Rants and Revelations

According to Lean Left » Drunken Lullabies, anybody who reads this is supposed to post an anti-war song on their own blog.

Recruiting Sargeant

Two recruiting sergeants came to the CLB,
for the sons of the merchants, to join the Blue Puttees
So all the hands enlisted, five hundred young men
Enlist you Newfoundlanders and come follow me

They crossed the broad Atlantic in the brave Florizel,
And on the sands of Suvla, they entered into hell
And on those bloody beaches, the first of them fell

Chorus
So it’s over the mountains, and over the sea
Come brave Newfoundlanders and join the Blue Puttees
You’ll fight in Flanders, and at Galipoli
Enlist you Newfoundlanders and come follow me

Then the call came from London, for the last July drive
To the trenches with the regiment, prepare yourselves to die
The roll call next morning, just a handful survived.
Enlist you Newfoundlanders and come follow me

Chorus

The stone men on Water Street still cry for the day
When the pride of the city went marching away
A thousand men slaughtered, to hear the King say
Enlist you Newfoundlanders and come follow me

Chorus x3

The Blue Puttees are the 1st Newfoundland Regiment, later given Royal assent as the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.

The song refers to Suvla, which was part of the Gallolipoli battle, which the ANZACs seem to think was their own private hell, but they also shared it with the 1st Newfoundland and a few British Corps. The “last July drive” part is a reference to Beaumont-Hamel, one of the more atrocious parts of the atrocity that was the Battle of the Somme. 800+ members of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment went over the top on the first day, and the next day 68 of them were still standing for roll call.

People laughed at the line in Braveheart where Longshanks refers to sending Irish troopers because they were cheaper than arrows. But there was at least a touch of that attitude still prevelent in the British Army officer corps in 1917. As my dad said a little while ago, if commanders tried that sort of thing today they’d be tried as war criminals by their own side.

- Dental surgery sucks. I got a temporary crown this morning. Between the numb mouth, the screeching of the drill and the feel of things being ground away inside you, or the two people with their hands in your mouth, one of whom is constantly telling you to open wider as your fight with all your mental might to not bite them and tell them to get the hell away from your mouth, there isn’t much to like. It’s four hours now, and I’m getting the feeling back in my mouth, but this temporary crown feels like a foriegn object in my mouth. At least it’s not cutting into my tongue the way the fragments of tooth were doing all weekend, but I probably bit my tongue a few times while it was numb.

- Canadian voters suck. It’s almost as if they’re afraid of insulting politicians they used to like, so they keep voting for the PM who gets more and more unpopular, but wait for him to retire and then vote his replacement out of office out of anger at the one who just retired. They did it to Trudeau/Turner, Mulrooney/Campbell, and now it looks like they’re going to vent their anger at Chretien’s arrogance and corruption on Paul Martin, who seemed like a pretty decent PM for a change. I’m just hoping and praying that Harper doesn’t get a majority, because he would be a giant step backwards for social liberalism in Canada. Plus, Canada is the only member of the G7 with a balanced budget, so why vote in a guy whose going to fuck with that to give giant tax breaks to the rich?

You know, there are times when I really miss living in Canada. Two examples from today:

Calling for my weather briefing for the flight home: Most briefers at the Buffalo AFSS read you the text, exactly as you get it from the computer yourself using DUATS (Direct User Access Terminal System), and read at approximately broadband speeds. If you get a better than average one, he might summarize all the local forecasts like “four to six thousand scattered to broken”, which is fine and a good time saver and short hand. I rarely get any insight or analysis. But every single time I talk to the briefers at Gatineau Flight Service, I get advice, I get analysis, I get exactly what I need. Today, I’d seen the TAFs showing the possibility of thunderstorms during the period, but only as temporary (TEMPO) or widely scattered. I looked at the Intellicast Northeast Radar Loop, and didn’t see any signs of these thunderstorms so I breathed a sign of relief. When I called for my briefing, the briefer told me what to expect (marginal VFR conditions, high ceilings but very low visibility in haze), and then he explained that when the TAFs were issued the forecasters were unsure about where the atmospheric instability was going, but it seemed to have dissipated and moved off north of Montreal, and in his opinion I wouldn’t have to worry about anything developing along my route during my flight. He twice asked me if I had any more weather questions. I couldn’t have asked for a better briefing, and while I could see the far off lightning on the Lance’s Stormscope on the way home, there was no evidence of any activity anywhere near my route.

The other example was listening to Cross Country Checkup on CBC radio. They were discussing a pretty controversial topic, the post release restrictions on Karla Homulka. My favourite Canadian expatriate, Maddy, hated Rex Murphy, but to me he’s what a radio host on a call in show should be. He took calls from “law and order” types who lamented the fact that Canada doesn’t have the death penalty, people who expressed a fond hope that she’ll be murdered after her release, all the way to people who felt that while it’s unfortunate that the police botched the investigation so badly that they had to make a deal with devil, but they made a deal with her and so it isn’t fair to impose further penalties after she served her sentence, either because the restrictions are a slippery slope that could lead to life-time restrictions on lesser and lesser crimes, or just because it would make it harder to make these sorts of deals in cases where the police really do need some cooperation to save lives. And with all these callers expressing all these varied views, Rex was polite, he found something to agree with them and amplify, and sometime to challenge with probing further questions. He gently kept them on topic and got them to say their piece and get off. He never yelled at anybody, he never shouted anybody down or cut off their microphones, he never insulted them or made disparaging remarks about them after they were off the show. Such a huge difference to the Air America show I heard on the drive home from the airport, or any other call in show on either left wing or right wing radio in America.

Today I had to explain how a filibuster works to the Republican woman mentioned in Rants and Revelations » Freedom from speech.

