry buyers' and pawn shops are becoming more noticeable (and reputable?) again. There is now a series on the A&E channel about a pawn family in Las Vegas - some of whose members bear a striking resemblance to other more notable 'bounty-hunting' and chopper-building' dynasties, or to the Munsters of comedic fame.

What's humorous in all these is their stereotypicality. 'Dog, the Bounty Hunter' his blowsy missus, his tatted and pigtailed trailer-trash progeny are oners. As are the mustachioed and muscle-bound biker building family - except for the one overweight 'nerd' among them. Modern day replacement for the 'rasslers' of past times. The 'pawners' are larger than life too, with a coterie of experts and advisors who look like the came straight from a Bob Crumb comic. And no less are Russell the "Loan arranger" Peters (Oliver) and Harold the Schmuck.

Oliver has been around longer than the other, but longevity hasn't improved him, or apparently, his service. Here's one of his ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSQVVHyvOZU&feature=related

Russ Oliver has some bad press for his attempted rip-offs and apparently lousy 'bedside manner'. He did however raise Harold to manhood, or at least the position to want to go it alone. Harold doesn't have the flash, but he does an outstanding rendition of Shylock. Here's one of his efforts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UnRno6z2Xc

One could imagine somebodies like Harold, or Russell being in the Temple courtyard the day Jesus 'lost it'.

To-day's story puts a another slant on things. There aren't enough people peddling granny's old adornments, or there are too many buyers jacking up the price, for these guys. And so we have equally colorful 'extreme fighters' claiming to be hired to knock-off the opposition - by Granny of all people! You can't buy advertising like that.

It really isn't surprising when one considers that Bathurst Street in Toronto, once the quaint heart of a little shtetl, has grown like a beanstalk that extends Toronto's Judenrat for some 40 miles through the city and out into the hinterland. Not much in the 'news' about it, but Toronto's Jewish community has grown, obviously as quickly, if not far more prosperously, than some of the others. Russell and Harold are part of a 'vibrant' religious and socio-economic scene, even if they do from time to time want to kill each other. The blacks do that with striking regularity.

The High cost of Plantation

2010-08-06T09:07:00.003-04:00

An article in the Toronto Star yesterday caught my attention, it was titled "Funeral Homes Subsidizing Services for the Poor". Being the altruist that I am and having gone through the funeral process fairly recently, this act of corporate largesse just grabbed me. But I'm working on the principle that nothing makes a funeral home sadder than to sit empty and any funeral is better for business than no funeral.

It seems that local funeral homes in Toronto are 'up against the wall', cost wise, in providing a decent funeral for the 'poor' for less than $5 500. They want the City to up the basic rate for a 'paupers' funeral from $2 208 to cover that amount. Last year they claim to have 'lost' millions on the 1 600 'freebies' they 'had to' give those who died while on social assistance, or disability pensions.

Needless to say, most of those funerals were of the 'full service' type because there were 'family' involved. I'm making an assumption here, but I'd guess none of the 'family involved' were in a position to actually pay anything toward the costs themselves?

So what's included? Because the family must be 'respected' here. "Most get pickup, embalming, a particleboard casket covered by grey cloth with white rayon interior, a service, clergy honorarium, a hearse, “lead car” and limo for family, and burial or cremation." If the cost for that is $5 500 + tax, then the $13 000 paid for a recently deceased relative must have been increased by more than double - the extra costs of 'viewing', 'deluxe' coffin and a grave liner.

Under legislation, municipalities are "allowed" to cover these costs with 80% being supplied by the province. This for families who are "unable to bury a loved one as they would like".

Strikes me that one of the effects of 'poverty' is not being able to do a lot of things you would like. But having a funeral 'show' for an indigent family member, on the public tick, I don't think should be one of them. I guess the same problem of not having the foresight to realize that you can't not work and expect the grocery man to drop a load at the door, carries over into the realization that we are all finite and the day will come when our carcass, or dear old dad's, must be disposed. That a whole 'family' (for I'm making an assumption that this wouldn't get done for the sake of a surviving parent, brother, sister or cousin) couldn't work together to bury their dead, is a sad commentary on to-day's world. But then, if they did that, they'd probably get charged the going rate. The costs of those 'basic' funeral services, which aren't available to the paying public, would be heftily inflated. If somebody else is going to pay for it, why volunteer? And I don't think the funeral industry is being too altruistic either.

One thing most funeral directors in business aren't, is stupid. That variety don't stay in business long. So I'm imagining that, like many businessmen who 'give to charity', funeral homes put some of those 'operating expenses' over to those who can pay, or as a 'business expense' against taxes, or maybe a bit of both. I would also imagine that, depending on location, some funeral homes would get more of the 'pauper' trade than others. And the subsidy, then, would constitute a business hardship, in terms of a lack of higher 'regular' rates than those funeral homes get, who only bury the well-heeled. So the problem wouldn't be industry-wide, or equitably distributed.

Why, then, the necessity for government involvement? The funeral business has a number of internal organizations to which individuals can belong, and for a number of purposes. Why don't they fund an insurance plan to cover those increased basic costs for the few (?) affected? Just because the government undertakes to provide the necessities of life to those unable to do so for themselves doesn't make it a logical follow-up that government should provide the industry standard in funerary practices too. 'Bury the dead' is a corporal work of mercy enjoined on all, but in our neo-pagan society this religious tenet has been parlayed into a social event, with concommittent opportunites for the ultimate 'show', which, in the industry, is the icing on the monetary cake. Poverty defines a limit on the amount of that

The government shouldn't be in the business of providing more than the 'paupers' funeral'. If 'the family' want more, they should plan for it, and save for it or, as so many others do, go into debt for it.

When It's Summer in the Rockies

2010-07-28T13:29:00.003-04:00

The national guardians are at it again. After pulling off a brilliant eclat at the Winter Olympics and an interesting riposte at the recent Ontario summits, the RCMP have begun to look inward. and what they see, they don't like. Well, not so much see - for the red serge and cavalry stripes always look sharp, it's more what they hear that they dislike. It seems their head honcho is a 'yeller' fer petes' sakes!

The wunderkind civilian overseer of the mounties, one 'wild bill' Elliot, who was appointed to 'make changes' in the RCMP three years ago, has turned out to be every bit the 'martinet' the last honcho was, and he's a screamer forbye. At present he has an upper echelon revolt of sorts on his hands, or rather on the hands of his boss Vic 'moustache pete' Toews. It appears some higher ranking Mounties, after complaining to him, decided to do their complaining in the press. They no doubt will be among the most substantive changes in the Mounties for, after embarrassing Vic, who's usually asleep at the switch anyway, they've got 'the screamer' in trouble, too and a civil service inquiry into the 'poisoned environment'.

The scoop, as the papers are reporting, is that Elliot's management style leaves something to be desired. Whatever his background, his training led him to believe that the 'fuhrerprinzip' was best, complete with public bawlings-out of those who displease him. One would think that such management behavior isn't a recently acquired strategy and might have been noticed in his other appointments. But then again, he's more than likely viewed as an unqualified therapist sticking his big nose in where it can't do much good and the notion of a laugh at his expense couldn't be much amiss. On his part he claims that some of his critics are resistant to the kind of change he's taking so long to introduce. Cleaning house shouldn't take so long, and generally the more noise involved, the less 'cleaning' actually gets done.

It sounds like the 'imperium' kicked-in, as it so often does when mere mortals get promoted to greatness. Elliot probably got to like the snappy salutes from his 'boys', his service did qualify him for the Award of Police Merit.Which is right up there with Elvis' collection of police badges - he was probably an honorary Mountie, though Elliot has, yet, become that. What he does have, along with the golden buttons and crest on his 'official' blazer, is the 'stick of greatness' - the Commissioner's baton. For other Commissioners this was a commonplace sort of thing, but for our 'shreiker' the baton has become, literally a caber, a two-hander if anything, or else he lacks the stature, as well as the 'quals', of others.

Those deputy commissioners are largely those raised in the school of Ghirardelli the former honcho at RCMP. A fat ex-civil servant cutting the orders probably rankles like heck. Or maybe all this is being orchestrated for the best cop in Canada - 'Julius Caesar' Fantino. Fantino let it out fairly recently that he was not considering a run in politics after he put aside the swat outfit at the OPP. And what a wonderful improvement in look, the red coat of a Canadian icon! But Julian's 'grandeur' would put Ghirardelli's to shame, for Julian is a true Roi Soleil and any house-keeping he would do there would probably be of the empire-building kind.

Don't expect much different from the Mounties for the foreseeable future.

AIDS Redux - the Sequel

2010-07-23T15:29:00.002-04:00

The annual world-wide AIDS competition, er, conference is wrapping up this week. The annual gathering of all those with a stake, or an interest in the plague of the 21st century were gathered in Vienna to hear the hopeful news (not much), to get the latest in alerts (women and young people seem to be in particular danger this year) and to hear the latest in excuses.

In the past we've had ignorance, then poverty, and lack of medications to add to the other excuses for the spread of AIDS - risky sexual behaviors and intravenous drug use. This year the 'boogieman' thwarting the stoppage of AIDS is a lack of human rights.

It seems that in countries where the powers that be can do anything they want to individuals, those suffering with AIDS are very reticent to step forward. The fear of physical punishment and or imprisonment, or even death leaves them to develop full-blown illness and then die when retrovirals could slow that progression so they could have longer lives trying to eke out a living. When I hear that, I think of tyrannies like they have in Cuba where there may be no civil rights, but the treatment for AIDS patients is world-class. The big difference is that those diagnosed with AIDS are no longer at large to mix with those who don't have the disease. If freedom to infect others is a bench mark of human rights for AIDS sufferers, sign me up for the school that uses firing squads. I don't think anybody has the 'right' to give anybody else an incurable disease - especially one requiring intimate contact or exchange of body fluids for transmission. It's not quite the same as sneezing on a bus. In actuality, however, I think the human rights thing is a red herring.

The real problem, and the one as yet un-addressed is that, once infected with AIDS, you have, on average, three years before the disease progresses far enough to make you feel like you need a doctor's attention. In that period, the viral load in your blood may be growing steadily, but you're not sick enough to think that you might be spreading anything worse than spit and semen. It is these folk with AIDS, who don't yet know they have it, who are causing the undiminished 'new infection' rate of about 12 percent. With the exception of the few odd cases where someone deliberately infects others, most people with AIDS are very careful about not transmitting it to friends and others intimate with them. But as yet there is nothing the AIDS body is willing to do that would address this issue, other than to encourage wide-spread AIDS 'education'. Lesson one of that course is that 'we' have nothing to fear from people with AIDS - the ones who know they have it at least. And the rest? Well, if you're doing 'risky business', you should get yourself tested and vulcanize yourself.

So the well-paid activists, spokespersons and workers in AIDs-directed charities and NGOs can pat themselves on the back for another years' work done. They can waggle fingers at governments who aren't kicking-in as much as they might. And 'tsk-tsk' about the tragedies. When it comes to serving useless purposes they are well up there, for the only thing they 'do' is an annual 'awareness' of our insufficiencies. As if the world could forget.

Even Better than C-17's

2010-07-23T15:00:00.004-04:00

It was announced this week that the Canadian government was all set to buy a couple of wings worth of the almost new F35 Lightning 2. This marvel of aeronautical engineering and fighter for the vandouzieme century, has been a-borning since the 70's and, at last, it's almost ready for production. Being as since there are only a couple of other such "5th generation" hi-tech stealth aircraft on the market these days and having joined the developmental consortium a number of years, and millions of dollars ago, the F35 is really Canada's only choice. The US has a 'better' model - the F22 - but they're keeping that one for themselves and gallant l'il Israel - even though Obama thinks he's scrapped it. The Russkis have a similar (cheaper) machine in the works, but we don't do deals with terror, or commies, the same way we missed buying all those Ruslans we still rent.

No, we're bound and bent to buy the Lightning 2 just like a US general said we were going to do some 12 years back. We don't get any choice - not if we don't want a whole shitload of trade problems. Never mind the fact that, given its comparatively short range, we'll have to be messing-up its vaunted stealth characteristics with a load of external fuel tanks. The single engine should provide better fuel economy than the double units in the CF18 and the F22, but zipping over the barren north won't be as worry-free, if that single mill goes out, there's only one other way down. But what the hell, they make really good jet engines these days.

It was picturesque to see our 'civilian warrior', the devilishly handsome Minister of Defence, trying on the cockpit of one of the babies. I bet he never had the willies like that since his days in the video arcade. Sitting on all that raw power would be better than humping a Secretary of State or 'doing a circuit' on the star of the Stronach stable. We, in Canada, are fortunate to have a 'first soldier' who's cut to the rig of a Reinhard Heydrich, rather than someone who looks like Elmer Fudd and sounds like a relative of Porky Pig.

