Extreme rodent elimination

Via Buckdog, this Time-Colonist report of a gopher hunt gone, well, berserk.

A new gopher-killing tool called the Rodenator is behind a massive grass fire that threatened several homes just west of Calgary on the Easter weekend.

In his 25 years of firefighting, assistant deputy fire Chief Jim Pendergast of the Municipal District of Rocky View said he's never encountered a fire sparked during a gopher hunt.

The Saturday blaze spread rapidly through tinder-dry prairie grasses. Several residents fled their homes as fire crews managed to stop the flames from devouring houses, although some out buildings were lost.

Oddly, I had first heard of this device just a couple of days ago on a CBC radio program discussing the problems encountered by prairie residents with gophers and the various means to control them. When the Rodenator was being described a passing thought went through my mind that this had the potential to create a massive grass fire.

A group of people who were using the Rodenator - which pumps propane and oxygen into a rodent hole and then ignites the mixture to create an underground shock wave or concussion that instantly kills gophers and collapses the tunnel system - could now face a bill for the incident or bylaw charges, including ignoring a fire ban and burning without a permit.

I've never lived in the prairies, but in my occasional forays into the area I've heard short but descriptive stories of the damage gophers can and have done to crops and livestock. And, several years ago I managed to step into a gopher hole in the dark, but that was minor compared to what farmers and ranchers are dealing with. Apparently now, the population is so out-of-control that desperate measures are required.

It might be of some interest that Montana State University Extension Service has some information on gopher control. Whether it's up-to-date or not I would not know, but one line in the information suggests that things like the Rodenator have been tried before and MSU recommends against it.

Fumigation of pocket gopher holes with gasoline, propane or exhaust from an automobile has been reported but is NOT RECOMMENDED because of safety hazards. These methods could result in serious explosions or the placement of toxic fumes in undesirable areas.

It looks like the Rodenator has demonstrated that clearly enough.

Just another brick in the wall...

As George Bush waxes eloquent about how romantic it must be to be a combatant in the quagmire formerly known as Iraq the US military crossed another grim threshold on Sunday.

A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000. The grim milestone came on a day when at least 61 people were killed across the country.

Rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence.

The attacks on the Green Zone probably stemmed from rising tensions between rival Shiite groups and were the most sustained assault in months against the nerve center of the U.S. mission.

The romanticism of Bush's legacy is killing them.

Winter Soldier

In 1776, Thomas Paine, referring to the numerous desertions from the Continental Army encamped at Valley Forge that winter, wrote the famous words:

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

In January 1971, the antiwar veterans group Vietnam Veterans Against War organized several days of hearings in Detroit and asked combat veterans of that war to come forward and talk about the horrible things they had seen and done in Vietnam. The event was called Winter Soldier. The intent was to demonstrate to the American people that events such as the then recently uncovered My Lai massacre were not isolated events, but part of a larger, predictable pattern resulting from U.S. policy and orders from the top. The men talked of prisoners being thrown from helicopters, ears and heads being taken as trophies and wanton and indiscriminate slaughter committed against civilians -- behavior that was not just tacitly condoned, but often encouraged by their commanders. It was this event that led to the Fulbright Senate Committee hearings on the war in April 1971, at which John Kerry, then fresh out of the Navy and active as a leader of the antiwar movement, famously asked "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

About ten days ago (things are slow getting to us on the other side of the Pacific at times, and at other times we are slow to get to things) the Iraq Veterans Against the War organized new Winter Soldier hearings.

You likely didn't see anything about it on MSNBC or CNN and certainly not on FOX -- the talking heads were all too busy discussing whether Barack Obama's speech on race had made white people feel icky--but Amy Goodman from Democracy Now did several days worth of programs on the event, mostly just playing tapes of the testimony offered. KPFA radio also offers an excellent series on the event. Sadly, five years after the start of the Iraq war, most people have been distracted by other shiny objects, like whether Hillary is macho enough or whether Obama is black enough/too black-- last week the Iraq war got just 4 percent of the newshole in the US media.

