Matt Labash;
These days, Canadian publications are chockablock with surveys showing that Canadians see themselves as something akin to a superior race. The prime ministers of what was once a reliable ally that ponied up in times of war have treated us like traffic-light squeegee-men when we've stopped at their corner, asking for assistance with our latest military adventure. They have spurned our missile-defense shield out of spite, even knowing it would save their Canadian bacon. Their legislators have publicly called us "bastards" and stomped on our president in effigy. Their citizens have booed our children at peewee hockey games.Being bloodthirsty Americans, we have naturally fired a few warning volleys in lieu of slapping them with a restraining order. A few years ago, my friend Jonah Goldberg from National Review wrote a piece elegantly titled "Bomb Canada," encouraging us to smack Soviet Canuckistan, as Pat Buchanan calls it, "out of its shame-spiral" since "that's what big brothers do." Canadians responded as Canadians always will when faced with overt aggression. They wrote inordinate numbers of letters of concern, exercising what Canadian writer Douglas Coupland calls their "almost universal editorial-page need to make disapproving clucks."
[...]
So I spent three days on Nexis kicking up every comparison-survey and statistic I could find on American/Canadian values. I became so gripped with the subject I could have been mistaken for a Canadian.
This unscientific research quickly confirmed that Canadians are bizarrely obsessed with us, binge-eating out of our cultural trough, then pretending it tastes bad. Plainly the two things Canada needs most are a mirror and a good psychiatrist.
Indeed.
Interesting article - and funny too. But as for:
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This unpreparedness has become such a joke that Ferguson says their military ranks just above Tonga's, which consists of nothing more than "a tape-recorded message yelling 'I surrender!' in thirty-two languages."
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I don't think that's quite fair - Tonga provided (if I recall correctly) 45 of their Royal Guard to the Coalition Forces in Iraq. That was about half their armed forces.
It's small, sure, but they participated, they helped.
Attacking Canada for your errors in judgement is no answer to your problems.
The mess in Iraq, the quagmire you Americans have created over there, on the basis of the lies of the Bush Administration accusing the Iraqis of having weapons of mass destruction, in contravention of the UN Security Council Resolutions, is YOUR PROBLEM, NOT OURS.
You CREATED A "Big Lie" and now you have to live with it.
You have in fact created another Viet Nam. And sadly the sacrifice of over 55,000 young Americans in Viet Nam has taught this generation nothing about the corruptability of their own political system by men who would misuse the Armed Forces for their own personal gain. "Carpetbaggers" Americans once used to refer to these reptilian life forms after the Civil War.
Well young dead Canadians are not going to be coming home in body bags so Houston Oil Barons could steal other people's resources rather than develop their own.
You also have learned nothing from your own history, and the lessons taught to Americans by Canadians and British military officers out of a barrel of a gun in 1812.
Face facts, this adminstration decided to face off with the world at the United Nations and it lost. Now it proposed to send in a "neocon" bully in the person of Mr. Bolton. He will fail as well because the world is not going to put up with these juvenile temper tantrums in Washington.
Who are these "Houston Oil Barons"?
Name these people. Give us their names.
Name their companies & their URL's.
Hurray for Mr. Bolton and George Bush.
kill osama
bomb damasca/syria off the map
bomb tehran
clean up darfur
come on canada get with the program,flex some muscle
Joe Green,
Gimme a break. You really think 1812 is, like relevant to what is happening at the UN and in the ME?
Well then, get your musket ready for the next invasion.
I'm in a state of bogglement (a particulatly Canadian condition) after reading Joe Green's post.
He certainly doesn't speak for me.
Joe; you ARE a(n) NDP spearcarrier aren't you...?
Joe is a left wing raving communist nutbag, that keeps quoting articals from left woing books that are based on speculation and opinion. Much like the MSM,
He is typical of what's causing articals like Matt's, and does NOT reflect the views of the majority of canadians.
He will continue to argue, yell at his screen, and hound you that his ideology is right.
Unfortunately, all people like Matt here is the trash spewed from people like Joe.
Joe commenting in reponse to that piece is like augmenting the argument with an editorial cartoon....
Can't type this early... :-(
I'll bet you his heros are mel hertig and david suzuki. People like this should seek help, take an ex lax and clean the shit out from between there ears. They have a right to there opinion, but we can no longer stand by and be silient and let them get away with it.
In the lower comments he claimed that democracy was only spreading in the middle east due to civil war. No acknowledgement that it may be because iraq and afganistan have it now, and the oppressed people are rising up and demanding the same thing. No credit to Bush for taking a stand on issues, unlike the wimpy canadian leaders, and who will probably go down in history as one of the top 5 presidents.
There always has been his type, I guess, but our job is to drown him out so we don't get more Mel's.
There always has been his type, I guess, but our job is to drown him out so we don't get more Mel's.
I meant Matt's .... It's to early....
Poor Joe. He really is a parody. He's almost mechanical; you know exactly what he's going to say when you 'drop the dime'. It's going to be absolutism: Canada is absolutely good, right, pure; the USA is absolutely evil, wrong, impure. No facts, no logic, just his ungrounded opinions.
Oh, Joe - it's not a quagmire in Iraq; please don't denigrate the Iraqi people who, in the millions, voted for their own government. Don't denigrate the ground-swell in the Middle East of emerging democracy - replacing corrupt tribalism - all of which are due to the Evil USA and Evil Bush.
And the war of 1812 was a DRAW; nobody won. What lessons?
