Category Archives: News and politics

We’re making no apologies for making very specific Christmas wishes to our readers.  Yes, we’re inclusive in that we recognize all the other holidays, including Kwanzaa, Diwali, Eid, Solstice, Hanukah and the worshipping of obscure Aztec deities associated with fertility or corn, but we happen to be Anglican in this house, so cut us some slack.  Inclusive cuts both ways, in that I include you and consequently you get to include me.

Whatever your particular belief set, we wish you peace, joy, health and prosperity now and through the coming new year.  If you have the time and the ability, share something with someone who needs it. 

Even if it is just a smile.

Merry Christmas.

A few months ago, back in warm, sunny June we wrote about a very disturbing change in the law in Ontario during the G20 wank-fest in Toronto.  You can read it here.  Short form, for a week the cops could demand ID and/or bust your ass if you were within 5 meters of the G20 security cordon.  The ‘probable cause’ was that you were within 5 meters of the G20 security cordon, nothing more.

Today our Premiere, Dalton “Sorry About That” McGuinty, came out and said that the Ontario government acted with good intentions when it cranked up an old WWII law used to protect courthouses and other public buildings from Nazi saboteurs in 1939. 

To quote the provincial ombudsman, Andre Marin. the government made a ‘premeditated, conscious decision” to give the police wartime powers and to keep the extra powers secret from the public.  We’re fairly certain that Doltboy McGuinty isn’t bright enough to come up with that kind of scam on his own.

Now, yes, the Premiere did overreact, but we’re reasonably certain he ran a two-hour Star Chamber to s-can our rights at the behest of, wait for it, the Federal Government, notably one Stephen, “Call me Stephen” Harper. 

Even the Federal Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews has said “Fooked if we did, check with boss at 2-4 Sussex.  I just keep the lights on and the pencils sharp around here.  G20 was a province thingy.  I’ll have to check with the PCO to make sure, but I’m pretty sure it’s a province deal.  Oooh can I have that shiny thing, mister?”

Will anyone resign over this?  Please don’t make me laugh, my lips are chapped.

This is a rewrite of a roaddave from July 2006, back when North Korea first started behaving badly. 

The North Korea – South Korea area has become one big ballgame, but we don’t actually know who is playing.  Consider this the equivalent of buying a program at the ballpark, so you can see the players and their stats.

Let’s look at the line-ups Ken!

North Korea has missiles that work well enough. They have a mammoth standing army with hundreds of artillery pieces pointed at South Korean targets all long the 38^th parallel, including the US forces that are doing the police action along the 38^th. North Korea might very well have a couple of nuclear weapons that they know work. North Korea also has submarines.

South Korea has missiles. Some of their own, but mostly US owned and operated missiles for defense. South Korea also has artillery pointed at North Korea. There is a significant US military presence in South Korea working the police action along the 38^th parallel. South Korea doesn’t have nukes, but they do have a couple of reactors at Ulsan. South Korea also has submarines.

China has missiles. They point a bunch of them at Taiwan. The deal is simple: If Taiwan declares independence from mainland China, the mainland will send a bucket load of badness at Taiwan. China also has much unpleasantness pointed at Russia. China has a huge army that can kick ass and take names. China has nukes, including submarines with nukes onboard.

Taiwan has missiles. Their stuff is mostly of ground to air and anti-ship missiles. Taiwan also has a decent air force to protect themselves from China. The US has been the purveyor of fine weaponry to Taiwan since 1948. Taiwan has all the primo gear the US makes. Taiwan doesn’t have nukes, but they do have submarines.

Russia has missiles. Most of them are pointed at China. Russia also has an army that can kick ass and take names. Russia has nukes including submarines with nukes onboard.

Japan has missiles. Most of them are short range air defense or anti-shipping missiles. They also have a 240,000 person self-defense force that has some good, US provided toys. Japan does have nuclear reactors, but no nuclear weapons. Japan has submarines.

The United States has missiles. A battle group is floating around in the area at all times including Aegis guided missile cruisers that could send rounds right into Kim Jong-Il’s second floor bathroom window in Pyongyang. The US has a big base in South Korea and a couple more in Japan. The US has nuclear submarines, with nukes, in the area.

Here’s the danger, aside from everyone in the area being armed: The Sea of Japan is not that big. You’ve got seven nations rolling around in there in ships and submarines, not to mention aircraft. Of those seven, three nations are somewhat sensible: Japan, South Korea and Russia.