The stories from the latest Winter Soldier are not as harrowing as those from Vietnam in their details - there are no ears taken or captives thrown from helicopters - but several themes recur, notably the dehumanization, as a matter of policy,　of anyone not wearing the uniform of the United States armed forces. In Vietnam the enemy was "Charlie" and the civilians were "gooks" who could be shot for sport. In Iraq, the local population are all "Hajis" who can be shot for the simple crime of "not knowing how to drive" on the roads of their own cities.

But on a day in the early summer of 2005 in the area of operation of the 42nd Infantry Division, there was a traffic control point shooting. Traffic control point shootings are rather common in Iraq; they happen on a near or daily basis. What happened was, a vehicle was driving very quickly towards a traffic control point. A young machine gunner made the split-second decision that that vehicle was a threat, and in less than a minute put 200 rounds from his .50-caliber machinegun into that vehicle. That day, he killed a mother, a father and two children. The boy was age four, and the daughter was age three.

I was in the briefing that evening when it was briefed to the general. And after the officer in charge briefed it to the general in a very calm manner, Colonel Rochelle of the 42nd Infantry Division, DISCOM Commander, turned in his chair to the entire division-level staff, and he said—and I quote—“If these [expletive] hajis learned to drive, this [expletive] wouldn’t happen."

Others testify of being told to shoot anyone talking on a cell phone within sight of a convoy, to fire on any taxis seen on the roads after a rumor that they were being used by insurgents for transportation, of being encouraged to carry throw-down weapons so that they could justify the shootings of civilians. The most moving testimony was from the mother and father of Jeff Lucey, a 24 year old marine who killed himself less than a year after coming back from driving a truck in Iraq. He suffered severe PTSD but could not get treatment through the military or the Veteran's Administration Hospital, even though his family begged to have him committed on couple of occasions. So much for supporting the troops, I guess.

videos of the Luceys' testimony

There are those who dispute the veracity of the original Winter Soldier testimonies, but they are mainly Nixon enthusiasts and lying political operatives like the widely discredited Swift Boat Veterans For Truth who tried to smear John Kerry. Then there are willfully ignorant twits like this one, who's convinced that the culture war veterans like Michelle Malkin know more about what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and what happened in Vietnam than the people who were actually there. What do they and White House tenants have to say to the Luceys and tens of thousands like them?

4000 US soldiers have died, about 30,000 have suffered physical wounds and it is estimated that as many as one in four of the hundreds of thousands who have returned suffer from PTSD.
No one knows how many Iraqis have died, but estimates run from about 90,000 to more than 650,000 (as of 2006), Multiply that by who know how much for the number of wounded. The entire population may be considered to have PTSD by now, but there is nothing "post" about their trauma - it is ongoing.


(crossposted from the Woodshed, where I will do my best to cheer you up)

I can has cheezburger removr?

The Consumerist takes on Complaint Remover, a company that advertises it will rid the internet of "defamatory" and "negative links" about you.

How? Apparently "by positioning links on the Search Engines and by appeals to law to remove negative information. We send cease and desist letters and if necessary, file legal actions against the perpetrators and Internet service providers contributing to the unjust defamation of our members".

Holy googlebomb! Does the worst president ever know about this?

The Consumerist hits the Complaint Remover chatroom. :
"Hello My name is Kelly. Is there something I can help you with today?
Consumerist : Does your company work on all of the internets?
Kelly: Yes we remove negative links from all erch engines google or aol, or yahoo
Consumerist : How does that work? How are you able to get another company to get rid of something that's part of their business?
Kelly: We push the negative links back in serch engines so nobody will see that ones
Consumerist : So you like make new internets and push the bad internets down?
Kelly: Yes
Consumerist : My keywords are lolcats. I have a cat breeding business and people keep making pictures of cats with derogatory phrases on them. It's hampering my ability to attract new clients
Kelly: just a seccond please. ok wich one of those you want to be pushed back ?"

Oh noes. But what about the unfettered democracy and free speech of the intertubes? And spelling?
Commenters at Boing Boing and The Consumerist go to work pranking CR and uncovering IPs and holy shit! this version of CR is a giant ethical leap forward from a previous incarnation which a commenter alleges included sending nasty death threats on behalf of its "members".

