Canadian ~ American Relationships

[Maggie]

A little blurb from our local paper : "Examples of those feelings are common- place, as when an audience full of Canadian dignitaries applauds the opening of an America-bashing opera by Canada's best-known author, Margaret Atwood." :(

She is one of my favorite authors ! I hope she knows how much some of disagree with the direction this country seems to be heading in !

[RC]

Huh? Come again?

[John Self]

This country being the US, I think. Don't go thinking everyone's Canadian just because you are, R.C...

[RC]

Well of course, now it makes perfect sense.
I was thinking of a recent arrival to another site. These things happen to old gits, still we have to carry on somehow.

Shame our press isn't saying much about the "audience of dignitaries" etc. There is, regretably, a growing trend here to stifle overt deprecation of our chief trading partner by public figures - an outspoken cabinet minister was fired recently, for example.

Yes Maggie, I'm sure Atwood is aware that there are many well-informed, decent, rational people in the United States.

But as a comedian here observed recently, there are also a lot of Americans.

Just kidding. I'm not alone up here in thinking that the opposition in the recent election deserves a salute, they fought the good fight. If you were one of them, hats off to you.

[Maggie]

Oops, I didn't notice that I didn't fill in my country. Well it is the good old U.S. of A. Yeah, I fought the "good" fight. I'm already working on the "fight" coming up four years from now. Although I don't see how the Republicans can top this act.
I shouldn't really include ALL Republicans, since I have friends and family who call themselves such. Just misguided souls I guess.
I didn't know Atwood wrote Operas ! I am assuming she writes the stories for the music or does she do both ??

[RC]

I can't tell you much about this opera because when I hear 'Atwood' I hum loudly and cover my ears. But I do know that it's an adaptation of one of her books, done by someone else (Finn? Dane?) and was not originally a Canadian production. I doubt she had anything to do with the score.

[Oryx]

HI THERE ALL:-

ATWOOD DID NOT WRITE THE SCORE, OR THE LIBRETTO. THE OPERA WAS BASED ON A HANDMIANDS TAIL, WHICH IS BRILLIANT,\. tHE OPERA RAN FOR ABOUT TEN DAYS. IT WAS AVANT GUARD AND NOT REALLY THAT GOOD. iT WAS SCANDANAVIAN IN ORIGIN (WRITER/PRODUCER).

READ THE BOOK. IT IS AMAZING.

ORYX

[wshaw]

hello Oryx

i'm sure you've been welcomed elsewhere, but welcome

[RC]

Bush the evil bastard arrives in Ottawa tomorrow. Demo begins at noon. Hope the sleet holds off.

[RC]

Update: Dubya will be served Alberta beef for lunch. They have yet to re-open the border to Canadian beef after a single case of BSE occurred here a couple of years ago. May he choke on it.

This morning I tried to forward an email that contained a clip of Bush giving his greatest gift to the world (middle finger) and the words explode, plane, Ottawa International. The email did not send and I lost the internet for about an hour. I took the opportunity to get spruced up in the event the Mounties came to the door.

We're getting pressured to go in on Missile Defence. If you'd like to read a well-written, entertaining, and very knowledgeable explanation of why it won't work as it is presently conceived, read 'The Sword of Damoclese' by Dom Stasi at www.bigeye.com . Interesting site overall.
On second thought, it will work very well for its real purpose - to make money for the industry.

[NottyImp]

"We're getting pressured to go in on Missile Defence."

I thought that died with the Cold War. I mean, who exactly has the missiles to worry America these days? Most Russian ones have probably rusted into their silos.

[Jerkass]

You have to remember that Saddam Hussein is developing nuclear missiles...doh!

[RC]

I should have been a little more specific.
www.bigeye.com/domstasi.htm

[bakunin_the_cat]

I thought even W had given up on that, especially as it wouldn't work without the Early Warning Centre at Farthingdales (sp?) here in the UK, and the British government is understandably dubious about signing up to a system that makes us a target but doesn't protect us in any way.

[RC]

No no, this is still a thriving business. There's a launch in Alaska that's overdue, they keep postponing for one reason or another. It's quite a hilarious story actually, when you get in to it. Here's just a taste, from an article called Space Pork about the Kodiak part of the circus.

