Who hasn't uttered something untoward at some point? Something that, if the words are taken literally, contain an ominous meaning.Balbulican raises a good point. Perhaps Flanagan was speaking in outrageous exaggeration.But, I don't think so. Despite his scramble to retract his statement the following day, I believe that has more to do with external pressure more than his conscience. He certainly didn't explain himself thoroughly enough nor offer enough contrition to satisfy me. He attempted to pour too little water on a fire of his own making.I've watched the CBC video several times. …
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There is a new way to spell asshole. …
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Expanding on Boris' excellent post I would suggest readers take in the analysis of Wikileaks and the assessment of the moral standards of some of the critics by Glenn Greenwald. Yes, they're both long, but that's Glenn simply laying out a thoroughly compelling case. It demonstrates that the likes of Tom Flanagan uttering calls for Julian Assange's assassination are not isolated. Further than that, Glenn guts the Flanagan camp with one stroke. Flanagan would like Assange assassinated for dumping so-called state secrets into the public square and putting some individuals at risk. Yet that same …
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Federal Tories take 2 byelections, Liberals 1There were no "Tories" running. They were Harperites. Surely the CBC can tell the difference. …
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I hope you can leave without shit on your lips.The only role you are allowed to have, and I mean allowed, is to be the defender of the democratic functions of all British Columbians.You have failed to protect both the rights and the functions of democracy. Leave with dignity and the ability to rework your CV or we'll tear you to pieces.You have a rough 48 hours. I'm not kidding. …
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Belated condolences and respect to the family and friends of Captain Frank Paul, 28 Field Ambulance, assigned to JTF-Afghanistan Health Services Unit. Capt. Paul was on active service, on a Home Leave Travel Assistance visit, when he succumbed to an illness on 10 February, 2010.Capt. Paul is being officially recorded as a casualty of the Afghanistan mission.Militi Succurrimus …
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The inimitable TBogg plays a holiday classic for US Thanksgiving. It's got everything: blood, gore, supporters of North Korea and a latte. That brings up something else. Palin is being dismissed far too easily by far too many as a contender for the US presidency in 2012. That she's an ongoing train wreck is almost irrelevant. She may be a horror story but she's a horror story to both the Democrats and the Republicans.I had been curious about what it was she was trying to set up with all the celebrity fame-whoring and I can only come back to "name recognition". That plays a bigger part in …
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Once upon a time there were three sub-lieutenants and a midshipman in HMS Ark Royal. Last night at sea after a long deployment, an OOW notebook filled to the last page and the "last day crazies" start to set in.Why wouldn't you want to join The Andrew after that. …
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Then their professor, Richard Quinn, took his University of Central Florida class to lunch. Out of a class of 600 business students over one-third have admitted to cheating on the course mid-term exam.Hat tip NewsHoggers …
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And in November is when someone pulls the pin. It's when the hillbillies in Harper's office get caught with their pants around their knees. Something happens that they weren't prepared for and they have to resort to drastic measures to save their own asses.It is now tradition. Harper will do something to further erode the conventions of Canadian democracy to serve his own needs. We are in very real peril of having some bloody-minded little prick like Harper turn Parliament into the Government's whore.This past week, it was the unelected Conservative senators audaciously killing a …
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Happy Thanksgiving to friends in the states. Remember... the TSA wants you to piss on their hands.Driftglass is running an American Thanksgiving Classic today. …
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Palin - no book in sightSure. That's why she quit halfway through her term as governor. So she could spend more time reading. Palin became testy when I asked her about the books I heard she had been reading. "I've been reading since I was a little girl," she snapped. "And my mom is standing 15 feet away from me, and I should put her on the phone with you right now so she can tell you. That's what happens when you grow up in a house full of teachers -- you read; and I always have. Just because -- and," she continued, though in a less blistering tone, "I don't want to come across sounding …
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Torontoemerg has found one I can really get into.(If sex makes you squeamish, you shouldn't be here) …