Go read the rest. Why? Well, because it's very funny, especially the commenters' forays into the CR chatroom, but also because if The Consumerist story gets enough hits, anyone googling up Complaints Remover will continue to get The Consumerist instead.

I luvs teh intertubes. Srsly.

H/T Bread 'n Roses

Cross-posted at Creekside

They also fight who stand and wait

This is one of those delicious items.

PZ Myers of the always exceptional Pharyngula was to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie Expelled. Except that he was discovered and ordered to leave the premises immediately upon pain of arrest.

The producers of Expelled did, however, allow PZ's wife, daughter and their accompanying guest to view the screening.

The guest.... yes, the guest. Go to check it out.

A British ad you're not likely to see on North American television

Maybe she answered the wrong end.

IOC goes for the gold in the Darfur and Tibet events

"European Union sports ministers and Olympic committees said yesterday that they would not support calls for a boycott [of the Beijing Olympics] because they're not effective and that sports and politics should not be linked, a position echoed by the Canadian Olympic Committee's top official.

"I think particularly to use the athletes who have made so many sacrifices, to use them as pawns in a game that is politically, idealistically and socially very complicated would be unfortunate," said Chris Rudge, CEO of the COC. "I don't think we can ask one constituency, which are a force for good, to stand up and act on everyone's behalf." Link

Yes, it would be a terrible thing if athletes were used as pawns, wouldn't it, Chris?
Because as we all know, the Olympics is all about running and skipping and jumping, and not at all about Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Adidas, and General Electric putting up millions to increase their market share in China.

Well, you know what they say : You can catch more flies with money than with vinegar.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Sami checks in

Yes, I know there are lots of things to write about. And I'd love to push them all. But I have limited time and I have these weird strings that stretch back decades.

Samantha Crozier took the time to acknowledge the post written here.

I would like to start out by pointing out that The Telegraph got the name of one of her children wrong. Samantha and Lance Corporal Douglas (Andy) Crozier are the parents of Ethan and Caleb, two-years old and one-year old respectively.

I'm going to take a shot in the dark here, but I suspect that Samantha and Andy met while Andy was on a temporary duty to BATUS in Sheffield, Alberta.

Andy was subsequently posted to Germany and Samantha accompanied him. That was over four years ago. But Samantha had no reason to believe that the vagaries of the British immigration system would not allow her, as the spouse of a British serving member overseas, to household with him once he returned, on posting to the UK.

On returning to the UK, after both sons were born, Samantha, who was on a five year stamp approving her residency on a British overseas base, was told to apply for citizenship ... and that there would be no problem. (She paid 400 Pounds for this. Call it 1000 Canadian dollars).

Hey. She's family. She's the spouse of a British serving member of the REMEs.

No such luck.

The question is, how many ways can you spell B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.?

So, while her husband faces the prospect of cranking the fifth wheel off broken down Challenger tanks in Afghanistan, Samantha faces the prospect of being deported and leaving her two young children behind.

We could accept the line that if you were supposed to have a family the army would have issued you one, or we could get behind Samantha Crozier and insist that the circumstances demand a second and very critical look.

Samantha has a Facebook group. Sign in and support her.

I'm trying to think of a group that should be all over this. On the other hand, navels are much more interesting to them.

Hillary's glass house

But both Democrats are basically the same or so I thought until the last few weeks. I've never had much of a soft spot for Hillary Clinton, she always struck me as being a bit too interested in what was going to advance her career and how things looked rather than how they actually were -- her votes to support military action in Iraq being the obvious example. That said, I still thought she was a smart, capable politician's politician who would do a decent job as president, would do a lot to squelch the rampant sexism that exists in U.S. politics, and would inspire a generation or two of women to succeed and not accept glass ceilings and second-class status.

Having watched her campaign, I'm less keen on her and think she is more likely to be America's Margaret Thatcher. Undoubtedly she would be more than will to go to war to show that "just because she a woman it doesn't mean she isn't tough" much the way George Bush the first invaded Panama to prove he wasn't a wimp.