But don't let the photo-op fool anybody there's money to be spent here - 9 billion dollars (16 billion according to other sources) , the deal is pegged at. If you'll do some simple mathematics - by comparison to the 4 billion dollars we 'paid' for three C-17's, you'll realize what a real bargain the 65 Lightning 2's are, even without the maintenance part of the deal. Or what a real screwing somebody took for those 3 heavy lifters.

If you knew the anything about the untried and overrated Lightning 2, you might realize, as well, that somebody was 'assuming the position', again.

Gord Save the Queen

2010-07-23T11:41:00.001-04:00

It must have been some kind of serendipity to have our dear old Queen show up in Hogtown at the same time the other queens over on Jarvis were slapping the Dr. Scholl's moleskins on their parade blisters. I wonder if anybody thought to invite her to take part in the Dyke's Day festivities - she is such a role model for dominant personality types.

If she knew the other genders were having a alternation fest only blocks away, the dear old Queen wasn't saying anything about that for public consumption. It might not matter much, given the predilection of the royals to recognize, and use, the obvious organizational talents of the fey, even if they can't, officially, abide their amorous activities. Her majesty was reserved to royal business: a day at the races, opening hockey displays, visiting blackberry factories and lunching with the 'natural nobility' of the province. They didn't have the security fences up for the delightful little monarch, she gets more respect than our 'worldly' leaders - except from 'excited' pony-owners. But she was there for them, to back them up, they are the pointy end of the family business don't you know? Extolling their virtues she would call it all, to the tune of only 12 million bucks. Worth every penny I say!.

She did get a little training for her up-coming visit to the land o' the free home o' the braves, etc. On her last days in Tronna she was the recipient of an early summer heat wave, combined with an exercise in applied private ownership when the power went out in the downtown core. Luckily, where she 'was to', there was a back-up electrical system and the the gala went on as planned. When she goes south next week, she's going to get a real baking, they've got that heat wave in spades compared to us esquimeaux, and an even wonkier private enterprise electrical grid.

The Americans are 'pumped' for her visit - but I think they're expecting Queen Latifah or a Freddy Mercury impersonator. An octogenarian as ruler better be wearing white and riding a popemobile as far as they're concerned. When it comes to 'royalty' they prefer those to be going 'commanda' and being undignified getting out of lo-rider limos. In the world of bad rugs, dental veneers and plastic surgery Queen Elizabeth looks just a bit too natural to be 'real'.

Editing a week or two post-visit, all I can note is that her Royal highness was upstaged by the tribulations of one Lindsey Lohan and the world Cup. I don't think anybody knew she was there.

Big Meetings

2010-06-27T17:02:00.002-04:00

Ontari-ari-ario played host to the world's creme de la creme this week. Leaders of the leading G20 and the ultra elite leading G8 were here for their bi-annual readjustment. I would hope that, if nothing else, they had that drummer girl and the guy in the wheel chair out to sing the 'There's no place like this for meeeee...' song. Those world leaders would have been impressed. They got all the bums out from under the overpasses and off the sewer and subway grates for the meetings in the fortress of solitude they made out of downtown TO. And they paved and painted everything from the Airport at Huntsville - which now has enough gear to land a space shuttle, to the resort at Deerhurst. They even had trained anti-terrorist geese on the dock and down by the water. But the beaver in town was only for the cops.

Meanwhile, down in the big smoke, them evil protesters - the Black Hundreds or 'bloc centimes', as they're called, biked in from the easter' province to do dirt in the streets of Tronna. While Toronto's finest were busy putting the boots to a bunch of sissies and girls in the park, those black basterds ran away up the street to bust things where the cops weren't. Pleece Chief Bert Winkledink , wearing his team tactical outfit, was a-huffin and a-puffin about this "never before seen" level of vandalism, and the outrage to the citizenry and peaceful protesters and such. He wasn't saying anything about the phalanx of troopers who advanced 'swinging their batons and swearing' to rescue some flatfoot trapped in his squad car and then beating a tactical retreat while being forced to allow those 'betes noires' to play with the horn and sireen before setting the car on fire. The boys in blue abandoned a couple (4) of their units in the unexpected onslaught. Wonder why they didn't rescue the cars, too, by driving them behind pleece lines? It don't look good for the budget next time round if something don't get wrecked this time round, eh?

Just a thought, but maybe those black doofi are the latest application of applied Quebecoise pleece science. They know that, "Allons mes Gars! On aura les maudits anglais!" might not get the protestors all fired up, like it didn't last time, up their way. What the hell, whether you get to toss a rock or two, or thump a liberal, or not, it's all overtime anyhow!

One of the more notable additions were the RCMP, who showed up too late to get the good hotel rooms. They were to be bunked down in some sort of Hurricane Katrina complex. "Well hold the donut Martha", said their union reps - they're unionized these days y'know, "We'll be having a little more respect than that, if you please." And so a last minute search for decent digs ensued. They probably displaced the volunteers from the Chinguacousy Volunteer PD and a couple of other detachments of lesser lights. As it is, the senior pleece service got pride of place right out front with the doorman at the King Eddy and the Royal York. Got a good close squint at them pols and their arm-flluff, too, I'd bet. Makes a fellah feel good, or better than one of those stupid judicial inquiries about tasers. All that was missing was an Afghan 'hero' , or two, going down to the coroner's office to be saluted. Even the black hundreds might have dropped the bandanna in the passing presence of somebody's kid who paid the ultimate whammy on behalf of their freedom to protest, and get clubbed and arrested in defence of democracy.

The Mayor of Toronto Dave Whiteman, the 'silver fox', came down on the evildoers and disinvited their welcome to his city. They weren't even welcome to grab a burger on their way out of town. The good protesters, though, could stay, but they had to stay good.

Humpty McGinty the premeer of Ontario was 'on the wall' for allowing the Tronna pleece service special powers of arrest without telling anybody. "That's a dirty lie.", he told the press, "It's on the website for anybody who wanted to look, or at least it will be next week after the G20's over". As if the Tronna pleece service needs any special permission to do anything Chief Bill Bailey tells them to do. Could just see that: "Well Mr Preemeer. In order to guarantee that the black horde won't get away from us and burn things like pleece cars, I will be requiring special legislation to permit my troops to arrest anyone for nothing at all. The Mayor, I know, has an aversion to this 'pleece state' sort of thing, so I wondered if ....?"

"Eggs-ackly, Chief Bill. Allow me to set you up right away. There is this interesting little law enacted during WW2 - that's the BIG one private Ryan got saved in - to make this a better place and it was never repealed. It's called the 'dun the hun for freedom' law and we can use that to get the riff raff out of the way of the black plague. You go Boy!"

And so he went.

By the way, the only real accomplishment of the summits, besides a huge bill and some great eats, is a strongly worded message to Iran and North Korea - "Mr. Netanyahu, Take Down that wall!" - No, that;'s not it. Wait a minute ..... eh......

Wear Red on Friday, the Scarlet French Letter

2010-06-01T15:21:00.003-04:00

Canadian forces were shocked this week when the number one in Afghanistan Brig. Gen. Danny Menard was relieved of command only hours after he returned to his post from Canada. He had been away to answer charges of careless handling of his firearm, when he came close to permanently discharging his Commander Walt Natanczuk in a helicopter loading incident. He was fined $3 500 - most likely as an example to the troops, who have been known to fool around too much with their guns. But this isn't what got him relieved.

The story is that his other gun may have been involved. Apparently the good brigadier had a 'relationship' develop with a young female soldier on his staff. This was a serious breech of CF discipline which enjoins upon those in foreign deployments to such places as Afghanistan, a level of Shaolin Warrior Monkhood, or something. There is ab-so-lute-ly no panty-punching, or dicky-dunking allowed on CF bases in the Asian and middle eastern theatres of war. The Brigadier may have been hoisted on his own petard.

Soldiers expressed dismay at another black-eye for the service. We have a base commander in Canada cooling his heels in the slammer on a double charge of homicide. And now this, NATO's golden-haired spokesperson who bade a fond farewell to so many smiling soldiers, couldn't do what they did and keep it in his baggies. But if they're dismayed, imagine what the little woman waiting at home must be feeling - all those 'deployment widows'. If the Brigadier can be vamped by some little harlot in camo, what about the other fellows who don't get the trips out of theater for R&R, consultations and meetings. They'd like to be 'meeting' somebody, too, I'm sure.

So they figure that pretty well wraps things up for the Brigadier, all he has left is a faint hope that a court martial might think he didn't do anything. But failing that, he has a good career ahead in the private security industry, or in advertising.

Post Script: The latest is that Danny's a 'goner' not for his 'peckerdillo', but because he ordered her to dummy-up when the military police came investigating. It's that superior officer lese-majeste that will have Danny taking a supervisory position with Xe or Garda.

We'll Train the Police

2010-06-01T15:00:00.001-04:00

The Canadian military mission in Afghanistan comes to an end in 2011. After that the Canadians will be reassigned to training the Afghan police. That should be a snap, because Canada has been involved in training the Afghan Police for a number of years, now. How well have we done? We've done great!

Has the program been successful? Not a chance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk2P2jBxZck&feature=player_embedded

This Utube correspondent reports on the 'elite' Afghan police unit, ANCOP, which has been deployed in Marjah the area recently 'liberated' by the 'surge' forces. The same old problems, exacerbated by a couple of new ones, are glaringly evident. As in the 'bad old days' that gave rise to the Taliban, this unit are 'foreigners' amid the people they police. They don't even speak the same language. They're probably not welcome among the Pashtun. But, being as since they're armed, and backed by the Americans, they have a superior feeling of what policing means. It's not that they like what they're doing. For, as it says, the attrition rate for the unit is 67 percent with - well-trained police quitting to join the regular army.

Why? It's because this 'SWAT' squad has developed a military reputation. So much so that, as the officers claim, they're deployed as front men for NATO forces and the Afghan army. And they're getting killed first.

So what does this mean for the future. If things go as they have gone for the past 8 years, and there is no indication that anything will be done differently, as the Canadian instructor says, "We've done everything wrong."

Doing the wrong thing is the last thing to be doing in Afghanistan. Like in medicine, it's better to do nothing, for doing the wrong thing only causes needless hurt and suffering, not to mention the waste of resources that could have been used for something else.

If, in the 8 years Canadians have been training police, and seeing the results they've seen, and not having been willing or able to change anything, even staying to go on training police is a waste of Canadian resources. It would be better to leave half the money we spend for them to use as they see fit. Even if somebody steals it, we would only look stupid, not wrong. And, boys and girls, as even our point people admit, 'We've done everything wrong' training Afghan police.

A Slam Dunk for Justis

2010-06-01T14:55:00.003-04:00

14 down and two to go. Toronto's jihadi terrorists may be getting their day in court but, in a series of guilty pleas, the justice of their cases remains firmly in the mind of their beholder. For, aside from reading the charges into the record, there has been precious little scrutiny of the evidence against them. That's the beauty of a guilty plea, it saves a lot of wear and tear on the presenter. It gives the distinct impression that, if nothing else, the evil perps have seen some error in their ways. That may be all right for the courts but it leaves the sour taste that, if those jihadis were just a tad more 'on the ball', the outcome might have been somewhat different and those security forces now doing the high fives might have been wondering, 'What the F**k'. Just like the rest of us.

The most recent to 'fess up' was one of the original characters. He was convicted of importing illegal firearms. Fahim Ahmad made his appearance on the security radarscope 4 years ago when he, or one of the other two he was with, accidentally dropped some shooting irons they were transporting into Canada - right in front of the Border Service. Mind you, this was long before the days when Canada's Border Service was much more than a partime-employment service for in-between-term university students. But dropping pistols is 'up there' on attention-getting, even if you are on the look-out for American smokes or Japanese air conditioners. Hard to believe but, after 4 years, Fahim is finally facing the music for something he can't deny doing. Maybe if authorities had acted faster, he wouldn't have had the chance to add the rest of the narrative - the stuff about northern Ontario training camps, target practice and the malarky about beheading all the tools in Ottawa. He's not, apparently, being convicted of trying to blow up the southern part of Toronto but he is tarred with that brush too.

Toronto Star writer Thomas Walcom explored the subject in a piece for his paper in June of 06, reproduced on the Prison Planet Bulletinboard (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/070606notter). His claims that the changes that have happened in the official 'story' since these birds were arrested, the one that has never been tested in court, leads him to belief that 15 of the 16 weren't terrorists by any stretch of the imagination. That story has changed over time - historical corrections no doubt. But why plead guilty? That's the 64 thousand dollar question. To date the court sentence for those who were 'really guilty' (just one of them so far) was really stiff. So, either these guys have some really stupid lawyers being paid by the crown to slack it, or they're really guilty of the possibility that they might actually have been more intelligent and ruthless in practice than they were in reality. Or there's something in all of this that we don't know. My money's on the latter.