The first test launch from Kodiak of the STARS rocket took place on November 9, 2001. Shortly after it was launched, command and control lost communication with the rocket and were forced to destroy it. Lt. Col. Rick Lehner reported that missile pieces were scattered into the ocean between fourteen and twenty-five miles off the east coast of Kodiak Island. Residents of Kodiak were not aware of the exact time the rocket would be launched because security issues arising from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks prompted the military to keep "mum" about the precise launch time (Clark, "Missile defense test goes awry," Fairbanks Daily News Miner, 11/10/01).
Critics of the rocket facility reported that the aborted rocket launch had made Kodiak's worst fear come true. They were incredulous that the launch had gone ahead because the weather had been very poor. Statewide news coverage of the event replayed footage of a previous launch on a bright and sunny summer day. The rocket watchdog group noted that, according to the planned trajectory of the launch, missile debris flying throughout the 70-nautical mile "Warning Zone" would land not only in Kodiak's offshore fishing grounds but possibly on the island. The rocket contained asbestos, halon, freon, and radioactive thorium, and they wondered how Kodiak fishermen were going to fare in their quest to sell organic Alaskan salmon if people knew the fish were swimming in waters contaminated by toxic and hazardous missile chemicals. The local critics felt that what truly destroyed the BMDO's accountability was the fact that almost all of the launch officials had been on the first plane off the island. By the time locals knew the launch had gone off, no one was there to answer questions.
.

[NottyImp]

Who needs enemies with friends like that?

[RC]

Who indeed?

I like this too:

The twenty STARS launches scheduled for Kodiak use different and more powerful missiles than the Minuteman missiles that the Air Force had been testing, and residents wanted to make sure they could read the new Environmental Assessment in time to submit comments. The AADC had promised residents of Kodiak that no radioactive materials or liquid-fueled rockets would be used at the complex, (Kizzia, Anchorage Daily News, 1998), but STARS rockets use both, with radioactive Thorium in their booster components. The solid components of the three-stage missiles land in the ocean. STARS rockets will also use a new flight trajectory directly over two native villages on Kodiak Island - Old Harbor and Akhiok. Members of the Kodiak Rocket Launch Information Group (KRLIG) claimed that, when they questioned the Army on the issue, the Army explained that they would build underground shelters for the villagers to use during blasts (Studebaker; Heitman, personal correspondence, 2001). Each rocket's first stage releases 8,000 pounds of aluminum oxide (North Pacific Targets Program(NPTP) EA, 2001). KRLIG biologists claimed that this substance could kill aquatic life in nearby streams and attracts many carcinogenic organic pollutants with which it bonds to become even more dangerous. Halon and freon, both banned by the Montreal Protocal for their ozone-depleting effects, are used in the Army rockets. They also contain fifty pounds of highly flammable magnesium and toxic and flammable hydrazine (NPTP EA, 2000). KRLIG members claim that when they asked about the fire risk this presented, AADC explained that they have a pickup truck with buckets of water to extinguish grass fires near the launch site.

[RC]

Copyright Dan O'Neill
December 15, 1998, Fairbanks Daily News Miner


Teachers who cover propaganda techniques could not have found a better field trip for the class than the carefully designed "public meeting" on a proposed missile defense system hosted by the Pentagon and its defense contractors at the Carlson Center recently.

Remember when a public meeting meant someone got up and explained what the project was all about, and members of the community could step up to the mike and express their views? Well, the format is much more controlled today. It's called an "open house." Promotional exhibits are scattered around a large room, and people drift from one to the other chatting one-on-one with a proponent of the project. But comments for the record must be put in writing.

This means there's no opportunity for the group to hear opponents of the project. Even if every one of your fellow citizens present opposed the project, how would you know? The only record is the written comments, and they are held by the proponents. Typically, those comments are released months later-in summary language written by the proponents-and buried in a fat environmental study. Pretty slick.