"But," I told myself, "at least she wouldn't be a stooge for the bible thumping bunch"

Well, not to get all conspiracy-theorist on you dear readers, but I was wrong about that too.

She hasn't said much about Obama's former ministers' remarks damning America for its treatment of blacks or McCain's pandering to the worst of the Christian Taliban. And now I know why.

And speaking of barking mad wingnuts...

Meet "Pro-life" a candidate for Governor in Idaho this year, and likely for any public office you care to name for the next 20 years. I guess you just call him "Pro" for short, though I expect most people refer to him as "that weird guy, you know, the one who's all 'abortion this' and 'abortion that' and 'abortionists hid my car keys' -- you know, that guy who's crazier than a shithouse rat, the one that keep running for office"

Maybe I should move to the U.S. become a citizen and run for office after changing my name to "Kick George W. Bush in 'Nads"? Waddya think?

Positioning Politicians . . . .

Via McClatchy today:

Is Lindsey Graham auditioning for VP?
James Rosen | McClatchy Newspapers - March 18, 2008

WASHINGTON — John McCain's trip to Europe and the Middle East was intended to make him look presidential. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., went with him.

Was he auditioning for a prominent post in a McCain administration?

Perish the thought, Graham said before leaving the country. "This will be the 19th (foreign) trip I've taken with Senator McCain since (2003)," said Graham, who has represented S.C. in the U.S. Senate since 2002.

"He's one of my closest friends in the Senate. I think I am someone who is a sounding board for him.

"I've been intricately involved in his campaign — a confidant, if you will. I very much admire him. He's got a lot of courage. My relationship with John is not dependent on a position."

Top.

Bottom.

Missionary.

Doggie-style.

Lindsey's OK with any position.

Good thing.

Hanging around in that repuglican crowd, versatility has to be a plus . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Samanatha Crozier has been told to get out of the UK...

Because she doesn't meet their immigration rules.

That's fair enough, I suppose. After all, Cozier is a Canadian. She's not entitled to become a UK citizen unless she goes through the process. Unless of course, there are extenuating circumstances. Let's see. What would be something significant?

The wife of a soldier faces deportation as her husband prepares to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Oh... fucking, OOPS!

Canadian-born Samantha Crozier, 23, has been given notice by the Home Office to leave the country by April 30, when her temporary visa expires after her application for British citizenship was refused.

Mrs Crozier, who has a British mother, Antoinette, claims their children, Ethan, two, and Celeb, one, will have to be put into care while her husband, Lance Corporal Andrew Crozier, is sent on a tour of duty after he completes training. Mrs Crozier says she has spoken to 15 other Army wives facing deportation.

Mrs Crozier moved to England with her husband, also 23, in October last year. She said MoD officials failed to tell her of the complicated procedure to become a British citizen.

Ethan and Celeb, who were born while her husband was posted to Osnabruck, Germany, were awarded full British citizenship and Mrs Crozier applied for a Status Stamp at the British embassy in Dusseldorf. The stamp allowed her to stay in Germany at the UK base for five years. She was stopped at Newcastle ferry port by Customs and Excise and advised to apply for citizenship. She said she was told that because she her husband was born in Northumberland her application would be successful.

That, apparently was one of the newest in famous lies.

However, Mrs Crozier received a letter last month, the day after her birthday, from the Home Office rejecting her application.

It read: "You have applied for leave to remain in the United Kingdom on the basis of your marriage to Andrew Douglas Crozier.

"However, the immigration rules direct that a person seeking such leave is to be refused if they do not meet the requirements set out in the immigration rules.

"This includes that the applicant has limited leave to remain in the United Kingdom other than where that leave is of six months duration or less. On 30 October 2007 you were granted limited leave to enter as a visitor for a period of six months from 30 October 2007 until 30 April 2008 therefore you do not meet the requirements.

"You are not entitled to appeal this decision."

Mrs Crozier, living in Bordon, near Petersfield, Hants, said: "We rang the MoD to tell them we were coming over and they gave us no advice other then to tell us to have a nice journey.

"I think it is disgraceful. I came here to start a new life with my husband and my two wonderful little boys. My husband is very patriotic and would gladly fight for his country but it seems his country won't fight for him."