The Canadian legal system is the home of the deal. It seems such a natural way to attain justice. Cop a plea to something you're comfortable with and the court will cut you a break for being cooperative - you wouldn't have been there if you weren't guilty of something anyway, eh? If you want to fight, they'll let you do that too, but at such a cost to yourself, that you'll be sorry you did, unless you're a slimeball ex-cop who murdered somebody and is smart enough to know how to get a million and a half bucks worth of legal aid. Some people fare better in court than others, Fahim was not one of the better-farers, he was looking at life for a contested conviction. Being as since the others had all confessed ... well, who was going to believe he was an innocent ringleader.
The only 'innocent' was the cops' paid stooge who was on-board from the get-go, and he only got a paltry million and a half and a new life as a 'witness'.

So far there's not much to feel secure about. A bunch of cretins have pled guilty to mass stupidity. But it would have been worthwhile, after the massive investigation and all, to have had them duly convicted on the evidence and sent away for life. Unless they didn't do it, eh?

It's all Over Now (but the Obits)

2010-06-01T14:42:00.002-04:00

The Oliphant inquiry, or whoever's, into the faux passes of Canada's former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his 'partner' Karl Heinz (der buchbeinder) Schreiber, whimpered to a 14 million dollar close, yesterday, with the judge issuing his findings. It amounts to a two minute minor.

Bottom line the Canadian government spent 4 million bucks (again) to pay Mulroney's lawyers while he defended his honour against impugnity. His ex-buddy, and chief witness, who was testifying, or so it seemed to keep himself out off a Lufthansa jet and out of a German jail, was blowing the whistle and coming clean. Not about the real stuff, mind you, the Airbus slush fund and the offshore banking done by Brian's down east buddies, but the niggardly $275 000, or so, paid for sales services not rendered.

Mulroney copped to getting some of that money ($225 000)and accidentally, almost, forgetting to claim it as income. It was safe and sound in his sock drawer for a couple of years, eh. But that was it, and he wasn't prime minister and those armoured vehicles for the army looked like a good deal and Schreiber had an honest face, an all. And the high dudgeon he felt when he realized he might have bedded-down someone less honourable than himself. Why it brought a tear to the eye!

Not as much a tear had he been paying his own lawyers' bill, I'm sure.

Schreiber couldn't testify forever, and wouldn't testify about his retirement nest egg - the same one they couldn't prove Mulroney got through his pal Frank Moores. So, he was packed off to Germany for a speedy trial, a lot more speedy than the inquiry, and a lengthy jail term. He'll be a very old man when he gets to start celebrating the rewards of a life spent on the inside track, unless he has some young doxie helping him spend it. Maybe if something were to happen to the gnadige Frau.....

So the official results are: it looks like Mulroney may have done something less than honourable. But was he a crook? Did he do unspeakable evil? Well, we're not going there. Mulroney is to be punished by having a legacy that, along with moving Canada ahead in a number of ways, (NAFTA being a biggie), he spent like a drunk from Shawinigan, looked out for number one, and took money from a two-bit German shyster. Canadians don't really give a shit any more. Trying to stick something to 'Lyin' Brian' has cost us millions more than we needed to spend on the asshole.

So, as Pharaoh said in the 'Ten Commandments' -" So let it be written, so let it be done."

Done and over with. Nothing to do now but wait for the obits.

And the Pols Come Tumblin' Down

2010-04-10T15:50:00.002-04:00

Steve Harper pulled the rug out from under his Minsiteress for the Status of Women - Helena Guergis - last night, and not without lots of good reasons and not before her time. One of Harper's cabinet skanks, Helena, and her 'bozo' Karim Abdul - ex future prime-ministerial material - Jaffar have been getting it in the neck from the Libs and the press for some while now.

They've been 'picked on' - but not without some substantially stupid input from themselves.

Looking like something out of a Bollywood spectacular, the 'Sheik of Araby' swept single mom Guergis off her size 10's and merged them into Ottawa's 'ultimate power couple'. In a town full of cheap rugs, dentures and hairplugs, Guergis and Jaffar hit the scene like Wayne and Schuster hit the Sullivan Show. Except they weren't kidding.

Rahim Jaffar was the first to start to melt. On his 4th shift as an Edmonton MP, Jaffar was knocked-off by an NDP lightweight. Maybe his riding got the message that 'on the way up' meant he didn't have time to do his basic job. The second nail in his coffin resulted from a police spot check in his home area of Caledon, Ont. That stop resulted in serious charges of drunk driving and possession of cocaine. For a guy who took delight in accusing other pols of being 'soft on drugs', Jaffar was apparently in a bind. Never fear however! The episode cost him an admission that he was driving carelessly and a fine of $500.00. The drug and drunk charges were dropped.

That must have pissed a lot of people off and so, when the story of what Jaffar had been doing earlier on the night he was stopped came to light, the 'hue and cry ' was on again. It seems the young man on his way up had become a shill for the 'green industry' offering his services and knowledge of government, to make sure his clients were steered toward the proper teats for government largesse. His business web site even bore the PC party logo until it was removed after the story came to light. Influence peddling would be an apt descriptor. And the smell attaching to the business 'clients' he was meeting that night was stronger than pungent week-old babaganouche and beer butts.

Helena was only slightly smarter. Her first gaffe occurred during an annoying airport security thing in PEI. She took offense to having to to remove her power boots and wigged-out on the staff. After the apology for that, next thing was a series of letters to the editor praising her public probity and innate brilliance. They were written by her staff - without her knowledge of course. That is natural:

" Geez, Clarice, the electorate thinks I'm an asshole!"
" No boss, I know that to be untrue. You are hard-working and diligent.. I won't tell you that I will be spending my lunch, speaking truth to the power of the media."

Perhaps it was the thought that Jaffar was serious about his ability to make cabinet contacts for business on the mooch. He was cohabiting with one. That he was brazen enough to carry on as such, and that she was either naive enough, or cupiditous enough, to let him, explains why, after being removed from caucus she, and he, are the subject of a police investigation.

But the PC's aren't cruel by nature. There's her pension to think about. And why make a martyr out of one of your own? The day might well come when it's another Tory's business being sniffed, and one wouldn't want to set any nasty precedent.

Pervs and Perps

2010-04-10T15:00:00.005-04:00

Big in the news this Easter is the scandal of pedophilia in the Catholic Church. That's the way it's described and the way most people seem to understand it, but the story should be reported as the problem with the way the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy has dealt with pedophilia in the Church. Statistically, there probably isn't as much of a problem with pedophilia as there might be in a less select population. But there have been some clergy with that propensity, and the way they have been 'dealt with' is now coming to light.

I would imagine a contrite Catholic pedophile, like a contrite murderer, or thief, or other sinner, coming for the absolution of the confessional, and receiving the same conditional absolution as any other penitent. The conditional part lies in the penance part. For, in most cases of sin, sorrow, atonement and restitution, if possible, as well as the firm intention to avoid such sin again, lie at the heart of forgiveness. A thief wouldn't get a 'by' to keep his ill-gotten gains; even if they were already disposed of, restitution to the offended party remains part of the penance. In like manner, a civil penalty might also be inflicted. A murderer, say, while protected by the privilege of the confessional, would not find forgiveness until he surrendered and confessed to the law. Other than that, there is no real contrition. That someone might suffer from an illness causal to the behavior is not the bailiwick of the confessor, although knowledge of such would enhance the penitential aspect. The onus for forgiveness lies with the confessed, not the confessor. In like manner a pedophile seeking absolution would have more than the confessional dialogue to work through. A course of spiritual development to ensure there is no repetition, even a legal process, should be de rigeur.

That such Catholic pedophiles were part of the Holy Office adds another dimension. Such a moral failure in the light of whatever stresses of the vocation might have caused it, does not reduce the severity of it. Unlike a sexual dalliance with an adult, a relationship that uses children lies outside the pale, both social and theoretically, of the Curia. That such an individual might find absolution is understandable. That such an individual would be returned to his milieu without a rigorous moral reindoctrination, is simplistic at best, ludicrous at worst. The strength of the Holy Spirit lies in avoiding occasions of sin, not so much in an absence of recidivism. One failure should be all that is tolerated in terms of a failure of celibacy, no failure should be tolerated if it involves a child. Such a man might continue to serve as priest but not in the society of those who evoke his weakness. Not so much for his good, as for theirs.

But that doesn't seem to have happened in the church. The people have known of these things, and have been scandalized by these things but the hierarchy has been on the 'hush'! Those making complaint have been silenced by threat or blandishment. Those offended against have been reoffended by blame. Those weak vessels have been 'passed on' to other situations with no warnings or cautions. And some have reoffended without effective sanction either from religious, or lay powers. This is unacceptable and requiring acknowledgement and action.

The hierarchy of the church remains on the 'hush'. Refusing to submit to what it calls 'gossip' and refusing to examine what has gone on. In doing so, the hierarchy wounds the Body of Christ. The People of God are called to trust, not in the Divine Providence, but in the continued direction of those who have so abjectly failed in their Pastoral duties. In a misguided attempt to maintain the majesty of the 'unblemished Bride of Christ', they have ministered to the wolf and ignored their flock. This lack is telling on the face of the Holy Father. He looks worn and haggard. If he failed as bishop he should acknowledge his failure and seek forgiveness. They say that confession is good for the soul, his too.

Like all confessions it need not be public. But what needs to be public is the church's condemnation of those who knowingly cause the little ones to sin. Jesus did no less.

Documentaries

2010-04-05T10:05:00.003-04:00

Since Leni Riefenstahl put the nascent Third Reich on the map with "Triumph of the Will' back in the thirties, the documentary has maintained itself, not only as a form of propaganda but as an art form. That Mother Earth continues to have her troubles has only provided more opportunity for the cameraman - read to-day 'photo journalist'- to point the enlightening lens at things, that in years past, would have remained hidden. If the picture tells a thousand-word tale, then film or video can relate a saga. Where a picture can be staged, or edited or altered, live video is far more difficult (but not impossible) to fake. Particularly when it is taken in real time, out of doors.

How many world events have been affected by a photo, or by video? The assassination of a president captured by the home movie of an on-looker affected a generation. The moment a bullet was fired into the head of a bound captive gave the American public the notion that the war in Vietnam was not the clean war Look, Life and National Geographic had been selling them. A host of live video in years to follow helped belie the claims of victory and a light in the tunnel. Vietnam was lost on the 6 o'clock news.

The lessons haven't been lost on the warfighters. 'Bad' - read a free and open - press can can damage a war effort by uncovering the bullshit with which such activity is normally festooned. And so, to-day, 'information operations' are every bit as important as strategy and tactics, for information often sets the stage, or defines and directs it.

One of the present's more notable 'information efforts' gone awry involves Fox News and retired Col. (and hero of the Contra wars) Oliver North. Two years back, Ollie , on a tour of western Afghanistan with a Fox News team in tow, had the opportunity to accompany a special forces unit on a raid on Afghan insurgents. The midnight visitation and the ensuing six hour 'battle' was, apparently, captured for posterity by the Fox News team. In the light of the next day the mistakes began to appear. The first was the large numbers of insurgent women and children killed in the Afghan compound, bombed by NATO aircraft after the raiders had reported being fired upon. Oliver North was among the first eyewitnesses denying that any women and children had been killed in a firefight with 'massive numbers' of insurgents. Unfortunately the Afghans had cameras too, and, within a day, UN representatives were documenting the carnage as well. It turned out, after initial denials and a lengthy investigation, that there had been some 'bad intel' that resulted in the deaths of 80 plus Afghans gathered for a family celebration. To add insult to injury, the dead male Afghans formed the main part of a native defense force contracted to guard a nearby US air base. Needless to say the video that would have corroborated Ollie's version of the incident was never released. The UN's photos were.

A case currently before a military court in the States was the subject of the movie 'Haditha'. A Marine sergeant is currently on trial for the manslaughter of a dozen or so Iraqis in a 'battle' that started when an American force, that had been 'frustrated' by insurgents hiding among the residents of the town, were struck by an IED which killed one of them. Shortly afterward, a car full of 'insurgents' (who later turned out to be university students) happened on to the scene. While these were being marshaled for interrogation, the Marines claimed they were fired-upon from a nearby house. When the six Iraqi men from the car started to flee. The sharpshooting Sgt. managed to drop every one of them. His unit then tackled the unseen insurgents hiding in the house. 'Prepping with hand grenades' as they went, the Marines 'fought' a room-to-room battle through one house and into two others in pursuit of insurgents whom they never managed to see but still managed to engage. What they did engage however were a number of women, children and old men, only two of whom, a young brother and sister survived. The Marines suffered no casualties from all the reported gunfire. The movie portrayed the tale sympathetically as young men frustrated by war doing a little too much that left them shocked. The photos taken at the scene by one of the Marines, as well as an official record made the next day by a Marine photographer, and the concommittent photos and video released by the Iraqis, gave the impression that there was a good amount of latitude in the battle report and possibly some staging in the pictures. A photo of the first six dead shows them lying in a group near their car, they must have revivified for a later picture shows the corpses scattered. The dead in the houses demonstrate the effect of the grenade prep, but some of the corpses showed an interesting pattern of 'accidental' gunshots, many between the eyes. To date charges have been withdrawn against all others involved.