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Not an air superiority fighter and not an interceptor. As MoS points out, the marrying of tactical nukes with the developing F-35 Lightning II, which the Harperites are all orgasmic about, is one of the roles initially intended for the F-35. As his post mentions, it's quite a package. In terms of Canadian military doctrine, it's also very strange. This is the apex of Cold War thinking. The F-35, described as a multi-role fighter, is viewed by the US military as having a role outside homeland defence. Despite the yammering of the likes of "military genius" Dimitri Soudas and his cheerleading …
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I'm not a serious "royal watcher" so I'm easily described as "out of touch" with L'affair Windsor. However, you'd have to be living under a rock to have missed the Prince William/Kate Middleton engagement news... since it was on the front page of anything calling itself a daily newspaper.I know some people love the fuss. I don't, but I am getting a strange feeling about the whole thing.Jill nails it. ... this poor girl is going to be compared for the rest of her life to the most sainted mother ghost in recorded history. …
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Laila Yule has done all the heavy lifting on this one. When a company named Transtoll is awarded a contract on the Sea to Sky highway, you can bet it isn't to carry out line painting.In fact, the wholly owned subsidiary of Macquarie Atlas Roads, a part of Macquarie Group, has a single focus - tolls ... and how to collect them.So...  the BC Ministry of Transport has continually denied that there are shadow tolls on the Sea to Sky highway. Perhaps then, the ministry (and the minister) can explain this June 2010 (post-Olympics) news release from the company itself. Dan Toohey, Executive Vice …
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Says the grifter. I have an idea. Let's charge the hilarious Mr. Baird with treason. He seems to believe, along with his hillbilly superior, that the only way for anything is the American way and our parliamentary democracy is a mere trifle to be gamed. That's an affront to Canadian sovereignty and Baird promotes it.Any problem with that John... you fucking loudmouthed asshole? …
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This post is for our good friend JJ. Get well very soon. We miss you. …
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It should have permanently silenced its presses after Nixon resigned. No. I'm not joking. …
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You're only as good as the good you can do.If you're an ombudsman, that means you weigh the complaint with the knowledge that you are the only door through which the complainant feels safe to pass. But if the complainant doesn't believe he/she is going to get a sympathetic ear, they'll find another way to make their case and it probably won't end well for you. You, Guy Parent, may decide not to be vocal, but I suspect veterans won't sit by and abide a silence which results in nothing. We do, after all, come from long careers in a "results" oriented mob. Whatever your methods, veterans expect …
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The airhead Alaskan who was too incompetent to govern the 4th least populous state in the U.S. and thus had to quit, has had someone produce some new wingnut literature for her. (Small words, short sentences, lots of pictures and a free box of Crayola 48)TBogg explains. …
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And you thought the crop of British upper-class schoolboys were going to be allowed to take the first prize in the Wackford Squeers clone contest. No, it looks like that prize is going to go to those freedom loving crazy kids south of the 49th.It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, …
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Well, well. It looks like the Harperites have made a decision and they may have grabbed a tiger by the tail.A retired chief warrant officer has been named Canada's new veterans ombudsman. Guy Parent replaces the outspoken Pat Stogran, a retired colonel who led a high-profile — and controversial — campaign to improve benefits for veterans.Parent was Stogran's director of investigations and worked in the military ombudsman's office for nine years before that. He is a 37-year Canadian Forces veteran.This should be interesting. I know Guy Parent very, very well. He's no shrinking violet. …
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Sue J has one helluva point. Watching the US elections it makes one wonder what people are thinking. Everyone wants to see the economy improve and for governments to stop spending money they don't have. Easy answer to that? Stop going off and engaging in conquer projects that will ultimately result in nothing.In the meantime, soak the picture in. This is what a soldier looks like after stepping on an IED. All you've ever been shown is what they looked like before they ever set foot in the AO: Beret on properly, clean combat clothing, solemn face but no excruciating agony. Lose your poppy? Buy …
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Ever wonder why there are no tolls put on the Olympic legacy known as the Sea to Sky highway?There are tolls. Campbell promised them to his big business buddies. And we're paying them. But what you may not know is that at least one journalist reported back in the early days of the Sea to Sky project that the BC Ministry of Transportation was spending money, ($166 million), gained from the sale of BC Rail to fund phase 1 of the highway project. Think about that for a minute.Campbell promises that he won't sell BC Rail, then, suddenly, while falsely claiming that BC Rail was a money-losing …