Oh, how have I wanted to quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and now I can.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,
Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

Ah, yes. Those days when the nation was at war, but, well, not really. The army was in a far off distant land fighting, dying, living with the great blunders. Oh well. There was tea to be sipped and thick cream on cakes at High Tea.

What has changed?

Goddamn! The lot of the British soldier has always been a bad one, but to deny him his hearth, home and a loving wife, because she's Canadian and hasn't followed Queen's regulations for having conjugal relations with a loyal trooper?

Apparently nothing has changed.

Cannon fodder is cannon fodder. At least that's the way the British Home Office sees it.

Notwithstanding that the delightfully attractive Samantha will do much to elevate the the level of the British gene-pool, rules are, after all, rules. It's in the book!

Given that the British army is now begging for troops, it is perhaps a good time to make a few introductions.

Left hand meet the right hand.

I wonder if Samantha Crozier's husband will remain with the British army or if the treatment of his wife will result in further unforecast attrition?

This must be one of those "world stage" moments.

Hat tip reader Cat

Getting things done to...I mean, for Canadians, eventually

Only weeks after former Prime Minister Paul Martin went to visit, a deal may be in the works to get a suicidal Canadian woman out of a Mexican jail where she has been held for two years without trial. Responding to hundreds of angry letters and emails Steverino has finally pushed the Timbit trough aside and picked up the phone. There, see Steverino, it wasn't that hard, was it? As an expatriate, I'm glad to see "Canada's New Conservative Government" (tm) is so quick to leap to the defence of citizen jailed in foreign countries without trial on questionable charges.

At the going down of the Sun, and in the morning...

With condolences and respect to the family and friends of Sergeant Jason Boyles, 2^nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Killed due to enemy action.


It is with great regret that Sergeant Boyles' name is added to the regimental role led by Lance Corporal Norman Fry and Lance Corporal Henry George Bellinger.


Ric-A-Dam-Doo*


* The PPCLI is distinct in that the regiment has no official motto. Ric-A-Dam-Doo is the name of the regimental colours, the original made for them by their patron.

Fair Enough . . . .

From Reuters today:

IRS to start economic stimulus payments May 2
Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:05pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Internal Revenue Service said on Monday it would begin sending out the first of more than 130 million economic stimulus payments on May 2 and expects to complete the first round of payments by early July.

The IRS said the payments -- tax rebates of about $600 for most middle-income individuals and $1,200 for middle-income couples -- will be sent out in the order of the last two digits of the taxpayer's Social Security number. Taxpayers must file a 2007 tax return in order to receive a payment.

Let's see now.

The average Joe Schmoe gets $600.

The hedge funds, banks, lending institutions, financiers, etc., will no doubt get bailed out to the tune of billion$ or even trillion$ for their pie-in-the-sky shenanigans. Plus the CEO's of same keep their outrageous salaries,bonuses and options.

Sounds fair enough . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Storytime -- In the neighbourhood

We are neighbors.

I don't like you and you don't like me, in fact I punched you in the nose a month ago because your dog ripped open my garbage.
Now I'm convinced you've bought a gun and are going to kill me. You deny it, but I don't trust you. I threaten to beat you up if you don't turn over the gun. You claim you don't have one.

"Prove it" I say, "Let me search your house."
You grumble, and when I spend a long time searching your teenage daughter's underwear drawer, you get pissed off. I keep searching.
"I don't have a gun, I haven't kept guns in years" you holler.
"That's it!" I yell. "I'm not searching any more. I know you've got guns, you shot that moose back in '77 when we went hunting together."

Jacques from across the road and his boyfriend Hans and Ivan who lives over on the corner have come over now and are telling me to calm down, that they don't think you have guns and they don't think you'd use them if you did.

"Fuck you guys! That goddamned Biff LaDen kid broke into my house last week and stole my TV and kicked my dog. And he's the same age as your son who left the bag of flaming dog doo on my porch the week before. They're in cahoots. They're probably smoking crack in your basement right now!" I yell.