There are some good documentaries out recently. An English photojournalist called Ross Kemp has done some excellent work with British forces in Afghanistan, an honest look at the life of a soldier. He has also done a couple of good recent programs on Gaza and Israel.

'The Lionesses' takes an unvarnished look at a handful US army women who were seconded to the Marines to assist in security problems involving female Iraqis. It depicts the unifying perspective of military service to the country as a public good, while making note of the fact that such service often derives from economic necessity and, in the case of such women, can be more destabilizing of family life and equally as traumatic on a personal level. The "Lionesses" were an afterthought in the cakewalk that turned into the Iraq of to-day.

An HBO effort 'Baghdad High' made in 2007 lets 4 Iraqi high-schoolers tell part of their story through the use of video cameras loaned to let them document their lives. Along with the normal high school existence - friends and studies, interests and loves, there is the backdrop of a Baghdad spinning out of control where the air is filled with the train-roar of helicopter engines. Shooting and explosions happen all too regularly and the increasing danger leads to increased security measures - even at school with some of the boys considering leaving school altogether. At the end of the film we are told that two boys have graduated and one of them is at university, the other can't afford it. Of the others one has failed and quit, the fourth is repeating his year. Amazing that these young men are so much like ourselves.

'Taxi to the dark Side' is a classic of the genre. A docudrama, the film tells the story of one Afghan, who through a fluke of fate and location, winds up a suspected insurgent in Bagram prison. The experience there was to take his life. But the investigation that resulted opened the book on the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' that also sullied the Iraq experience.

'Brothers in War' tells the story of a young American Army officer and his 'photo-journalist ' brother who follows him to Iraq to document his service there. The story also explores the relationships on the home front with parents, wives, families and girlfriends.

If the Vietnam war was well-documented - indeed as as claimed, 'lost' by the negative images it generated, then the 'Asian Wars' of the new millennium, too, will have their tales to tell. With the exception that, if they are lost, the loss can't be laid at the doorstep of a society misled by an antagonistic press.

Bob Foul-er

2010-03-30T10:30:00.003-04:00

The Liberals have been having a focus-session this week, trying to get on their pins again after 'Wolfie o' the North's latest gaffe. To do that, they had invited a number of 'doers and thinkers' to address the party hacks with a view to acquiring a new 'vision'. With the exception of Bob Fowler, they might have been better advised to do a week on water and colonics in some 'cleansing' ashram.

Of all the ruminators, Bob Fowler's forty minutes really gave the Libs something to think about.

Bob Fowler is the Canadian who was ambassador to Teheran when the Shah n Shah's balloon went up, back in the days when the Ayehtolleh was Khomeini, rather than Khameini. That little bit of 'Jamie Bondism' garnered Fowler the 'respect' of the Americans and a posting as ambassador to Washington. After he stepped-down from Canada's foreign service. Bob Fowler 'took up' with the UN. In this role he was kidnapped last year in Niger and held for a few months by the AlQaeda (viz bandit) organization there. In all his travels and works, Bob Fowler has gained a perspective on many of the current trends of history. Unfortunately he's a little out-of-synch with the conventional wisdom displayed in Ottawa and Washington these days.

Bob Fowler, with a nod to the Canadian government efforts to gain his release, chastised the Conservative government for squandering what good will had been gained for Canada in Africa by changing the focus of Canada's foreign aid to Afghanistan. He also pointed out that, no doubt due to having to pay for a war there as well, the Conservatives had failed to reach Canada's promised GNP/aid ratio. That wouldn't matter anyway, as CIDA would be pumping the boodle into more 'model villages' and non-operating maternal health (abortion and birth control) centres in Kandahar City.

But Bob Fowler dropped a bombshell on the Libs, one that they aren't ready to do anything about. He charged that they were pandering to special interest groups in order to get elected. The biggie was the 'I love Israel' special interest group that forms the bed rock of all three (four) Canadian political parties. This love for the Holy Land, Fowler charges is at the root of many of the problems in the world to-day. The west's backing of Israel, and its consequent intransigence in reaching a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian Arab problem, is the nub of all the anti-western perspectives in the Muslim world. Actually it's the second nub. For the first remains America's notion that the 'free market' needs to be taken to the middle east and central Asia for the benefit of American interests. 'Playboy after Dark' and American 'culture' had as much to do with the rise of the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalism, as did the occupation of east Jerusalem. But the Palestine problem is one that all Muslims can understand and the Zionists have been fairly stiff-necked in seeing that perspective broadcast abroad.

For Ignatieff, as for Harper, Layton and, possibly, Duceppe the Jewish lobby is very close to home, if not actually in residence. Prominent members of all parties are of the Jewish persuasion and very few of them are not synoptic with the middle east's only 'democratic' atomic and military power. For Canada to go back to the days of the 'honest broker ' - a view never shared by Canada's military peace-keepers, by the way - in middle eastern affairs, would, to-day, be considered a hearty stab-in-the-back by Benny Natanyahu, if not by the White House. But Fowler has definitely called the kettle black and it remains to be seen if anybody will act on this notable political differentiation. More than a few Canadians worry about Israel's propensity and apparent ability, to involve the west in its police actions, wars and security fears. Fowler's words have made him a target for the ADL and the letters to the editor as well as the local pols, from 'grass-roots Canadians', are, no doubt, in the mail. No 'anti-semite' hate stuff , yet. Just some 'elitist' commentary by a Hebrew on the Ottawa Citizen. But it has been a slow sort of week.

"There are some things I disagree with", pontificated an awakened 'Wolfie', "but Bob Fowler has earned the right to say them." Geez, ya gotta love the free speech we have in Canada. In less civilized lands somebody would be lining up to drill him. But in Canada he'll be quietly ignored. It's a cinch he won't be getting nominated to run Liberal in any riding in Canada, even if there's a groundswell of public support. Neither will his views be considered.

American Wummin

2010-03-25T21:04:00.003-04:00

Anne Coulter is in the news north of the 49th. She's visiting the GWN to save 'real' Canadians from the dusky masses and welfare bums - and she's not getting a fair chance to get the word out. And that's offendink the wank artists and yarmulkeh weavers who've invited her here, I would imagine in an effort to get some good upskirts, or a shot of her bodacious tat-tas from just that 'perfect' angle. Although what's so 'hot' about her is beyond me but it couldn't be for her 'wit'. She sounds like an effeminate jock bullshitting in the locker room - the humour is about that level, too.

At first glimpse one might imagine the scrawny clapped-out wagon marms who hiked across a continent before dropping a passel o' young 'uns in a log hut she built by herself while her man Zeke rested-up with the moonshine jug and recharged his degenerative powers. One might just as easily envision her as a 'tobaccy rosey' on some hilbilly farm pulling the plow across stony fields when the mule was lost in a stock swindle, or Missus Joad suckling a neighbor chile .... nah, Ann would have to be the cub reporter watching that and complaining about how the market economy could be better utilized by po' folk. Actually it would be just as easy to envision her scalped and mutilated by a Pawnee war party because she wouldn't keep her big mouth shut, and to envision the cavalry wiping out the hostiles with 'remember Ann Coulter' on their lips and a tear on their cheek. Annie is quite some piece of American 'art'.

Ann, and her 'backers', the fey blades of the young Conservatives, are miffed because somebody pulled the plug on her spew at the U of Ottawa after the Dean warned her to be careful, and a bunch of 'unfriendlies' got her going at a kick-off lecture. She should have started off as she does at American universities, but then I don't think she speaks at that 'kind' of university. The minds she wants to address don't need to think, they just do as they're told - by Bob Jones, Oral Roberts Junior or whatever other latter day Profit who sees himself setting up a 'paradigm of Christian higher learning'. She wouldn't want to start calling names at most of the Ivy Leagues, or even State colleges these days, as the dusky Americans and those with almond-shaped eyes are gaining the majority. Even in a land of 'free speech' I couldn't see her getting away with her 'wisecracks'. It's just a good thing she comes across as high-class white trash, if she was black somebody might have 'offed' her already.

Anyway, Ann was offended enough by the "whiners" to threaten to launch a human rights action herself - that goes beyond the whining her acolytes were doing. Somebody even suggested in a paper to-day that Ann "deserves to be heard". I think she has the right to say anything she wants - even offensive stuff. But I think my right to not listen to her trumps that. She has no right to be 'heard' - except by those who want to, and they, too, have no right make me listen - or to use public support to enable it. User pays - that's a concept they are familiar with. That includes renting an auditorium and not using free accommodation at a publicly funded university, college or a school by calling her crap 'educational'. It's as educational, if not as hilarious, as a buttful of MacLean and MacLean and they have to pay, so does she.

Ann has moved west to a part of Canada reserved by God and nature to the white race and those who think American. But if the faces I was seeing on the coverage of the last Olympics were any indication, Ann might need a sonderbataillion of sturmtruppen at her next 'free speech' event. Otherwise she's just apt to have to spend all her time getting sassy with some uppity ragheads, or burqah bimbos. She obviously has some cute camel toes to share.

Well, Blow! Blow! Blow Me Down!

2010-02-16T15:58:00.002-05:00

In a previous blog I had remarked on how well the sports psychologists had prepped Canada's athletes for the upcoming contest. I'd also noted how many of the athletes were bumming and blowing about owning stuff - the sport, the slopes, the gold.

One of those cracked-up to be a real contender was a chap called Osborne-Paradis who claimed to know the slopes at Whistler better than anybody else on earth. All he had to do he claimed was pick out his course within the boundaries and down the slope and 'by gar' them Postes Canada better have that new stamp about Canadian gold rolling of the presses with his champion's grin front and centre.

Osborne-Paradis

Well it seems that fate or bad manners or something, put a "bump" in this wunderkind's progress, and being as he hadn't noticed it before, it almost knocked him out of the race completely. So we should all be eating maple leafs to-day rejoicing in the fact that his 17th place finish should line him up good for the 2014 games.

Like, I know I shouldn't be cracking-off about those who do while I don't, but there's a certain amount of shit blowing around these days telling you you're less of a Canadian if you're not supporting our athletics or chipping in a donation to help 'sports' at Zellers. Just like I don't support General Rick, or any of the other troops who think that they're in Afghanistan to kill a 'scumbag' for me, I don't support the fatuous 'aces' who talk a great game and then fail to place. Unlike me, they're afforded a lot of free time, facilities and public support to represent themselves and, vicariously, the rest of us, doing something they at least claim to love doing. But spare us the hot air. Be humble and do your best. If you ain't bragging you've got my support. If you show yourself to be a good sport, you've got it in spades - even if you don't win anything.

Osborne-Paradis has one more event in this Olympics. Maybe this embarrassment will help him shut-up, focus and, maybe, do better. But I doubt it. Blaming a bump for not being able to handle a bump says something about character that tends describe the 'loser'.

PS Can you spell hubris - he blew his last chance, too. Maybe he'll be a better man for it, but I'd watch the drinking.

Lessons from Camp

2010-02-15T11:07:00.007-05:00

On Sunday, February 7, a full-page ad ran in the New York Times. It was paid for by the Eli Weisel Foundation for Humanity and subscribed by a number of Nobel Laureates. In the ad these great minds called for rigorous sanctions against Iran, which country they described as a nuclear threat to the world and a nation waging a "shameless war against its own people". Such were the threats made against Saddam Hussein's regime that led to the destruction and eventual invasion of that country.

On the face of it, this appeal is given as the voices of reason calling out for the preservation of world peace, mankind or some other lofty goal. But in the absence of any provable truth to the two basic charges, and aside from political rhetoric there is absolutely no physical proof that Iran is either of its descriptors. In fact there is much to indicate the opposite.

So why, then, would such great human minds lend themselves to such an appeal? They must really believe what they are saying is true, and the sanctions they call for effective. The advertisement leaves both points unexamined.

As to the first point Iran's 'nuclear ambitions'. Iran is, for that part of the world, a unique signatory to the United Nations Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This instrument was signed by the government of the Shah no doubt with the understanding that his government would operate under the shelter of America's nuclear deterrent. Even as the neighboring Israelis, Pakistani's and Indians developed their nuclear arsenal in spite of the UN and American protection, or when the Iraqis started down the same road, no protest was uttered by Teheran about threats to themselves or anybody else. Indeed America saw no inherent dangers there. In all this the Iranis stayed strictly within the bounds of the conventions they had signed. Even after the theocracy came to power, and even after a protracted and bloody war with Iraq, Iran stayed well within UN constrictions regarding development of nuclear power sources.

