Monday, July 03, 2006

Internet Spying


Not to be left out; The Tories approved internet monitoring by the Canadian Security State after Bush had done so in the U.S., the Chinese join in. And with all the right reasons, just like their American and Canadian counter parts.

China launched a campaign in February to "purify the environment" of the Internet and mobile communications, Xinhua said.




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Stanway's Sombre Reflection on Somme

Edmonton Sun editor Paul Stanway gives serious sobre reflection on the importance of the battle of the Somme for Canadian military strategy.

Ninety years on, losses remembered Sun, July 2, 2006

Despite the loss of life, the meaning of the Somme was lost on Haig (who considered it a victory) and British newspapers that hailed it as a triumph (as did the Toronto Star). Its meaning was not lost on the troops, who called the Somme a name that is unprintable here. Nor was it lost on Arthur Currie, the commander of the 1st Canadian Division who was horrified by the slaughter.

Currie, tubby and unathletic, was an unlikely battlefield commander. Yet by the time his troops arrived on the Somme in August, the 42-year-old former B.C. teacher and realtor had already formed strong opinions about the string of suicidal frontal attacks that had already cost thousands of Canadian lives.

When Currie was asked to plan an attack on heavily defended Vimy Ridge, he did everything Haig had not done before the Somme. The four divisions of the Canadian Corps trained throughout the winter on a recreation of the Vimy battlefield behind their own lines. Enormous tunnels were built to deliver men and equipment to the front out of sight of the Germans on the overlooking ridge.

And having seen the fiasco of the Somme artillery barrage, Currie had his officers develop new tactics that would cover the Canadian advance and concentrate on destroying enemy strong points and guns.

The result, on April 9, 1917, was perhaps the most significant Allied success in three years of war. New fuses meant shells actually destroyed the German wire, and the meticulously timed barrage kept the enemy troops in their shelters until the Canadians were virtually on top of them. Three-quarters of the German guns were silenced before the attack even began, and instead of massed ranks of slow-moving infantry, Currie's men attacked in platoons, moving rapidly from one objective to the next.

Vimy was the anti-Somme, and established the Canadians' reputation as the most effective Allied troops. Currie was knighted and became commander of all Canadian soldiers in France. In the fall of 1918, his Canadian Corps would use its new tactics to lead the final Allied assault of that dreadful war, to eventual victory.

Our greatest military strength has not been our Airborne, nor our Sea or Airforce, rather it has been our engineers.

And the Somme gave them the model of both what to do and what not to do when it came to taking Vimy Ridge.

Ironically it was a very real Colonel Blimp, Arthur Currie, who would devise the solution to taking the ridge that had cost so many lives.

It was an engineering problem, the seige, as it has been since the middle ages. All forteified warfare is an engineering problem.


One of the most important functions of the Sappers during the war was to dig tunnels underneath enemy trenches, with which to plan explosives to destroy them. At the Battle of Vimy Ridge, several such mines were used to win the battle.Canadian Military Engineers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


And the Canadian Engineering Corp gets little recognition that it is due for its feats during both wars.



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Sunday, July 02, 2006

Alberta Is Republican Lite

The Edmonton Journal editorial board is shocked to discover Alberta is a Republican Province. Just like California. If they had read this blog they would have known that.

WHO KNEW ALBERTA WAS REPUBLICAN PROVINCE?

Many Edmontonians were probably as surprised as U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney last week to hear Ralph Klein describe Alberta as Canada's "Republican province," and to discover that the Alberta premier believes a trip to our oilfields would help American Republicans win extra votes in this November's midterm elections.

But Republican? Not so much, Cheney could have told his guest during our premier's visit to the American capital last week.

Heck, Alberta's government even tolerates same-sex marriages, albeit grudgingly. From the point of view of a lot of the so-called Republican base, Alberta's premier probably looks more like a dangerously liberal, big-government Democrat.

Actually he acts just like Schwarzenegger and that other Californian Ronald Reagan, a populist, all things to all people and just a regular guy.

One is an actor the other
is a former TV weatherman.

Hmmm does that sound like a conspiracy theory media/hollywood produces media savvy politicians.


















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Wrong!



A comment from last year. When oil was at $55 dollars U.S.