I can’t believe I just wrote that Japan, South Korea and Russia are somewhat sensible, but compared to the other four, they’re like Switzerland on Valium.

The other four are bitter, twisted and looking to pick a fight with anybody. Somebody is going to either screw up or be deliberately provocative. There is historical precedence for this kind of dumb.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident saw a couple of US war ships being snotty off the coast of North Viet Nam in August 1964. North Viet Nam let off a couple of rounds at the ships as their own special way to saying ‘eff off’. That was all it took for Lyndon Johnson to go to Congress and get the Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed. That was the justification for escalation of the Viet Nam war by the US.

In 2005 the US released what really happened. The USS Maddox and the C. Turner Joy were shooting rounds into North Viet Nam from international waters. A North Vietnamese torpedo boat came out and let fly with a machine gun. One round hit the Maddox. The rest of the story regarding the Gulf of Tonkin incident was, to be generous, bullshit.

Will a submarine driver for any of the interested parties make a mistake and bump into someone else’s submarine? Would the various governments manipulate that into a “provocative, unwarranted attack on a sovereign nation in the free and open Sea”?

Would that be slim enough justification? For North Korea, it doesn’t take much to set them off. The US is wound a little tight. China operates in a state of perpetual panic regarding Taiwan. Taiwan has had their colour-code terror alert Pez dispenser pinned on red since 1948.

It won’t take much.

For the past week, Julian Assange, the proprietor of the whistle-blower site, WikiLeaks, has been tossing buckets of sensitive, secret and classified material out onto the web, for all to see.

We’re of two minds here:  First, releasing classified material is illegal and could be considered giving assistance to the Enemy.  That would be a near-textbook definition of treason in the US.  Except there is no declared “Enemy” unless you count the American people as one.  Ask Homeland Security about that will you? 

At the same time, it is illuminating and entertaining to see, in their own words, what the diplomatic corps has to say about various players and countries, as well as how the various departments work together.

It isn’t as if WikiLeaks is publishing the nuclear launch codes and the dial-in number to start World War III, nor are they releasing real-time troop dispositions, as that isn’t the kind of data they seem to have.  What WikiLeaks does seem to have is more than 250,000 diplomatic cables from around the world, wherein dips and other wankers speak what little they have left of their minds.

Yes, the revelations are embarrassing, (“Putin lets the Russian Mob run the country” or “Hugo Chavez is crazier than a shithouse rat”) but the revelations themselves are not what one would call “new”.

There are some leaks that demonstrate that things really are as bad as we feared.  For instance, US private security firms in Afghanistan hiring ‘dancing boys’ to entertain the workers.  We’re willing to bet a nickel that the cost of the dancing boys was billed back to the Afghani government and the US State Department at four times what was paid and accounted for under ‘sund. explns’ on the invoice.

What seemed to really press the buttons wasn’t that foreign contractors were buying children, but that the revelation might ‘endanger lives’ by embarrassing the Afghan Interior Minister, to the point where the Interior Minister was begging the US Embassy to quash the story.  So far, one can’t quite tell how contractors buggering children will cause American soldiers to die, other than the Interior Minister will be so shocked that the truth has come out, that he loses it and sells US troop distributions to the Taliban. 

Perhaps the simpler answer is that the contractors start to behave like grown-ups.  No story, no threat to lives, move on.

As for the candid comments about world leaders?  The illumination by WikiLeaks is almost entertaining.  This is what is known as diplomatic shame and the more the dips go red-faced, the happier we should be.  It shows us regular folks that the diplomatic corps are such bald-faced liars and reality stylists that we should check two watches and call the speaking clock to confirm what any dip says if we ask them for the correct time.  Incidentally, do you think these diplomats are making $5.65 an hour?  Do you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth now?

Absolutely, the WikiLeaks are showing the diplomatic corps and their various subjects to be corrupt, venal, intellectually deprived, morally vacant, thieving, power-mad, douchebags who have to be physically restrained from trying to either buy or fuck the crack of dawn. 

All WikiLeaks is doing is confirming exactly what we’ve suspected for years.  Our leaders haven’t a clue and they don’t care about anything except their own image and fattening their wallets.

It isn’t news and it isn’t new.

Now that the media is distracted by the retail hand puppet that is Black Friday, we can look back at the TSA Feel-Me-Up Game and see how we did.  It flopped.  However, through an amazing coincidence, Boston Logan only had lines open to the usual metal detectors, instead of the the ‘nude’ scanners. 