So why are the laureates concerned? Well, for one thing, Iran has not been amenable to American influence for some time. What little influence remained after the Islamic Revolution diminished in the light of Iraq's US-supported attack on the Islamic Republic. A second reason is the little-disguised abhorrence of the Zionist polity in the Middle East. Iran is far from alone in decrying the actions of Zionists and their effects on the people who were inhabitant of the former Palestine. But Iran is unique in being open and honest about this - to the point of stating that the Zionist regime is in need of a change. Laureates like other 'good jews' - who are normally very humane, peaceful and long suffering - can put their gentle angels aside to thwart a threat (real or imagined) to the Jewish 'promised' land. The laureates, like many Americans and Israelis, see Iran as a regional adversary at best and a loose nuclear cannon at worst. Very few of the countries which might suffer most from a nuclear Iran - Iraq, the Gulf States, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or a number of central Asian Republics are as concerned about Iran's actions, or objectives. Europe is split on the issue, Russia and China remain moderately supportive of Iran. Laureates and humanists in few other countries have taken this 'threat' to heart.

The Laureates also charge the government with warring on its own people. Would to God they would raise their voices about some nations who shamelessly war on other nations' people. There is a body of law supportive of internal restraint to riotous, rebellious or even revolutionary populations - just look at what's happening on behalf of the 'legitimate authorities' in Afghanistan and Iraq. And no laureates are griping about that. The Iranians have at least put the 'people' they are at war with on a trial of sorts. They have their day in court and the trials are covered by the media. But there are a dearth of private security prisons, few black ops, prolonged detentions without trial, renditions, disappearances or any of the 'civilized methods' for dealing with 'enemies' that have become so much a part of Israel and America 'under siege'. And yet the Laureates have been otherwise engaged for the past decade, and took no notice, nor any time to comment, nor any paid advertisements?

Eli Wiesel is an eloquent voice of the Holocaust. To him is ascribed the notion that indifference can lead to another Holocaust. But his times should have demonstrated to him that the Shoah may have been the Jewish experience, but the holocaust belongs to all humanity. Whether one dies in some demented racially-driven killing industry, or falls victim to a war of aggression, makes little difference to the innocent. Wiesel's experience since 1945 should have shown him that 'holocausts' are subjective, and very easily repeated. The only solution for them is not the kind of 'difference' that imposes more suffering, but the kind of love and unity, tolerance or humility that never seem to be part of the repertoire of the powerful. If Elie Wiesel and his laureate friends wanted to really do something to engender world peace, and not assist in providing a philosophical base for new aggression, they should have castigated all sides and volunteered to act as honest brokers in resolving the differences politicians seem unable to approach, let alone solve.

That such eminent thinkers might consider that sanctions will effectively bring the Iranian hound to heel is little more surprising than the current 'Democrathink' that another stiff, little 'shock and awe' surge will force the Afghan Taliban to cease trying to liberate their homeland, take Uncle Sam's dollar and, possibly, join with their Iraqi brothers to 'spread democracy' into Iran. The latter may be slightly extrapolated, but should Afghanistan come 'onside' why not as the spearpoint of the free market in Asia? Problem is, both notions are patently incorrect. Iraq won't be invading anywhere for a while and with the majority Shiite population in control, it won't be east. Afghanistan is still another decade from any solution. And sanctions where they have been, or still are (as in Gaza and the west bank) being practised, have proven to be politically ineffective while alienating to the 'ordinary people' democrats or peace groups might want to approach.

Wiesel and company's myopia serves the cause of humanity not a whit. Sometimes the learning of the concentration camp can be far too narrow a field.

My Olympic Dream

2010-02-14T15:07:00.001-05:00

The 2010 Winter Olympics opened the other night in Vancouver. For all the hoopla, it was, really, quite unremarkable. The light show was very good - Canadians seem to have a knack for the 'magic' of lighting - unless they were all imported from Disney World. That the first nations would be featured was understandable too. I didn't think all the reverence for our pseudo royalty, the Governess Generale, was necessary - God Save the Queen and O Canada fanfare? It was almost embarrassing to have the two twenty somethings behind her waving home to mom from the 'vice-regal box', it was embarrassing to have the bozos there yakking through the national anthem and it was a hoot to have the native chiefs show up 'fashionably' late. From there, however, - the Canadian thing went weird.

There were Canada's entertainers - mostly those who had international (viz American) appeal. Brian Addams was himself, Nelly in her latest resurrection as a hooker with a heart o'gold was suitably slinky. The wildings of Canadian east coast druids was something only a Charlie Daniels fan could appreciate. Leather-clad and paratroop booted plaided 'scots' - laced and bodiced, net-stockinged daughters of the dawn, providing some sort of coven to enchant the gods. Mr KD Lang - Canada's officially first 'closet leaver' - reprised Orson Welles in a rendition of , what was described in the media as a 'religious song', Lenny Bernstein's 'Alleluia' - it ain't religious. But maybe her/his white suit was meant to tie into the white suits of those who bore the Olympic flag into the stadium - a melange of notables from stage, screen and sporting rink. The torch was also run into the venue by a series of Canadian sportsters - some pro and most ex-Olympians. The planned indoor torch - which must have been designed to look like a log campfire malfunctioned; and poor old Wayne Gretzky got to ride capless in the back of a pick-up truck, for a seven or eight minute trip through rainy streets to a harbour-side 'campfire' that was to burn for the Olympic period. There were times when I'm sure he thought some of the free-stylers running alongside the pick-up truck were coming over the side to say 'howdy'. Or maybe , even worse, they would be protesters out to create an truck-bed incident! Dopers and winos don't run that fast, for that long and the ladies of the evening just don't run at all.

The City of Vancouver has gone out of its way to hide the lady's warts and pimples. They've blocked off the thriving demi-monde that city has developed - the gritty underbelly common in so many world-class places. The bozos and bums aren't getting anywhere near the venues trod by those in search of Olympic Spirit. But those seekers are free to explore some of the city's seamier delights. The high class gals - from Calgary, Toronto and Montreal will be resident up in the upscale mountain 'digs' for the relief of Olympic 'stress'. The Toronto Star was remarking on how even the video backdrops and shooting points have been vectored off to show the only the city's 'good side'.

Speaking of the Star, they've decided to 'blow the budget' on the Olympics providing the 'deepest' coverage in Canada with nine or a dozen top staffers on-site - the Star delegation was bigger than the Olympic team from a number of countries. After the first day, the most remarkable stories they could come up with are two 'love stories' about participants, and a paean to how the reigning Canadian 'World Ladies Moguls Champ' did really well, placing second to an American with a 'blown knee'. We should feel good about that; "So near, and yet so far", as Rosie DiManno put it. At least that's better than one of those 'Olympic boyfriends' getting himself eliminated from a speed skating event he was supposed to contending for a medal in. The women's hockey team trounced the first-time-out Slovaks 13 - zip. Unless there is some competition (like from the Canadians on the US team) they might be our best chance for a gold.

What gets me is all the hooting about the 'golds we're going to get this time'. Now it may be part of the sport 'psychology' done to 'prep' heroes to do their best, but it strikes me that a notable lack of humility might just be calling down something Freud knew about but denied, 'hubris'. Even if there aren't any gods and goddesses up on Olympus to mess up the big-headed, losing after you've been bumming and blowing how 'you own' something, couldn't be too good for the ego. But it seems that some of our 'big hopes' might be willing to settle for just that, and a two week holiday in the Athlete's village with all them free prophylactics. We'll be seeing.

I would like to see more of the athletes who just say they're going to do their best. That's my Olympic Dream.

Justis gets served. Would ya like some Gravy?

2010-02-10T22:11:00.001-05:00

Toronto remains under the watch of the best paid pl'eece service in Canada, but it's still the 'city of the gun'. There has been no slow-down in the weekly roster of gunshots and subsequent ambulance runs. By the same token, there seems to be no real social desire to do much about it.

Cases in point, the current round of court cases arising from some of the more notable episodes.

Jane Creba was a 15 year-old Christmas shopper got one in the back as she tried crossing the road during a Main St. Toronto gun-battle 2 years ago. She won't be Christmas shopping any more, but the Wyatt Earps and Clanton boys are in court now pleading their cases. Most of those present have been dealt with (lots of dismissed charges) a couple have received jail time but none get to pay anything like Jane Creba. For it was a 'accident' don't ya see, peeps?

The current two on trial now are accused of firing a 9 mm ruger down the busiest street in Toronto 9 times that night. It's the only one of what are 'estimated' (that fine p'leece service stuff again) to be the five guns fired that night . It was taken from a 15 year-old arrested on his way home after the shooting. He was, of course only holding for somebody he didn't know. Colour him innocent. The other guy, whose prints were found on the gun will have story about that and since his fingerprints haven't been found on the ejected cartridge cases colour him not guilty as well. We'll see.

The second case is a 'gun tale' tangentially. It involves a 'wilding' in a public housing community a year and a half back that saw a 15 year-old beaten and chased and beaten again over a period of three hours or so by 15-20 'youths'. When his body was found the next day he had also been stabbed some 23 times. The immediate story was that he'd been on the,'wrong turf' and has been stealin' . The neighbours of course hadn't seen anything and had nothing to tell the police. But eventually somebody did roll over and the police arrested 12 or thirteen of those present, they were charged with serious offenses and most held under house arrest. Until to-day that is, when one of them a dread-locked wonder copped a plea to first-degree murder. That left the 'mob' facing charges not much more serious than making too much noise. We'll see what the defense has planned for the confessor, but the word is now that the dead kid was offed for taking $1,500 for a gun he failed to deliver. Nobody's thinking to ask where a bunch of 'student youths' in a poor neighbourhood are getting $1 500 bucks and why they'd need a gun?

If I was the judge every one of those 'onlookers' in court would be asked to produce the income tax return they filed last year. If they weren't working then , they'd be going to jail now. If you're at a murder, even if you didn't do it, if you don't call the police - or tell your mom, you're guilty.

The third case involves the sad case of a guy who went to the store for milk and got his head blown off when he walked between a couple of drunks and the bouncer who had kicked them out of a Yonge St. (geez that's a shooting gallery) boozer. The interesting part of this 'doozie' is that the two boneheads in question are charged with second degree murder - I guess because shooting the guy they did was some sort of 'accident'. They had no intent to shoot him, they only wanted to shoot a bouncer. Even if one of those clowns was licensed to carry a concealed firearm - and there are very few Canadians licensed to do that. I'd say that taking it with you for a night on the town is definitely outside any reason for you being licensed. That, in my estimation, shows intent of some kind. Pulling it out, pointing it and pulling the trigger on a public street shows another intent, even if you are pissed up, or pissed off. The guy that stuck that gun in his jacket, and his buddy who knew he had it, caused that man's death, the only accident was him, and it was fatal. They deserve life and first degree charges.

Last but not least is the trial of two 'gangsta teens' (of course they're not, they're just misguided 'stoodentz' who accidentally brought a gun to school because they were scared, and victims of whitey's pride) accused of shooting their friend at a Toronto school two years ago. This case caused a massive shake-up in Toronto schools - more security and 'black-o-centric' education to stop the killin'. The two were seen with the victim moments before the shooting. And one of the accused returned to watch what happened next. He even managed to pass a comment about modesty when somebody tried to find the dying boy's wound. The other fellow, who had been suspended and shouldn't have been in the school, left after one of the pair rifled their dying friend's pockets. Needless to say the murder weapon is still in somebody's sock drawer.

The black community 'rose up' to blame whitey's pride for sending their children off down the wrong path of anglo-centric education. The black principal of that high school, who was accused by staff of taking a very 'hands-off' approach to discipline, was moved to another position, probably a promotion, the next year. The mothers of all three are sufferin' - all three kids are victims, you see? But they're not looking for that gun.

Toronto will remain a city under the gun until the courts start to treat gun crimes as something more than ordinary and excusable. Either that or declare hunting season and let everyone go armed.

Let 'Er Snow. Let 'Er Rain. Let 'Er Rip!

2010-02-10T19:55:00.005-05:00

What’s going on with that crazy climate eh? The great White north isn’t it’s usual old blizzard-stricken self. It’s more like one of those Arctic Deserts the Arctic used to be, cold, with very little snow. That normal old clashing of warm and cold fronts that turns so much of Canada into a winter wonderland is doing the trick for folk who would be shopping for new Topsiders right about now.

America the beautiful will be adding a new chorus about snowbanks and winter tires if this keeps up.

But there’s a kind of poetic justice in the land that bought into the ‘myth’ of climate change. Even to-day the Fox newsies are calling it a winter storm comparable to the one George Washington and company went through at Valley Forge. So, if the Continentals could freeze their way though it in log sheds, well to-day’s minutemen can tough it out in multimillion dollar properties, even in the heat is off.

That’s another thing, no signs of hardship when tens of thousands are without electricity. Just crank up the new generator and figure someway to get the TV going. The gas fireplace will look after the rest and the feather duvets from L.L.Bean would make you think your living with Abe Linkum.

(All right so those first two pictures were of a little disaster in Afghanistan, not the big snow stateside. Bet those Afghan could have used some shovels. Napalm melts snow doesn't it?)

It’s really OK if this winter stuff lasts another week, Spring is on the way and another three weeks will see cherry blossoms bursting on the Mall. In the meanwhile there’s an Olympics to root for.