Analyst Fadel Gheit of Oppenheimer & Co in New York compared behaviour in the oil market to the run-up in Nasdaq stocks that ended five years ago. "The higher oil prices go, the closer we get to bursting the bubble," Mr Gheit said. "At some point the circuit-breaker will kick in and the price will come down. I would not be surprised to see oil come back to $US30."
Analysts warn oil gusher is volatile
By Simon Romero in Houston
March 16, 2005



I wouldn't trust this guys investment advice, better to use the magic ball that tells
you yes/no.

Today oil is at the record above what it was in 1981!

Oil rose to nearly $74 a barrel on Friday, within sight of record highs, on a positive outlook for oil demand and economic growth in the US, the top consumer.Reuters



While gas prices rose at the pump prior to the long weekend, as usual, the apologists for big oil say thats supply and demand. Not so!

"We are in the mode where the fundamentals of supply and demand really don't drive the price," Lee Raymond, the chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, the world's largest energy company, said last week.



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The Myth of the NEP


I have said this before about the phoney hysteria around the NEP and its impact on Alberta and others have disputed my claim, so sad too bad. The truth is still the truth. Nice to see it confirmed by an independent source.

Re-inventing the NEP

Larry Johnsrude looks at the memory of the National Energy Program in the Conservative race.

The fact is the NEP did drain more than $1 billion from Alberta. But it also coincided with the drop in world oil prices to about $8 US a barrel from over $40. The two are inextricably linked in peoples’ minds, and Conservative politicians have done nothing to change the perception the NEP somehow caused the world price to tumble.Many of the economic benefits Alberta is seeing now are the result of the NEP’s promotion of non-conventional energy sources such as oil sands, heavy crude and off-shore oil.

Also See:

Living In The Past


Nationalize the Oil Industry


It's Time to Take Back Our Oil and Gas


Corporate Welfare for Big Oil


Dark Prince of Oil Decries Dark Side of Oil


Alberta's Tar Sands Gamble




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Pro-Life Pro-Death


Thought I would add a few of my posts to the Canadian Blog Exchange topic Pro Life since Syncategorematic noted this posting space has become a spam spot for one view and one blog.

So riddle me this what is both pro-life and pro-death?

Why the average Christian right winger. Who, if they are American or wannabe Americans (like Michael Coren), hate Canada for our libertarian position defending a womans right to choose.

Libertarian, something that many Blogging Tories and Conservatives claim to be but aren't. Cause they are inconsistant. Libertarianism is an outgrowth of classical liberalism, which is the very political ideology the right wing hates.

For consistency on the right see Anti-War.com



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Coren Hates Canada

Gee what was that red neck saying during the Viet Nam era, oh yea Love It or Leave It.

Mujahideen Coren sounds like the wives of the Ontario Terrorists, with his shrill anti-Canadian rantings on Canada Day; Our home and naive land


Hey Coren, if America is sooooo much better go there.

Canada Day. Denial Day. Complacency Day. A day for playing with fireworks while the country burns. Wave the flag. Wave a cloth adorned with a piece of vegetation in the colours of the Liberal Party, one with little tradition and less meaning.No. Many Canadians remember the great emblem that once adorned our dominion, containing the cross, the symbol of ancient and eternal wisdom and truth.

And it just gets more shrill and bitchy as self hating Queen Coren rants on.

Remember what I said yesterday about the neo-conservatives who are more tradtionalists than their forebearers. Crapulous Coren hoists that old canard about the Canadian Flag being a Liberal Flag. Which by the by is the same rant that this guy used to go on and on about.


Also See:

Historical Revisionism


Gun Nutz




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A Day Late


Better late than never as the saying goes, it appears Google missed Canada Day by a day. They didn't have this up yesterday on Google.ca but lo and behold up it pops today, July 2.

Of course they will not do the same thing on their American home page on July 4, that is miss America's birthday.Nope the s*** would hit the fan.

Just another example of branch plant mentality from our southern neighbours who own the Internet and it's companies.


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Saturday, July 01, 2006

The Best Laid Plans


Today is not only Canada Day but the 90th Anniversary of the battle of the Somme. A battle which saw the Royal Newfoundland Regiment all but wiped out.

A day of infamy later to be repeated at Dunkirk and Dieppe by the Imperious Colonel Blimps of the British Command who viewd their colonial troops as expendable.