Despite some furious backpedaling by the TSA, those who did go through the effort to opt out got appropriately felt-up.  One female passenger got an object lesson in feminine hygiene products from the TSA when she was confronted with a pat-down.  Other groups, like pilots are also bent about the system.  This link is a good article from the NYT.

At the same time, it came to light that a TSA mook at Atlanta has been accused of abducting and sexually assaulting a woman.  He had previous convictions for harassment and stalking, which didn’t disqualify him from becoming a TSA screener.

We’re also not going to mention the gloves the screeners use.  Unlike any other barrier protection device in medical use, the TSA fondlers only change gloves when they want to, not when you want them to.

That’s OK, because at least one media outlet has picked up on what makes sense regarding screening and it’s CNN.  We’ve banged this drum before on roaddave as far back as October 2006. 

The answer is you have to use people to solve a people problem.  At the core, terrorism is a people problem, in that there are people who want to cause mayhem for whatever reason, using aircraft as their stage or weapon.  The Israeli airline El Al does this as a matter of course.  It is intrusive and takes trained, well-paid, intelligent agents with a lick of common-sense, but it works. 

Isn’t that what we really want?  Working, sensible, as-secure-as-possible air travel? 

Omar Khadr, the only Canadian-born detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has been handed a 40-year sentence.  The backstory is long and controversial.  Khadr was 15 when he was engaged in a firefight with US troops in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002.  Evidence was presented that Khadr threw a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer. 

We’re going to dodge around the child-soldier issue as Khadr met the UN definition of a child-soldier and despite that, has been tried as an adult. Canada is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.  The US, is not.

We’re also going to dodge around the culpability Khadr might have, as I wasn’t there and neither were you.  There has been too much written by third party sources who weren’t there, have never spoken to the parties involved and who wouldn’t know which end of a weapon is the nice end and which is the unpleasant end.  Political axe grinders?  We can hear plenty from them.

Yes, Omar Khadr pled guilty to the charges last week.  He did it to get a deal.  The deal was for his eventual release and repatriation back to Canada, so he had to fib, otherwise he’d be in Gitmo for the next forty years.  Unlike nationals from Australia, the UK and other countries who were held in Gitmo by the US in the Evildoers of the Axis of Evil Doers Axis post 9/11 roundup, Canada has never asked the US to send Khadr back to Canada to face trial here.  The US has sent several dozen Gitmo Guests back to their homeland because the US knew they had no hope in hell of getting a conviction. 

Except with Omar Khadr, the US knew that our Prime Minister, Stephen “Call me Stephen” Harper, was (and still is) such a p-whipped Dubya-wannabe that Canada wouldn’t dare ask for repatriation.  Harper didn’t disappoint.

The US military panel of three female and four male US Military officers returned their decision this afternoon, saying, despite the plea deal brokered with the prosecution, that Khadr should get 40 years.  Khadr has already served eight years at Gitmo and the deal was for eight more.  Khadr will be eligible to apply for transfer back to Canada after one more year in the jug.

It would seem that the best the US Military Judicial System can do is to force a child soldier into a a bogus plea bargain to pay for US soldiers killed in action.  And don’t forget, someone has to pay for the “Mission Accomplished” banner and carrier landing on the TR.

Here’s the final, telling point:  Although more than 1,200 US troops have been killed in Afghanistan, only one detainee has been charged and put on trial.  That would be Omar Khadr.  The rest have walked.

An interesting little factoid dropped out of the ether yesterday, here.  For those too lazy to click on a link, here’s the short form:  It’s been a year since Ontario banned drivers from using cellphones and other handheld electronics behind the wheel, while driving.  Ottawa Police say they issue about 400 tickets a month to distracted drivers who often appear impaired, swerving across lanes, braking oddly, or sometimes even swerving into oncoming traffic.

Let’s see, some math here:  400 tickets, divided by 30 days is 13+ tickets a day, more or less.

Some other math, again simple math for those like me who are numerically intolerant:  30 miles per hour is the same as 44 feet per second. Divide by 3, as one-third of a second is the median reaction time of an attentive driver reacting to something while driving.  Not braking, but just seeing it and having the brain go Oh, perhaps I should stop before I run over that nun. That would be about 14 feet in round numbers.  Now add another 2.5 seconds to move the feet, apply the brakes and come to a rapid, but not panic, stop.  44 times 2.5, plus 14 gives us 124 feet, or just around 42 yards. 

An obvious need, an attentive driver, in a non-panic, buried-in-the-ABS-stop of a car going 30 miles per hour takes just under a half a football field to accomplish.