The Winter Olympics have been hit by the reverse-winter phenom. In an area chosen for its winter snows, the Olympic venues are bearing all the hallmarks of a dry hump. Snow is being brought in by helicopter to augment the base being laid down every night by the snow-making machinery. Mother Nature has been generous with the precipitation, but for the most part it has been the wet kind. It’s looking like anybody peddling Olympic umbrellas and waterproof duds might be a winner this time round.

Many of the events are indoors but it will be interesting to see what effect warmer temperatures might have in the skiing and sledding events. As it is, the super-advanced MASH tent designed for the Canadian Government is supposed to be 'striking' when you get up close or inside. That means there must be free lunch for the pols.

There are only 6 more weeks of real winter left, so looking forward to a warm-up in the north land is all good. But perhaps the winter highs, from the old north pole, that protected us from the snowfall, will stick around and protect us from summer. That would be an altogether different story.

Especially if the climate got ‘stuck’ in that mode. But we'll stick our heads under our arms and hope that it ain’t true. Even if it is, maybe the automobile recalls will turn the tide.

New Strategies

2010-01-28T10:53:00.005-05:00

The world is abuzz with new ways of doing things this week. The Afghan fiasco is being 'revolutionated' at a NATO meeting in London. That's almost as hopeful as the Israeli initiative to remind the world of what happens when you have a holocaust.

The latter first. In an unprecedented welter of PR breaking out in Europe, virtually every member of the Israeli cabinet had been assigned a different country and a speech to 'celebrate' World Holocaust Remembrance Day January 27th. Netanyahu and company were on hand, everywhere, to remind the world that 'Holocausts for Jews' are still being planned in places like Teheran, and Gaza,and Syria, and Iraq and Singapore - wherever there's somebody who doesn't like a Jew.

Not hard to understand considering that Netanyahu and other Israelis might actually have relatives who escaped the Nazi death camps, or didn't. But there's a sin of omission here, actually a couple. The Holocaust happened to 6 million other people in those camps who weren't Jews, too. If 'planned killing' is the essential definition, then you might have to open the Holocaust to include the estimated 114 million civilians killed in WW2 - on all sides. Only a military mind could tell you they 'signed up for it by being there'. Another minor point is that the mythos built around this particular instant of inhumanity has tended to blur the fact that such undertakings aren't as much the anomaly as we'd like to think. Such occurrences have happened with pitiful frequency and regularity all around our world over the past century. One of the numerically greatest was that perpetrated in the Ukraine by the nascent Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union. It was an experiment in 'social engineering' that deliberately starved and displaced millions and it was the work of a 'new' form of government espoused by a large number of Jews ... the descendants of whom might well be living 'under Hamas rockets' in Israel to-day.

What is hard to grasp is that this 'Shoah' PR exercise is just that. It's a deliberate attempt to deflect the gaze of the world away from what Israel has been doing to the Arabs by pointing a finger at what Germans did to their ancestors. There is a report on Israel's operation 'Cast Lead' in Gaza last year, that's making its way through the UN. For the first time Israelis stand accused of some of the same things that got the Nazis a bad name. They're pedaling like crazy to derail the process, and taking a chance to play the sympathy card is a no-brainer to the PR-minded Israelis. Unfortunately, like the chimneys of Auschwitz, the ruins of Gaza, and Lebanon and East Jerusalem give lie to claims of necessity, self-defense or 'protecting the race'.

The London meeting is thought by many to be a similar obfuscation exercise. Gordon Brown, it is claimed, is attempting to put a shine on a large turd - to make some sort of purse out of a pig's ear without taking a close look at the ear, or his part in breeding the porker of which it was a part . In like manner as declaring the ovens 'open for business' in Iran, NATO is rediscovering their original 'rehabilitation and reconstruction' mission, this after almost a decade of an American-inspired shooting, bombing, time regression. This time they're buying into the 'good cop' side of a new American 'bad cop' surge. NATO has decided to be the talking end of a social services-welfare approach to converting the Taliban. They'll also be paying for it, as the US is tapped-out (but morally inclined to) supplying the concomitant bang-bang for the recalcitrant. Some see this as the 'get out of Dodge dodge'. When the strategy fails, it's NATO's fault. America's Army goes home, to invade somewhere else, later, honor-bright, undefeated - except by squeamish allies who tied one hand behind .... etc, etc. NATO can assuage its conscience by claiming to have tried every approach.

Whatever the outcome, Afghanistan will continue to be a lesser 'self' for a long time to come, the victim of western meddling, and, latterly, western military assault. History will be tarring the United Nations, along with NATO and America for their misguided planning and feathering them with their unprincipled actions for the next half-century.

The Travesty Continues

2010-01-05T06:07:00.002-05:00

Since Christmas another 6 young Canadians have been 'boxed' and repatriated in Canada's on-going effort to reconstruct Afghanistan. That they were all 'joyful warriors' who embraced their 'mission' with a smile on their lips and a good laugh in their hearts, is the stuff of the military lingua franca. One only has to imagine CinC General Ray going from post to post, fighting-off those who would want to deploy to Afghanistan and having to select by lot the volunteers who want to go 'outside the wire' to help the Afghans. But anybody 'laughing their way to Afghanistan' maybe shouldn't be going there.

The mission, we are told, continues to be one of providing the military security needed by the personnel who would get out there and really help the Afghans help themselves. All the little girls at school, and health clinics and fruitful (non-dope growing) farms are off in the future, for there's still some (a lot, do you think?) shooting and bombing going on. General Walt was before a Commons committee extolling in heart-stirring tones the young men and women of which he is so proud. That's a good quality in a CO, but I think he shares General Rick's vision of having every man jack of the combined forces getting a good look in the Afghan elephant's eye. These are the 'leaders of tomorrow's missions' and, dad gum it, Generals Walt and Rick knowing the pains of a peacetime army, realize there's nothing like the smell of cordite to grow a real military. Why else would our wars be lasting so long? We're still trying to pacify 'hostile' Kandahar, a 'city' physically the size of Oshawa, seven years after we got there - and there has been no battle for the city.

Suppose, and this is a difficult concept - Afghanistan somehow 'got on side' - became a land of fat, healthy war vets and mall-trotting mums, hockey-playing young 'uns and a bastion of the multi-party electoral system. Even managed to build that pipeline that this war's not about. What then? Iran would cease to be a menace? AlQaeda would pack-up? Pakistan would want to become more democratic too? (Oh it already IS a democracy!) Israelis would lie down with Arabs? Iraq would slumber under a friendly American occupation? The Muslim world would accept the need for US business interests to change society to improve market share? A thousand other pustules of man's malevolence, or indifference, would stop? Tell me about Little Red Riding Hood Again.

One thing that is 'gospel' is that you're never going to get a Canadian government to commit such massive amounts of money to international aid, or global warming, or Canadian social spending as they don't even hesitate to blow on a thus-far spectacularly unsuccessful military operation. In fact, today's military spending will curtail all 'assistance' (now being poured into Afghanistan) for the next decade or two.

So while the mission wends its way to a questionable end in 2011, Canadians will continue to support our troops on highway overpasses on cold December days. And our 'army' will continue to produce such heroes in 'peaceful' but equally dangerous operations for a people who may tell a pollster they want us there, but shut their doors and get the kids off the street when the Vandoos or Princess Pats come patrolling. If it ends without accomplishing anything, will it have been worth it?

General Walt might have an answer for that ... about the nobility of 'doing what yer told' n'all. But, hey, a "failure" won't be the military's fault.

Gotta Love Those Danes

2009-12-16T07:39:00.001-05:00

Those danish protesters really raise the bar for demonstrations, they're so darn civilized. No tearing down the barricades or flinging paving stones at the 'pigs', the Danes take arrest in stride and actually cooperate by lining up nicely for police transportation. And, surprisingly, they show up in as great numbers every day, for more. they must be serious about that global warming. Problem is some folk, in the hall, aren't.

One of them is our cosmic muffin, Steve Harper. Now don't get me wrong, it's not as if Steve is in favour of polluting the environment his grandchildren might develop in, no way. But he's not a knee-jerk tree hugger, either, and sees a solution that helps business help the environment as a natural way to go. After all, don't we live with the marvels of manufacturing, the delights of Dow and the blessings of Enercorp? If it wasn't for corporations, we wouldn't have any multi-million dollar mansions and all the electronics we've got.

And that's maybe the essential part of the problem, guys like me and Steve and the way we live. Why I'd bet that, between the two of us, we've emitted more carbons since we got up this morning that the wealthiest 20 percent of Matabeleland. Geez, while we were sleeping more energy was expended on our behalf, than in a large part of Fiji.

Since this global whatever is going to hit everybody alike, in Steve's estimation, shouldn't everybody share alike in reducing the carbon footprint? Shouldn't the Basuto or the Kalmuk reduce their emissions on the same relative scale? If all those third worlders were to be 'moved ahead' to a place where they had the blessings of industry, the world couldn't take it. Sooooo .... since we've already got it, expecting us to go without is about as fair as expecting us to pay the poor to live on less, or gad forfend, to become more developed, right? So that's where the nub lies.

In the estimation of some, then, the nonsense of too much carbon starts to make sense, because having to do something about it is something we just can't afford to do. And if you remember the adage about the ease of apology compared to getting permission, well you see where this is headed. If, in, say, fifty years the planet is thoroughly screwed, our descendants can tap into our recorded apologies if they can pedal fast enough to generate a spark, or get the solar panels defogged.

And as far as the Danes go, well I gotta hand it to them. If Al Gore's right, they can thank me and Steve Harper when their little city becomes another 'Venice of the North'. If I was looking at having to buy a boat, instead of wanting to buy a boat, I'd be 'taking it to the streets' with a slingshot.

If You Wait...

2009-12-16T07:09:00.000-05:00

Appropriatel to the season of waiting is a short item in to-day's 'Daily Times of London' (dailytimes ). The headline reads: "Taliban stall Key Project".

The 'key project' referred to is the Kajaki Dam hydroelectric project in Helmand province. And its story is that of Afghanistan in microcosm. Initiated in the 50's by an American company to provide electricity to Kandahar City and irrigation to the Helmand River Valley, the project was abandoned and incomplete when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. During operation Enduring Freedom the dam was a bombing target for ISAF air forces. In 2006 it was decided to rehabilitate the installation.

USAID succeeded in getting the dam functional and one generator unit 'on line'. Further development ie construction and emplacement of the other planned generators required a massive military operation (Okab Tsuka, 2007 news.bbc.co.uk). The success of the mission in getting the turbines to the dam has not been replicated in installing them. But they have had to be well-guarded since by a significant military defence force at, and near, the dam site.

So why don't the Afghans want the benefits of modern civilzation? For one thing the proposed irrigation scheme, has like many others in that part of the world, been counterproductive. Surface irrigation leaches high salinity in the soil to the surface and actually destroys the valley fields it purports to improve. Not many valley farmers want to get irrigated, and the ones who do, away from the valley, are going to take the water.

The water diversion also causes low water problems downstream, in a part of the world where water really is life, that can have severe consequences, too. Neighbouring Iran has been affected already.

As far as the hydro goes, what production does exist can only be used near the dam itself, for there is no transmission line to distribute the power. Needless to say, one of the prime users is ISAF and the power is used to energize military installations and in anti-taliban applications.

So what's the hold up? Well, apparently, the same Taliban 'indians' who necessitated the guarded wagon train that bore the new turbines to the dam, is making the 'road' far too damgerous to import the 900 tonnes of cement required to put the turbines in place.

So there they sit, being guarded against a day in the future when Afghanistan may be a more hospitable land. In the interim, the US aid corporation handling the project is planning to mothball the equipment and is looking for other areas of Afghanistan in which to 'invest'.

Neither a military, nor a civilian solution is on this particular horizon. The road to hell, and all those good intentions, eh?

Santy Comes Early

2009-12-09T17:26:00.002-05:00

The Toronto Pleece Service continue to give the RCMP a run for the money in terms of what pleece services are all about. The Mounties may have them 'tapped' in the strides department, but the true-blues are far better-paid.

Both on and off the job. A recent story in the Toronto Star outlined the little salary enhancement the pleece service has in its off-time: earning up to three times their regular salary for showing up in uniform to guard movie shoots, weddings and construction sites. And all this time I thought they did traffic control for funeral processions out of respect and not for the $75 an hour they're paid.

Some good news for the brotherhood this week when long-pending charges against some members of the force accused of shake-downs were dropped by the crown prosecutor. Why, after 5 years, were the charges dropped? Well because some investigating officer 'muffed the case' and compromised his informant, don't ya know. As well as causing a lot of that 5 year delay, that 'senior investigator' saved a lot of somebodies' bacon.

This, another case in the many that add-up to the notion that you CAN pay some cops too much money. Last month there was the wrap-up of another marathon investigation - the Creba case - that saw most of the shooters accused of 'accidentally' killing a young girl during a Christmas shopping gunfight, released for lack of evidence after 5 years in the lock-up on pleece charges. Betcha the ex-pleece in the former case have their law suits settled first, eh?