Just as they had at Gallipoli where the Royal Newfoundland also fought.

Blogger Galloping Beaver remembers this fatal day.

While most of Canada celebrates Canada Day, in one province this date holds a different significance. In Newfoundland, this is Memorial Day, a commemoration of one of the greatest human disasters to ever befall that independent British dominion. On this day 90 years ago, the armies of the British Empire, along the line of the Somme River in France, stepped out from the cover of their trenches and into one of the worst slaughters in military history. The infantry assault against the German positions on the Somme started just after breakfast on the 1st of July, 1916. By sunset of that day, approximately 60,000 Allied troops had fallen - 20,000 of them killed - something which remains a one-day record of losses to this day. The armies of the British Empire were led by perhaps the most incompetent generals the British army has ever produced. General Sir Douglas Haig, a cavalry officer, planned the Somme
Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial - Veterans Affairs Canada

Bronze Caribou

  • Of the five memorials established in France and Belgium in memory of major actions fought by the 1st Battalion of the Newfoundland Regiment, the largest is the thirty hectare site at Beaumont-Hamel, nine kilometres north of the town of Albert. This site commemorates all Newfoundlanders who fought in the Great War, particularly those who have no known grave. The site was officially opened by Field Marshal Earl Haig on June 7, 1925.


It would be battles like the Somme that would instill in the German soldiers the belief that they could have defeated the allies in WWI and the German High Command had betrayed them. It was this belief that led to the formation of the right wing military FreiKorps after WWI and their heirs the Nazi's.


Also See:

The Vimy Myth


Christmas in the Trenches


WWI Xmas Mutiny


Support Our PeaceMakers



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Religious Hate In Canada



On Canada Day, which the Blogging Tories true to the neo-tradition of their Protestant, Union Jack, Queen and Imperialist British origins like to call Dominion Day, it is important to note there are those in Canada of a religious fundamentalist background that hate our country.

And its not just Muslim women, as the Globe and Mail tries to foist on us this week in their series
Hateful chatter behind the veil

One can find the same hatred of civil society and social democratic Canada, not only in the rantings of the wives of those Ontario Muslims recently arrested as terrorists, but by simply checking out some right wing conservative blogs and websites.

Ms. Farooq's criticism is often directed first at other Muslims. When another poster writes about how he finds homosexuality disgusting, Nada replies by pointing out that there are even gay Muslims. She then posts a photo of a rally held by Al-Fatiha, a Canadian support group for gay Muslims. "Look at these pathetic people," she writes. "They should all be sent to Saudi, where these sickos are executed or crushed by a wall, in public."


Gee not unlike comments that can be found here.

In late April of 2004, a poster asks the forum members to share their impressions of what makes Canada unique. Nada's answer is straightforward."Who cares? We hate Canada."

Yep and so does the right-wing, both share a knee jerk reaction to liberal social democracy.


"Are you accepting a system that separates religion and state?" she asks. "Are you gonna give your pledge of allegiance to a party that puts secular laws above the laws of Allah? Are you gonna worship that which they worship? Are you going to throw away the most important thing that makes you a muslim?" Ms. Jamal's list of forbidden institutions goes beyond politics. Banking, membership in the United Nations, women's rights and secular law are all aspects of Canadian society she finds unacceptable.


Sounds like she is a member of Real Women, or a columnist for the Western Standard. In fact her hatred of the UN is shared by the ultra-right in the US.

All patriarchical monotheistic religions are bigots they hate the laws of man since they only believe in the laws of their God.

Women are the backbone of most churches, synagogs, temples, etc. Religious women are conservative in politics, they are the root base of the movements against choice be it abortion, childcare, same sex marriage, etc. They are the real force behind not only the veil but the bigotry of religious extremism.

The reason is simple, while women on the whole are more spiritual than men as studies show, politically
the number of women who are liberal in social attitudes out numbers their more fundamentalist sisters.

Those that lead these right wing movements are a minority whose screeching is out of proportion to their number. Hence the vehemence and hatred they show their opponents; real or imagined.

The Globe and Mail series merely exposes that fundamentalist muslims share much in common with their contemporary conservative religious fundamentalists of other patriarchical monotheistic faiths.



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