Will somebody please remove the feeding tube from Terri’s parents? They’ve lost 21 straight court cases now. Just fucking well give up already. Show a little decency towards the memory of your daughter, towards her grieving husband, and towards the rule of law.

I’ve been working on this Rants and Revelations » Statement of Principles page for a couple of days now. It’s sort of an enumeration of the things I believe, even the contradictory ones. I’m still working on it, so check back for updates. But check it out, I think it’s getting into a decent form.

There will be a permanent link to it under the “Pages” heading on the side bar of this blog.

I’m a Moonbat and I’m proud.

The CBC is having a series on “The Greatest Canadian”. I haven’t been following it, mostly because we don’t get CBC TV here in Rochester NY. (Yeah, we get two channels in Russian and one in Vietnamese, but the closest neighbour country, and one that speaks the same language as us? No way!)

Anyway, my pick for the Greatest Canadian would be Pierre Trudeau - Joe, the “I AM CANADIAN” guy in the beer commericals isn’t in the running. My dad probably wouldn’t agree with that, because I don’t think he ever forgave Trudeau for that time he did a pirohuette behind the Queen’s back. I know my western friends like Les never forgave him for the National Energy Plan and the time he gave the finger to protesters in Salmon Arm, B.C. In the last couple of years he was in power, I hated his arrogance - but that was before Mulroney and Cretien showed us just how arrogant a Canadian Prime Minister could get.
Continue reading ‘The Greatest Canadian’ »

1984 arrived 20 years late last night. It didn’t come with violence and guns and tanks, all it took was an unholy alliance between three things:

• a political party that will do anything to win, from lying to massive voter disenfranchisement, and which is so full of their own lies that they use “reality based” as a perjorative.
• a media that follows the orders of their owners, who know that they personally are better off even if the country and the world are considerably worse off under that political party.
• a public who swallows their lies and does what their told without thinking. A public that believes that one man is better on fighting terrorism even though it was his opponent that was fighting terrorism 20 years ago when he was snorting cocaine in Camp David, a public that believes that one man is a better war president even though it’s his sole and complete fault that we’re even in this war, that this war was entered because of his lies and every major decision he’s made on this war has been wrong, a public that thinks that because they got a $300 check a few years ago that they’re reaping the benefits of these tax cuts that are really only helping the incredibly rich (and whose economic policies are actually reducing their chances of becoming incredibly rich themselves).

I weep for America.

I wonder if I could get a job back in Canada.

On Saturday at Bay Creek Paddle Center’s end of year sale, I saw several people getting into or out of canoes and kayaks made by Swift Canoe & Kayak. It took a strong effort of will, but I didn’t refer to a single one of them as a “Swift Boat Veteran”.

New TSA Rule

Short summary - any non-citizen wanting any sort of flight training has to get TSA approval, and as well as the cost and hassle of getting the photos and fingerprints and stuff, there will be a several hundred dollar fee. Oh, and knowing the federal government, probably a 6 month wait for approval.

In spite of the fact that the Bush camp has turned the whole debate around to be about one set of probably-forged papers, one shouldn’t forget that the basic facts are not in dispute. And those facts are that Bush received a sweetheart deal because of his wealth and status, and then didn’t fullfil his committments, and then has had his proxies and surrogates lie and dissemble about this. Why does he get a by on his obvious lack of integrity and faithfulness to his comiittments from the majority of the press?

Air Force Times

Some highlights:

“I heard George Bush get up and say, `I served in the 187th Air National Guard in Montgomery, Alabama,’” retired Lt. Col. Robert Mintz said on camera. “Really? That was my unit. And I don’t remember seeing you there…”

“Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.” - That’s from Colin Powell’s 1995 book “My American Journey”.

WEINER WITHHOLDS “OUTRAGEOUS” ANTI-GENERAL AVIATION BILL IN HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE

This bill would have essentially outlawed general avaition. For one thing, it would have required the Department of Homeland Security to security screen general aviation flights - I could see them rushing out to put screening stations in all 18,000 general aviation airports in the country. And what about private airfields? And for what? To make sure my friends and family don’t threaten me with a box cutter when I’m taking them flying?

Another provision would have forbidden me from flying within 1500 feet of any structure or building. I don’t see any exemption for airport buildings. I wonder where I was supposed to land?

Oh, and it would have required all aircraft to remain in contact with the FAA (presumably by radio), regardless of altitude or location. Remember that 18,000 airport figure? Guess how many have control towers. About 600. Somehow I don’t see the FAA rushing out and building 17,400 control towers.

At lunch time today a group of us were having a political discussion. As usual the most anti-Bush of us were the most vocal. I say “anti-Bush” instead of “liberal” because one of the most vocal guys is a hard-core Republican who is ashamed that he’s going to have to vote for Kerry because Bush isn’t really a Republican, because of his record deficits and assault on the Constitution. Before the USA PATRIOT act, he and I got into very heated arguments about the purpose of government and who should be helping whom.

Anyway, today we had a woman joining us for lunch who used to eat with us, but stopped. And I think I see why. She’s a hard-core partisan Republican, and claims that Rob isn’t a Republican because he’s not voting for Bush, and Bush is the only person who can fight terrorism. I was trying to be fairly moderate to not make her too uncomfortable while she’s so out-numbered by people who disagree with her politics so completely. But then she turns to me and says “You shouldn’t even be talking”. “What?”, I asked. “You’re not a citizen, you can’t vote, so you shouldn’t even be talking.” I was flabergasted. I half expected her to tell me to “love it or leave it”.

Sorry, I was under the misapprehension that freedom of speech had only been drastically curtailed, not totally eliminated.