Jacques tells me to calm down, points out that the whole neighborhood hates the LaDen kid and that even his own parents disowned him and moved away, after I keyed their car and ran over their cat. He suggests letting the cops handle it if I really think you've got a gun. Stupid Frenchman, the cops won't do anything. They're useless.

"I hate the LaDen kid as much as anyone," you say "he kept calling my daughter, my son used to hang out with him, but I told him if I saw him even talking to that little psycho he'd be grounded for life."

"LIAR!" I'm screaming angry now. "I know you've got guns, you can't fool me! Just because I didn't find them doesn't mean you don't have them! I'll get you before you get me!"

That night, I burn your house to the ground.

That guy Tony up the street even gave me a gallon of gas, the suck-up. You die in the fire along with your youngest two kids. Your wife is badly burned, but you used to beat her so she should be glad you're gone. I gave her and your daughter a job in my topless bar. I park my truck in their front yard while they live in a rusty old roach-ridden trailer I rent to them that's parked in what used to be your backyard.

Someone throws eggs at my truck every once in a while, but its not like he's willing to confront me, the coward. I think its probably one of your other sons or nephews. I heard they were talking to that LaDen kid. Stupid punks--they don't scare me. I never did find the guns, but they must be here somewhere. Maybe they were buried in the yard, maybe not. I guess it doesn't really matter. The whole thing is so five years ago.

You know who bugs me these days? That Persian guy, Ahmawhatshisname, the guy who lived behind you that you used to argue with over the fence back when we were friends. Yeah, he pisses me off. I bet he's got a gun.

(with apologies to Terry Jones for stealing his metaphor, it's not plagarism, it's an hommage)

crossposted from the Woodshed

Harper channelling Monty Python

OTTAWA - The federal government has conducted an opinion survey to find out what Canadians think of, uh, opinion surveys.

Release of the polling data comes amid pressure on Ottawa to rein in spending on public opinion research.

The poll, Canadians' Preferences in Answering Surveys, was completed Jan. 31 by Ekos Research Associates for Public Works and Government Services.

The survey of more than 2,250 Canadians last fall found 45 per cent of respondents preferred telephone surveys over Internet or in-person questionnaires.

A Public Works spokeswoman could not immediately say how much the survey cost or why it was undertaken.

A summary of the results suggest the questions were asked as part of a long-running series of polls on information technology.

The Tories are promising to spend $10 million less on government polling in the next budget year.

In December, an independent investigator reported the Conservatives spent $31.2 million on public-opinion research in the 12 months leading up to a government-commissioned probe.

That's almost twice the $18 million a year the Liberals averaged on polling between 1993 and 2006.

Five years

There will be plenty of articles like this one this week. I hope to see some mass media mea culpas about the role of the press, especially in the United States, in beating the war drums on the neo-cons behalf, but I don't really expect to see any of them admit they were wrong about anything ever. The whole public argument for going to war was specious from the start. No one can prove a negative. You can't prove Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction beyond all doubt, even if you X-ray every inch of it. To people who are convinced something is so, will not be dissuaded it is not so, they will just invent ways the evidence supports their theory.

Georgie get your gun

"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."
"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

Thanks to all cocaine he did in his younger days, Dubya is blissfully unaware of his personal wartime service, bravely flying fighter jets over the Gulf of Mexico to protect Texas from the Viet Cong, at least when he wasn't too hungover to fly and could be bothered showing up.
And thank God he isn't a reader or consumer of popular culture over the last fifty years or he might have learned from books like Red Badge of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, Catch-22 or movies such as Apocalypse Now, Paths of Glory or Platoon that war is not romantic or glorious.

Luckily, Dubya hasn't talked to his own father or any other veteran about the difference between romance and stark terror, between glory and slaughter. Maybe his daddy could tell him about the romance of crashing your fighter plane into the ocean, or maybe John McCain could talk about the glorious times he had in the Hanoi Hilton. And those were fighter pilots, not the guys on the front lines where things explode and shoot back while you are struggling along in the rain and the mud and heat and cold on crappy food and sleeping in shifts in a hole in the ground and shitting in ziploc bags, if you're lucky.