Since most people don’t drive 30 miles per hour in the city, except during rush hour, you can ramp up the math yourself.  45 miles per hour is 66 feet per second, 60 miles per hour is 88 feet per second and so on.

Now, add an extra two seconds to the reaction time, as the attentive driver is fiddling with his or her cellphone, trying to tweet that he’s got a Chicken Double Down from KFC that he’s almost finished eating.  Scratch that, add another four seconds to reaction time.  Maybe five or six seconds. 

We are now out into the realm of our mythical Nun, (Sister Mary Ignacio of Our Lady Of Perpetual Motion) not only being run over by one car, but quite possibly the other cars following, plowing into the first car, after clipping Sister Mary’s body a second, third or fourth time

The simple math of a known constant (44 feet per second equals 30 miles per hour) and a clueless hump trying to text, call or tweet on a cellphone has done for Sister Mary.  Odds are that our clueless hump will post to his Facebook that he’s in an ambulance because the fecal-matter for brains behind him ran into the back of his stopped car, after he inadvertently had a nun jump off the sidewalk, intent on martyrdom and got slammed into by an idiot on a cellphone in a truck and now he’s got whiplash.

To be concise about it, do not use your cellphone for anything while you are driving your car.  That means texting, posting, answering email, answering a call, listening to voice mail or even changing the wallpaper on your screen.  Nothing. 

Is that really so hard to understand? 

There’s no way around it, except to say that the former commander of Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Trenton, Col. Russell Williams is a very unwell individual.  The Crown (the DA in Americanese) has listed the particulars of the 88 charges that Williams has pled guilty to and the particulars are revolting. 

If you feel obligated here’s the link, but we’ll caution you now, the specifics are disturbing in so many ways at so deep a level that we’re not sure we ever want to read them again.  If you don’t get into the particulars, you can still keep up with the posting, as we’re not really into the specifics of his crimes.

The question, and this posting, is more about the Monsters Among Us.  There have always been, for the lack of a better term, Monsters in our society.  One could argue that Vlad The Impaler, or Vlad Dracula, was one of the first recorded, historical Monsters, whose predilection for over-the-top savagery were recorded for all time.  Even deducting half for distortion through the lens of oral history and various colourations of friends or foes recording events, Vlad Dracula was a Monster. 

The list can include participants in the Crusades, various wars, police actions, insurrections, invasions, political machinations, purges, pogroms and punishments, meted out since we started recording history.  Usually that list of Monsters includes those who are called war criminals, or who commit crimes against humanity.  

Then there are the lone Monsters, like Ed Gein, Ted Bundy or the Green River Killer.  The ones who slip through the cracks, who when caught, we see their neighbour on TV saying “He was a quiet guy who kept to himself, but he was always friendly.”  Those are the real Monsters who elicit our real fear because they have lived among us, hiding in plain sight.

We can’t actually know all the reasons someone becomes a Monster.  Even though the best minds in psychiatry have studied their crimes, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, we still come up without a good answer. 

Straight up crazies, we can figure out:  Voices in their head said kill Brian because the particular perpetrator had serious neurochemical imbalances that produced the craziness that let someone step over that line from merely hearing voices to acting on the things the voices were saying.  We’re not going to condemn the legitimately unwell, as it isn’t actually their fault.  The Monsters though?

The test is; does the perpetrator know what they are doing is wrong?  Are they consciously breaking significant societal taboos because they want to, need to, or like to?  Another aspect of the Monster test is their attitude to their actions:  Is it a game of Catch me if you can, with the highest possible stakes?  That was a goodly piece of Ted Bundy:  He thought he was smarter than everyone else, especially the police. 

Here’s where things get murky.  What is the philosophical difference between someone who kills people for the power dynamic thrill of taking a life and someone who kills people because their victims are worthless and the killer has been assured that he will get a reward in the afterlife?  One is a thrill-seeker and one is a religious zealot.  Both are killers.  One ran a pig farm in British Columbia and one flew a plane full of passengers into the World Trade Center.  Is the motivation, or the timeline a defining factor in making the determination of a Monster?

We do know that with our highly interconnected, hypernews-immersed society, we hear about the Monsters faster, with more detail and more depth than we want.  This is a price we pay for being more connected. 

We’ll postulate a theory here:  The percentage of Monsters through time is a constant number per capita, from hunter-gatherer days in the trees, to today.  There have always been that one out of several hundred thousand who, to use a colloquialism; “Just ain’t right.” 

Col. Russell Williams looks like he’s going to join that list.