Four months ago another group of 'angels with tarnished wings' were set free after another corruption investigation, but the Crown is appealing that one. So those fellows are still 'living in the hell of degradation and lack of self worth' described by the fellows who 'took the fall' and resigned from the force they loved so well - albeit after they were accused of taking thousands in extra 'donations' to the pleece 'Santy fund' from restaurants, some run by real crooks. But that's a matter for their wrongful dismissal lawsuits.

For a bunch of guys who start blubbering regularly that 'nobody really likes' them, the gang behind the barricades, bunkers and guarded parking lots don't do a lot that is likable - beating bums, muffing cases and stealing on and off the job. It may be a tough job but it doesn't require a shitty outlook on life to do it. Enough of , 'Oh, Maw! They've turned me into an asshole! Oh, poor me!'

So we'll wish all such pleece officers, everywhere, the best that Santy brings - be it a new car, some needed furniture or just the cash to catch up on credit card debt. And hope that the real Daddy Christmas has a large 'Mr. Henke' to leave under their tree. Bah, freaking humbug!

Whaaat the F**K?

2009-11-25T16:19:00.001-05:00

The Missus called me downstairs to take a dekko at the closing act of this years' American Music Awards that she'd taped.

It was a number performed by somebody called Adam Lambert who'd been a contestant on American Idol last year. He wasn't successful there - other than to declare himself a homosexual and wind up- like other losers- winning the opportunity to begin a music career and record his first album. He performed a tune called 'For Your Entertainment' and it rang chimes all around the world. Adam got his desired attention, but it wasn't for any talent he had, for, his sexual proclivities aside, Adam well and truly 'sucked' - vocally, musically choreographically and possibly as a homosexual too.

What Adam did do, however, was the cause of the reaction. As part of his 'entertainment' a set of male and female dancers were featured. The females were certainly talented, at least one could even dance. The other submitted to a bisexual 'groin grope'. The boys in the chorus replicated the old Abu Gharib dog walk competition with Adam playing the part of Lyndie England on the domination end of the leash. He even went so far as to recreate a 'conditioning exercise' used there on muslim prisoners which involved somebodies' pubic region and the prisoner's face. It must have been the Muslims complaining, for, I understand, they're down on homosexuality. They obviously missed Adam's political statement. So did I for that matter.

To round it all off, after tripping and doing some weird Elvis kung-fu recovery roll on the ramp on set, Adam stomped his way to the upper tier where a funk-punk band of musicians thrashed and thundered. There he lingered to plant a tonsil examination on an androgenous femality engaged in tickling the keyboard. They parted like Sinatra's strangers and Adam concluded his number doing a Gene Simmon's tongue routine and an off-key screaming fit to match his off-key and off-colour performance. Another source said he concluded by 'flipping the bird' to the audience. I didn't see that, but it might explain the delayed applause at the conclusion of his 'song'.

Apparently his show lit up the call-in lines with worldwide complaints. Adam's scheduled appearance the next morning on a national program was cancelled. He, of course, inferred it was a 'gay' thing and felt sorry for the admiring public who would miss his art.

It's just another of our freedoms they hate us for. On the other hand why do we take such abuse in the name of somebody else's freedom? I'd like to be free of this crap.

Knowing how 'phobic' I am, I think the Missus did it deliberately.

A Great Time for Canadians

2009-11-25T14:50:00.004-05:00

These days it's great to be a Canadian. At least if you can ignore what's going on in Canada.

Economically things are great, unless you're unemployed, or looking to extend your career because your retirement nest-egg was imploded. Our economy, according to our pundits - guys who make money without actually doing, or making anything - is the North American equivalent of the 'Wirtshaftwissenwunder' the Germans had going a while back. But our economy is predicated on two fundamentals - the resource extraction industry and big banks, everything else we do on a large scale is middling to poor. The great number of small specialist manufactories that we have, are being poked in the eye by too close a relationship with the same sort of thing in America. Consumer goods are now, for the most part, Chinese imports.

The Canadian Banks of which there are now 6 or 7 big players have managed to insulate themselves from the American horror by racking up fees, decreasing interest returns, investment in China and getting stimulated by the Canadian government. Yeah, they were overextended in Fanny Mae and Winnie Bago - like everybody else 'on track' for big bucks - but you won't hear them pulin' about losing their shirts for - thrifty nippers that they are - they managed to actually make money. No doubt by fobbing-off their plunging investments on their unwitting mutual fund customers - who saw their accounts head south faster than a Canadien with a lotto win. That worked during the dotcom crash, so why wouldn't it work again? Right now they're handling the 'credit crisis' they've developed by jacking service charges, and the rates they charge on loans well beyond the prime rate - it's all that increased risk you know, all them sudden unemployments and iffy new car sales. At the same time, all that loan money can be used to play the market, which when 'yo-yo ing' provides some great opportunities for the wise, and a fleecing of more suckers.

The resource industries are hot to trot, too. A threatened reduction in demand for a lot of Canadian minerals never really happened - other than as an exercise in cost-cutting. The prices haven't tanked - some are at all-time highs - which is providing a decent return on investment. At the same time Canadian operations abroad are doing even better. But there's an unknown price being paid by someone and it's not the extraction companies, the investors or the Canadian banks. It's anybody who gets to live near these wealth-making activities.

Right now in Canada there is a UN-inspired investigation into Canada's mining industry underway. Canadians should have remembered some of the unique messes blighting Canada at the hands of big mining interests. There was a time when Sudbury was a dusty, dirty heap of mine tailings and smelter slag. But now that crap is covered by a layer of topsoil and is restored to a 'pristine natural state' - but be really careful with the water eh. And rejoice that you don't have to drive south for cancer treatments that you can get at the regional cancer centre. Just a few million bucks can buy tons of good will, especially if you can get the government to pay for most of it. Add to this a few other wonders of the industry like Asbestos, Quebec, Maple Ridge in BC and Sydney on Cape Breton Island and you get an idea of the part of 'moiling in the mire' that big business has managed to walk away from.

But Canada has developed a set of 'rules and regs' that stop the more obvious travesties from happening - at least in the short run. No such rules apply in other countries and Johnny Canuck has gone prospecting all over the world.

Darfur, the festering sore in central Africa, started when the locals were 'bothering' a Canadian oil exploration company (now defunct Talisman Energy). The Canadians importuned the government to 'resettle' the locals - largely nomadic or pastoral negroid tribes. This was just what the Muslim government needed, and the subsequent revolt in the western provinces of Sudan was squashed with heavy handed and long term military action. This of course destabilized the oil exploration process and the instigators decamped for safer, if not oilier, pastures. The Canadians never did get their due for that.

Another more meaningful incident was the great BreX hoax. Canadian gold prospectors had dug a large hole in in East Borneo and conned a good number of the world's sharpies into believing they'd hit the golden calf. It was more like the gilded lily and billions were lost by the greedy to stock market sellers, resellers and managers. But Borneo still figures largely in Canadian mining operations.

In South America, Africa and some parts of Asia, Canadian mining interests are at work. In virtually all of them with some concommittent trouble from the locals. This is what's under investigation now. To-day's testimony was about the incidence of gang rapes by 'site security people' at an operation in Borneo. Yesterday it was about shootings at another mine in Colombia. The industry reaction - shocked disbelief and incredulity has been evident before - as at Darfur, for instance, which went on for the better part of a decade before Canadians pulled out. Given their track record of 'good citizenship and customer satisfaction' in Canada, it's difficult to fathom how some corporate executives and company lawyers in Toronto and Montreal could be so far out of touch, or maybe they're not - well, let's just leave it at that.

Canadian interests have been present at some of the world nastiest business and never once have I read of anyone blowing a whistle and calling for government attention. Being, as they all claim to be, such humanitarians as well as businessmen, it can only be adjudged that either they were monastacized, or that they were too involved to want any attention. My loonie goes on the latter - they rarely admit to a screw-up unless they have no other choice. The world, or at least human rights bodies, want more government scrutiny of what Canadian companies do overseas. I think that's the least that should happen. The sanctions (now at removal of public support ie taxpayer funding) should be extended to provision for suits in Canadian courts and sequestration of corporate property in Canada.

I ran into an old chap out for a walk one day while fishing recently. As we stood on the banks of a river at very low level, he told me his life story, or at least the career part of it. He had spent most of his life from the mid-forties engaged as a geologist/prospector for Canadian mining interests all around the world. He'd written a book about his work, and experiences and had donated same to the local library where I later had a chance to check it out. His quest had been for short-staple asbestos. He was quite successful in his work and through him the mining industry had made millions. That low-level river we stood beside, the result of some private enterprise's need for water.

As I stood there observing the detritus of a formerly-vibrant community lumber mill now festooning the bottom of that river - the remains of 5 or six drains extending into the water including one made of square lumber which still dribbled an oil sheen on the water and a number of 50 gallon barrels (left in place to avoid disturbing some worse horror?) - it was interesting to hear him describe his work as some sort of human 'achievement'. I wonder if he ever heard that his 'discovery' was no longer a visible part of domestic sales and a downright toxic menace to most people? I remember reading some 'propaganda' years ago at the CNE about the wonderful future Canada's mines were producing for us all, one page of which touted asbestos as the wonder product that 'kept firemen safe'. I wonder if that's why so many of the statistically were prone to lung diseases? Asbestos, Quebec has a new claim to fame: the largest incidence of mesotheliomic cancer. But that has only slowed the production of Canadian asbestos for the third world market.

Canadian industry (by and large) has been allowed for too long to take its profits, pay its taxes and then walk away from a problem(s) left for the future. If anything a portion of those taxes, or a surcharge on them, should be set aside by the government to cover such eventualities. Whether it's missing pensions, or toxic soil, it seems apparent that industry is not what they've told us they are. They should be treated as any other 'ripoff artist' with little respect, and a minimum of trust.

Canada's other big black eye is a revisitation of the Afghan experience. The involvement of Canadian troops with the mistreatment of prisoners in Afghan prisons is getting another look. The protestations of ignorance, and denials of actuality are being shredded by testimony in front of an inquiry in Ottawa. So far there is little to be proud about. Canada has certainly lost any moral pulpit we ever had on telling others what human rights should be like. The Prime Minister might be able to commiserate with China, but any appeal for rights for Tibetans or Uighurs went out the back of an army truck in Kandahar.

Meanwhile the debate has become politicized - additional blow-back from our 'American' relationship is increased rancor about political belief - Liberals (in every derogatory sense) and Conservatives (who should be calling themselves republicans). It is a great time for Canadians, we have an Olympics to think about!

Who Tried to Hustle the East?

2009-10-31T16:21:00.004-04:00

Afghanistan is much in the news as the day of decision nears. President Obama will decide in the next couple of days whether the US will pursue Gen. McCrystal's 'all-new' strategy of defending the cities of Afghanistan. The decision is ultimately about how many more troops will be required to, hopefully, light the light at the end of the tunnel. Obama has already committed 17 000, which, if they're there yet, haven't shown much progress at all, and the General is calling for up to 80 000 more.

Remember the Taliban forces arrayed against them have been estimated at no more than 7 000 and many of them are classed as the $75 part-timers. So when the close to 70 000 US troops on site are matched with NATO's 30 000 and adding in the again estimated 100 000 'contractees' the Taliban should have given up - even if they don't know figurin'. For it's not just the boots, there is the whole panalopy of modern war from AFV's to artillery, Navy Seals and Special Forces, riverine units and massive air power arrayed, and well-used, against them. And that's not counting the 250 000 in Afghan police and army units who are, apparently, as much use as tits on a bull. Despite the lobsided opposition, the Taliban seem to be waxing when by every standard in God's great scheme, they shouldn't be there at all.

And there's the rub. They weren't there at all after Operation Enduring Freedom chased them into Pakistan. But US mismanagement in the form of some 'payback' for 9/11 by citizen soldiers who had no idea what they were doing, aroused the Afghan populace and 'hey presto' the shootin' war was back, but nothing like the one that SF and a handful of Afghan militias won the first time. This time it wasn't the Taliban government, it was the Afghan people. And so this notion of 'killing the bad guys', with all the mean spiritedness and ignorance that went with it, has made all of Afghanistan, even the Northern War Lords' territory, places where no white man is safe. Kid oneself not, the Americans didn't "ignore Afghanistan to go after Iraq", they actually increased the forces in Afghanistan in an effort to 'wipe 'em out'. No, the US military bungled a really good chance to move forward by insisting on doing what they do best .. shooting.

And now the military are back again, blaming the Taliban for their lack of success. And they're saying that the war will be 'lost' if they don't get more resources. And so what if it is a loss? Well there's NATO to think of. NATO that got us through the dark days of WW2 and the gray days of the Cold War. Now looking like some bloated Mickey D's addict - NATO, which includes virtually every nation in Europe, has decided its work is no longer the North Atlantic, is job is in central Asia. The white man's burden is now to civilize the Asiatic .... again. And this will be as successful as it always has been.