Another crafty technique evident at the Pentagon's open house was the device of limiting the debate to a narrow and relatively inconsequential set of issues. The pros and cons of the antiballistic missile project (ABM) were not presented to the public at the Carlson Center, and our views on it were not solicited. Instead, an earnest colonel told us that it would be a great help if we'd comment on some environmental questions. Questions like: Would 150 new jobs in your area be a good thing? Would you prefer good or bad air quality? Do you think we should install culverts across our driveways?

Let's imagine, for a moment, that the military was interested in our ideas on the important questions, that it held a real town meeting, and that an absolutely truthful colonel took public comments and questions from the floor. Here's how it might go:

PUBLIC: Can you say a little about the history of the ABM idea?

COLONEL: Certainly. It was promoted in 1960 by Father of the H-bomb, Edward Teller. At the time, Teller was also proposing to excavate an instant harbor in Alaska by detonating a string of nuclear bombs. His ABM idea was to launch nuclear-tipped rockets that would explode in the vicinity of incoming missiles and knock them out. Scientists called the idea costly and ineffective. But we built one such ABM facility anyway. In North Dakota. It protected only a battery of our own ICBM's. It was finished in 1975, at a cost of $7 billion, and scrapped the next year. Congress determined its upkeep was a waste of money.

PUBLIC: Didn't the Star Wars program come next?

COLONEL: Exactly. The Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, was the most expensive military program in the history of the world. By far. Tens of billions were spent on little more than the hope of a laser missile defense system. Weapons scientists called it "a fraud" and "impossible to accomplish." Defense contractors thought it was the next best thing to printing your own money. Needless to say, the system does not exist.

PUBLIC: So now you guys are back pushing a scaled-down version?

COLONEL: Correct.

PUBLIC: Will this one work?

COLONEL: Not really, no. You see, there are easier ways for an Iran or a Libya to attack the US than to try to build ICBM's. They could smuggle a bomb across one of our borders. Or bring one into a city's harbor onboard a ship. Or launch a short-range missile from a ship offshore. If they did build an ICBM, they could build ones that release multiple decoys, thereby reducing our chances of hitting the actual warhead (assuming that we figure out how to hit one at all-our last nine tests have failed). And remember, the missile defense system we are proposing would only build 20 interceptors. So, for $10 billion (our critics say much more) we would not be buying any real security.

PUBLIC: Tell me again why we should do this.

COLONEL: It will deliver mega-dollar hardware and construction contracts to the home states of some pretty influential senators.

PUBLIC: Like Alaska?

COLONEL: Affirmative. Sen. Ted Stevens says he doesn't care where the ABM is based, just so long as it can defend all 50 states. Well, North Korea is just 2,000 miles from Attu Island at the end of the Aleutian Chain. North Dakota is nearly 4,000 miles from Attu. So even if North Dakota could launch an interceptor at the same instant that North Korea launched an ICBM toward Attu, the Korean missile would get there first. Sen. Stevens has got this figured.

PUBLIC: OK, I see what's in it for the politicians and the recipients of pork. But what's in it for you?

COLONEL: A $600,000 salary at one of the missile defense contractors after I retire from government service.

PUBLIC: Is there anything we can do about this?

COLONEL: Yes sir. You can insist on culverts.

[RC]

Regarding the ABM facility in North Dakota - it was up and running for no more than 6 months. 7billion was a lot of money in those days!

[RC]

During his address in Ottawa last night Bush thanked the Canadians (sic) - whom he had seen during the drive from the airport - who welcomed him by waving "with all five fingers".

One of the banners at the demo - "YeeHaw is not foreign policy".

[amner]

"YeeHaw is not foreign policy"

Genius. Coming to a websig near you soon!

[John Self]

Regarding the ABM facility in North Dakota - it was up and running for no more than 6 months. 7billion was a lot of money in those days!

Lol. Are you sure you're not Kurt Vonnegut?

[RC]

The oft-postponed missile defense test finally took place this morning. An attacker missile was launched from Kodiak. The interceptor missile shut down on the launchpad. No word yet on where the attacker missile was headed.

[NottyImp]

:lol:

Anti-Missile to self: Nope, I'm not blowing myself up for that. I think I'll have another nap...