Lucky, because if George and other morons in charge didn't think war and battle was romantic, glorious and the highest pursuit of manly men, we might have fewer wars. Whatever would the military-industrial complex do? How could governments justify spending billions on bullets and bombs and aircraft carriers and nuclear-tipped cruisemissiles while their people went without medical care and schools or in some cases even adequate food? Where would we be if it weren't for pointless conflict and needless bloodshed?

What would we do? Talk to each other? Settle disputes amicably in the United Nations? Share resources? Compromise? Perish the thought!

I'll grant him that being on the front line in a war is probably exciting. I'm lucky enough never to have had the experience, but I'd bet there is nothing like having people shooting at you and IEDs and car bombs going off to really get the heart rate up and the adrenaline flowing. Some people get so excited, they have a hard time calming down, even years later.

I'm sure just about any of the men and women on the front lines in Afghanistan and Greater Clusterfucktopia Iraq would be delighted to switch places with you. In fairness, I suppose we should point out that Bush said what he said about going to Afghanistan, proving that while he's stupid, even he isn't crazy enough to think there is anything good about going to the meatgrinder on the Tigris.

Sadly, No sums it up. If you have a strong stomach, Canadian Cynic has a romantic, exciting photo of the results of George's boundless appetite for adventure, but be warned, its pretty damned romantic -- lets just say that one soldier who won't be holding hands with his sweetheart anytime soon. I bet he'd have loved it if GI George had traded places with him a while back.

And people in the United States voted this crapulous dimwit into office repeatedly?


Crossposted from newly redesigned Woodshed

Poll vs pols, deep integration edition

In yesterday's Globe&Mail poll, 80% of 11,590 G&M respondants - at one vote per IP only - are not too keen on the whole deep integration "mutually beneficial public policy agenda" with the US thing. Yeah, us!

The poll was still open for voting , last time I looked.

And in a fortuitous coincidence, right across from that poll and linked on the same G&M page is an opinion piece from ubiquitous deep integration media darling Michael Hart and William Dymond, who proudly inform us they are "former officials involved in the negotiation first of the Canada-U.S. free-trade Agreement (FTA) and then of NAFTA".

You'll recall Michael Hart of Carleton U., a former official at Foreign Affairs and Int. Trade and sometime deep integration teacher at the North American University, from his February piece in the Natty Post : Canada blew it! :

"The crisis of Sept. 11, 2001, provided a perfect opportunity to seize the moment to re-imagine the border, but Canada blew it."

in which he bewailed the loss of this unique opportunity to implement "the structural and institutional changes of deep integration" because of "nationalist phobias". Silly us.

Perhaps you also recall his statement to the Int. Trade Committee on SPP in May last year :

"We have made a political choice that we wanted a more deeply integrated North American economy," Hart said. "That means a willingness on our part to, for example, strengthen the perimeter around North America in order to deal with security issues that are uppermost in American minds."

Good to know he was at least partly responsible for the NAFTA deal, huh?

In their new G&M piece, "The sabre-rattling on NAFTA is worrying, but take it as an opportunity", Hart and Dymond warn that "If our neighbours elect a Democratic president, Senate and House on Nov. 4, things could get ugly", but then take some comfort that, unlike Paul Martin whose relationship with the US was marked by "petulance and prickly self-righteousness", at least "the Harper government brought maturity and perspective".

Well ok then.

They then pose a number of questions to us, most notable for the facility with which they replace the word "Canada" with their preferred term, "North America" :

"What can we do together to promote our common interests in the security of the Arctic, the sustainable exploitation of Arctic energy supplies, and environmentally responsible navigation through Arctic waters?"

"What kind of legislative and other programs can we pursue in order to ensure long-term North American energy security?"

"What kind of institutional capacity do we need to have in place to facilitate and promote the governance of North American economic and security concerns and to ensure appropriate co-operation at the state/provincial and legislative levels?"

Gosh, Mike, Bill, I'm guessing your answer to the questions is whatever you quislings decide to call the next incarnation of the SPP, but our answer is right up there at the top in those G&M poll results.

Cross-posted at Creekside