Americans make the noise that they're 'being really careful' to avoid the mistakes the Russians made, the biggest being 'going it alone'. If memory serves didn't President Bush tell the world that, if the world wouldn't fight terror, America would "go it alone"? And didn't he also mention 'with us or against us' as a choice? But that's horsepellets anyway for, if there is a country that should have been able to subdue the Afghans, it is Russia. Everything, except the 'stingers', were pointing its way and even the Afghan allies it had were willing to fight. But Russian militarists 'goofed' just like their US counterparts are 'goofing' now. The US has a myth about its 'stingers', but those Afghans would have beaten the Russians even if they had been on their own, it just would have taken longer. Just like now - they're fighting, and lousing up NATO and no one is helping them.

Kipling had a point when he wrote:

"It is not wise for the Christian white
To hustle the Asian brown;
For the Christian riles
And the Asian smiles
And weareth the Christian down.
At the end of the fight
Lies a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased;
And the epitaph drear,
A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."

Speaking of those tombstones white, Canada had two more soldiers killed this week. The Canadian CO, Brigadier Jon Vance had some kind words to say about them. He said of the most recent a young Sapper called Marshall, "He had an incredible sense of humour and a contagious grin that never left his face, even during the most difficult moments. He would embrace any situation and always found and shared that silver lining with his mates."

Considering the soldier had been in Afghanistan for a week, I wonder how the Brigadier could know a sapper that well. It's not like they golfed together. But then the Brigadier paints all his boys as grinning innocents, just over there to 'make a difference'. I don't know about you, but I think a guy with a gun is inclined to make limited varieties of difference, and most of those negative.

The BG continued, "A stable environment is the best defence against insurgents, because they have no way to counter the positive effects that soldiers like Steven bring to bear. ... [H]is death will also sadden the Afghan community where he worked to bring them a better life."

Well they do have some negative ways to counter all that positivity, and for some reason they're willing to use them on guys who are 'only there to help'. Why? They hate our freedoms? They want to abuse their women and don't like children? They're scumbags? Maybe it's because, as a Southern Rebel in America's Civil War told his northern captor when asked why he was fighting, "It's cuzzen you'all down hyah."

Maybe Sapper Marshall and his mates are dead because they were 'over there' and the Afghans didn't appreciate all the help. I would be surprised if the Afghan community were saddened by his parting, he'd only been there a week - hardly enough time to make any difference to their life - for better or worse. Maybe he's dead because somebody thought it was time, again, to hustle the east.

The US is taking casualties at the rate of 1000 per month in Afghanistan, they're dying in handfuls now instead of ones and twos. And winter's coming on. Traditionally that's a time when the Afghans would hunker down and stop fighting. Last winter, for the first time in recent history, they didn't. It remains to be seen if they will take a break this winter. Afghan winters are nasty and NATO troops are hard pressed to operate in the winter mountains. My bet is that the Taliban will be destabilizing, trying to make sure NATO is off-balance again come spring. That's when Mr. Obama's troop reinforcements, if he chooses to send them, would really go into effect.

I hope he's not of a mind to go hustling too.

Whoo Hoos Still Steering the Ship

2009-10-03T15:27:00.002-04:00

When the late President responded to his opposition's calls for a voice in deliberations, he wasn't shy about reminding them who 'won the election'. The new guy must have missed that part. For in addition to having a majority in both houses, and having won that last election, he's bending over backwards to be fair to the opposition. So far backwards, however, that he's allowing the 'loonie toons' and 'patriots' who backed Bushco's new American century to screw him out of what little chance for good the rest of the century holds.

Add to that he has a few 'whackos' on the democratic side to deal with, as well. Like the guy who thought it was a good idea to try selling Chicago at the IOC meeting in Copenhagen last week. Sending Michelle, along with Chicago's mayor was all right, but to try the President in a 10 minute sales pitch to cinch a deal with an organization that doesn't like anybody was not a good idea. Consequently President Obama comes home with a 'black eye' rather than a 'feather in his cap' to those Americans who value eyes and feathers - and there are a lot of them. Ollie North - the hero of Nicaragua- was first off the mark accusing Obama of 'fiddling' after 'Olympic Gold' while Americans died in Afghanistan. Of second guessing 'the commander with a plan-der' to win in the Panshirs. As if any plan for Afghanistan could pay-off as well as Ollie's arming the Contras by supplying Iran's weapons needs. Ollie should know about successful plans.

If there is one thing that there have been lots of coming out of Afghanistan it's 'plans' - to date, all unsuccessful. Correct that, successfully, but not yet victoriously. Correct that, if things don't change it won't be a win. I hope General McChrystal's 'plan' would include a novena or six, for prayer seems to be as good as another division at accomplishing anything positive over there. Just for starters though, Obama should 'do a Georgie' - do a 'name that tune' sort of thing - find a general who could do the plan with less troops - just like the Petraeus 'Surge'. (Who can do that plan with less troops? I'll do that plan with a platoon, sir!' Good. You're promoted!) It should be easy, for it's all just media relations exercise anyway, there aren't that many Taliban in Afghanistan left to kill.

If the war in Afghanistan is being lost, it's being lost. Not because the Taliban are winning, or are any better than before, just that the job being done there is worse. The 'mission' is ill-defined and more scattered than ever, the goals aren't measurable. Ground taken is given up or poorly-controlled and now that's happening all over the country not just in 'injun territory'. Explosives and air-power are still being applied massively - in comparison to Iraq. The civil authorities border on barbaric, and the soldiery - many into a third or fourth rotation are beginning to realize that little is being accomplished for all their hard work and sacrifice. The Afghans don't like them, or want them. The only Afghans really "afraid" of the Taliban are living in Kabul and are looking for a way out when the balloon goes up.

Add to that a stated 'new' tactic of 'saving the people' (hearts and minds anyone?). When added to the common tactic of 'killing the militant' and a general soldiery which can't tell the difference between the two, this new strategy is doomed to failure.

In Canada there is a growing fear that our government is planning to extend the Canadian 'mission' beyond the 2011 cut-off. The Minister of Defense was flying that balloon in the press last week. He should consider that, if America wasn't there, would Canada be supporting the other NATO allies in a war? I'd doubt it. If America withdrew tomorrow, would Canadian troops maintain the noble course they've charted for that 'long run' he was talking about? What do you think?

In the news was the recently completed case of a young soldier who shot his tentmate while playing a game of quick-draw. Aside from the dead soldier's family, everybody else seemed to consider the sentence - dishonorable discharge and 4 years in a military slammer - a little harsh for some horseplay in a war zone.

The defense, we're finding out, presented evidence that such gunplay wasn't all that uncommon among the troopers. Evidence had been introduced of troopers in training holding pistols to each others' heads for fun. This, as far as I'm concerned, is up there with paying to heal wounded warriors who might have been hurt in similar antics. Or like paying a pension to Clem Matchee for trying to hang himself. It's reminiscent of the hazing and horseplay that caused the Airborne Regiment to be dissolved. Soldiers have a nasty streak of the 'little boy' in them, it's that willingness to take a chance that makes them heroes, or war criminals. Discipline and military law are supposed to minimize this, but what happens when the NCOs and officers are 'Peter Panning' too? You get organized chaos. Like in Somalia, and in Afghanistan.

The groundswell of patriots -"If you're not behind our Forces, you should be in front of them"- dopes who take American jingoism and drape it with maple leaves, like we invented that crap - will be turning apoplectic about this 'treachery'. Forgetting for a minute that their sires and grandsires, mine included, along with thousands of others, spent 5 years stopping Germans and Japanese who had the same bullshit mindset. I don't think one of those real 'vets', in his heyday, would have put up with what passes for patriotism, or even 'democracy', today. Their honour has been suborned by the fascists.

And so the tail continues to wag the dog.

We Stand on Guard for Thee. Not you! Thee!

2009-10-02T20:28:00.002-04:00

Short sides 'n back types from down in pistol country must be delighted to know, if they do, that Canada is taking the national security 'skeer' up a couple of notches. What they might not realize is that all the black uniforms, baseball caps and glocks are in reality a fund-raiser for the customs and revenue agency. They may have gleaned that from the new 'smartass' approach to the 'welcome to Canada' spiel once offered by pimply-faced summer students, but now in the arena are a generation of police foundations grads and superannuated cops. Our boys, and girls, on the 45th parallel must be receiving lessons in "I don't give a fuck" from somebody.

I had occasion to visit the land of the free home of the brave etc recently. Driving past US customs - notorious sticklers for having things right - was a breeze compared to the coming home again reception. The US border officer was interested in where we were going and what we'd be doing there. She asked about the standard stuff that we weren't supposed to be bringing into the country and examined our documents. She was pleasant, but serious and wished us a good day when she released us. Would to Gord the Canucks could do that. But then I never got to see the 'inside' of the US operation.

The return trip to the Canadian side started off the same way - with a passport check. Then an innocuous 'where have you been and when did you leave the country'? She wanted to get a look at passenger number three which involved tangling with the child-proof lock that kept a door from opening. Questions followed about what we had been doing, what we had, or didn't have with us and then returned to some math quiz - so how many days have you been gone? A muffed answer got a snotty wisecrack - and a heads down, fill-in-a-form thing. The form led to a vehicle check. Which in turn led to the discovery that we were returning to Canada with slightly over a litre of 'illicit' Crown Royal - 4 for $75 at Canadian duty-free on the way out.

That led to a close encounter with the 'inside operation'. If the outside was annoying, the inside was there to put you in your place. A bank of agents -armed, flak jacketed, black ball-capped serious young guys - lined a counter on one side. All assiduously scanning computer screens. If they weren't playing solitaire they were looking at something far more interesting. At last one of them looked up, but he looked like he was about to pass a massive turd as he took my ticket. "Driver's license" he keyed in some info, waited, keyed in some more. He asked how much liquor I had, and was surprised to hear that the three of us had 5 litres. The gal outside, who'd wanted to see passenger three, only checked two occupants. A 'friendly' agent next to him thought to ask about ages lest one of us didn't count for booze importation. The other agent keyed in some more and told me I owed $74 in duties. I remarked that it was a lot of duty compared to the price of the booze. He told me he'd done me favour because it should have been more. He sent me over to pay the cashier.

The cashier was more personable and I asked her if she would tell me why I owed more in duties for a litre of booze than I would regularly pay with all the duties and taxes imposed in a liquor store. She told me some stuff about taxes on the duties, but I still couldn't understand how the booze had almost doubled in regular price. She was telling me that because I was 'over' the duties were now payable on all the booze. I replied that had I known this, I would have left the bottle at the last rest stop. A civilian employee said something quietly to her and she offered that I could 'abandon' the bottle in lieu of paying the duty. At $74 I thought that a good idea. I was directed, with a printout, back to the agent from which I'd come.

"The agent at the cashier's desk tells me I can abandon that bottle, I think $74 bucks duty is a bit too high."
"Yeah, but you've already paid it." he said.
"No, I haven't." I replied.
"Well where did you get this receipt?", he asked.
"The gal at the cashier's wicket gave it to me, to give to you." This last induced another bimmie face.
"You're going to abandon the liquor?"
"Yep! Can I go get it?"
"Yeah."

When I returned, I thought the agent really had needed a dump for he was nowhere to be seen. The others either didn't know where he'd gone, or didn't think I needed to know where he'd gone. So I stood in front of his empty station holding a bottle of CR and looking more stupid than usual. Eventually he returned a supervisor in tow. Like 'unringing' a supermarket sale, he had to 'unring' the duty impost. It was then that he discovered the duty was really only $21. I asked him if there was any other information I could provide that might him lower the duty even more.

I paid the $21 and kept my hooch.

On the way out I passed a body-builder in Tshirt and jeans with a gold badge on his belt and a pistol under his arm. A sheaf of paper in hand. Parked beside our car was an unremarkable white van with 'Government of the USA' stencilled unobtrusively on the door. A larger version of the first guy was lowering a set of steps at the rear door of the van. Then he took a look around Canada while he waited.
We didn't wait to see who their passenger was to be, my buddies wanted to leave before a wisecrack about booze and national security got us arrested.

$75 bucks, $21 bucks - 10 cars at a time raking in $2,000-$3,000 an hour in duties and imposts. With the odd chance of finding a load of dope or catching a sneaky 'enterer'. Or maybe even having somebody drop an imported pistol on the ground. Jobs the border service has always done but with less service now and and a lot more negativity.

Somehow I don't think that a pick-up truck full of patriots from down south would get the same attention, unless they were of a coloured persuasion. I'd love to see what they'd do to their head honcho 'BIG Jim' VanLoan - an Estonian refugee with a Dutch name who looks like an Indian. But they'd probably recognize an asshole as 'one of their own'. I think they've all been transferred from EI - cutbacks in that ministry to fill a burgeoning 'war on terror' - and everybody else.