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For admitting to killing an invading soldier in a firefight. As a child soldier.From Ian Welsh:Others have covered this more than I have, but to me the initial charges were always absurd.  He killed a soldier in a firefight in a country that the US invaded.  The idea that doing so qualifies as murder is ridiculous, unless we also want to charge everyone who kills an invading soldier with murder?  And, I suppose, charge every American soldier in Iraq (a clear case of pre-emptive war, illegal under the Geneva conventions and exactly what Americans hung Germans for at …
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This is the last thing you should do. Without more than a cursory glance any trained individual can see the safety is out and the weapon is cocked. And, it turns out, there was a live round in the tube.People are still scratching their heads as to where this thing came from, after being discovered on the Malahat, just south of Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island.Hint: These things don't have serial numbers, but they do have batch numbers. And the sights are ancient compared to later versions.Perhaps future posts will include pictures of an infantryman swinging a chainsaw or an engine room …
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Single up, Number One. There's waves to conquer and pirates to defeat.OK. Maybe not so many pirates.We're over the horizon for a while. …
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Let's make this a regular event. Blog awards are really cool if you're one of the new kids on the scene. They can give you exposure you might not otherwise be able to gather in.Hell, I did it. Vanity may be some kind of Christian sin, but it is pretty human. Most of us don't do this for money so there has to be some kind of reward. Most of us are pretty happy with an increased traffic count.If I write, it would be nice if I'm not writing to myself and yelling at a mirror.A lot of you are writing some pretty fine stuff. And not getting enough notice for it.If somebody wants to manufacture an …
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Stephen Harper has spoken. And not a soul has the guts to take him to task. Read this:"The Canadian Forces are the victim here, [pause] as are the direct victims of these terrible events."So says Stephen Harper. I didn't insert that "pause" for no reason. On the tape it exists and it suggests, to Harper, that the direct victims of Williams' crimes were secondary to the effect on the Canadian Forces as a whole.Which shows what Harper knows about the Canadian Forces. And could care less for the actual victims.Nothing.Betrayal? Hardly. To most of the Canadian Forces this guy was a freak well …
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There he is. A loser.How many times have you been in an argument with your spouse, partner or the like and heard the words,  "Yeah. Whatever?"How many times have your been bent over on an issue and heard the word from a parent or an acquaintance. "Who cares?"Your mother. When you've left her with no place to go; totally out-argued her, she says, "Who cares?"You care, of course. That's why you're arguing your point. Her answer actually means, "You know so much more about this than I can even fathom that I must invoke my superior parental position and indicate that I have much more …
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I'm cancelling my cable subscription.Although Jimmy Kimmel did the ice-floe bimbo a certain justice.Palin quote from the TLC trailer:"I'd rather be doing this than in some stuffy old political office." "I'd rather be out here being free." Right. That would be why she quit part way through her term as Alaska's governor and hasn't been able to shut up since. …
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And tell Dimitri Soudas to start sending out resumes.Thanks to Bits & Pieces. …
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You meet the most interesting people in airports. London MP Glen Pearson found that out and relates a conversation he had with an air force officer. “Look, of course we want what’s supposedly the best out there; we wouldn’t be a good military if we didn’t.  But I’m not convinced that with the high price, the problems with maintenance, and the cost overruns in production qualifies it as the best for the Canadian forces.”That is an absolutely true statement by any gauge. No military goes asking for second rate gear.“For our purposes, I at least wish we had put out some …
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Normally I would simply ignore and move on, but today I received nine emails about the "change" in comments policy.How odd.The whole visual format has changed but, policy? No.The policy has always been that if you choose to attack the author of a post or you are just some kind of dirt bag prick we don't think offers anything to the discussion, you get deleted. Sometimes, permanently.We have that power. I kind of like possessing it. This is our free speech arena. You can have one just like it. It's free, by the way, and you'll find that if I cannot regularly agree with your views, I will never …
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