The UN, by the way, is a totally corrupt bureaucracy, unable to differentiate between a democracy and a dictatorship. Don't let that bother you; continue to worship it.
And I do wish you would learn what the term 'neocon' really means.
Joe's a bore.
Here's a post from the New Sisyphus, on the UN:
because despite all evidence to the contrary, it is simply a matter of faith among liberals that the United Nations is an embryonic trans-national governing body that uses democratic norms to enforce the ever-increasing tangle of legal obligations that will usher in, if not world government, at least an international consensus of good behavior. It simply stuns and amazes us that people continue to believe this despite the record of abject failure of the U.N to act in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Cambodia, Iraq and, now, Sudan. Fortunately for liberals, there are always a number of academics to explain why the latest genocide is really the United States� fault, Rwanda being only the latest example.
Joe- the UN is corrupt and dysfunctional. And the Liberal Party of Canada is corrupt and dysfunctional. I suggest you read a bit on the Desmarais family, and its connections to oil, Chretien, Martin and the Liberal Party.
ET,
He can't do or accept that, it's current information, you have to present an article with a musket in it so he understands.
Dreaded Boink wrote:
"Joe Green,
Gimme a break. You really think 1812 is, like relevant to what is happening at the UN and in the ME?
Well then, get your musket ready for the next invasion."
Well, first you should collect your dead from the War of 1812 and lay them to rest in Arlington before you load up for round 2.
Ever figure out why you call it the White House? Its from the whitewash you had to use after Canadian troops and British officers burned it down the last time, sending Dolly Madison into the night with nothing but her nightclothes.
I would have hoped that Americans since that time would have learned how to "think" and how to avoid war, particularly unnecessary wars.
Now you asked if the War of 1812 had lessons and I say it most certainly did. For one thing it established the modern boundaries between Canada and the US, and these boundaries are more than mere lines on the earth. These boundaries include the limits placed on trade, placed upon communications and other forms of intercourse between these two lands. The reason we have today the longest undefended border in the world is a direct result of the War of 1812.
That war should have proved to the Americans the utter futility of using force on Canadians. It should have proven that its much easier to get results working together with us, than to wage war on us.
And it should have proven to Canadians, that "size does not matter", something that should have been obvious from the earliest sex education classes.
That war should have proved to the Americans the utter futility of using force on Canadians. It should have proven that its much easier to get results working together with us, than to wage war on us.
And it should have proven to Canadians, that "size does not matter", something that should have been obvious from the earliest sex education classes.
Now your a total nutbag Joe, and obviously self conscious about your size..... right hand sore by any chance.
Rob opined thus:
"He is typical of what's causing articals like Matt's, and does NOT reflect the views of the majority of canadians."
Pardon me? The facts are that 60% of Canadians are opposed to the American invasion of Iraq. They agree with the Secretary General and the Canadian Government that its an "illegal war". The percentage rises in Quebec to almost 80%.
And you know what? Canadians from coast to coast are right about this issue. Know something else? Americans are wrong about this issue.
No amount of bullshit from Emperor George Bush II is going to change this, and more bullying by undiplomatic neocons whores like Mr. Bolton is going to change this. They can, and will make matters worse.
I am really tired of the right wing lies being circulated that pretends that Canadians think and feel something other than what they actually do.
One other thing. Just like Vietnam, the Americans are going to need our help to get out of Iraq. We had better start getting prepared for this because without Canadian peacekeepers, the carnage will increase even more.
What is now taking place in Iraq is a civil war that the United States set off between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Its bloody and its deadly with casualties now running at around 100 a day. That was the sort of killing that took place in Vietnam, day after day, week after week, year after year. It became a quagmire. There is no way out for America except to cut and run, and eventually they will, just like they did in Vietnam.
And its a great pity that Americans are not yet ready to impeach this president for "high crimes and misdemeanors" over his big lies that started this war.
Stay tuned, Lebanon is about to explode in civil war, between Muslims and Christians, once the Syrian troops leave.
By the way, once "Freedumb" comes to Lebanon, is there any hope of bringing to justice those gunman that murdered over 2,000 Palestinian civilians, women and children in the 1980s under the direction of Ariel Sharon and his American partner, George Shultz?
Or are the Americans going to destroy the evidence of the mass killings, just like they tried in Chile?
Here we go with the missinformation, exagerrated statistics, and the usual left wing spewing. Get a brain cell you idiot.
From what your saying, the US will never invade while you hold your imagination on the border.
Put the musket down and come into this century bonehead.
Oh yes, one small detail.
George Shultz, was one of the men behind getting George Bush II to run for President. Another was Casper Weinburger, who also sits with Shultz on the Board of Bechtel. Yes thats right, the same Bechtel that is getting untendered contracts from the US government that amounts to billions of dollars that is part of the effort to suppress the freedom of Iraqis, or more accurately, to take over from Saddam on a "business as usual basis".
In case you missed it, Weinburger is a convicted felon in the US, but that does not stop them and the Military Industrial Complex that is now appropriating the worlds second largest petroleum reserves for itself and its shareholders at Halliburton, Bechtel and other "friends of the republicans".
Ya... OK...Joe
Your twisted little mind can spin a story however you want, but the rest of us ain't gonna believe it...
Joe. How about some FACTS rather than your endless FICTION? Below is a quote from the White House Historical Association.
Apart from your focus on fiction rather than facts, what also puzzles me is your intense hatred of Americans and your complete and utter neglect of corruption in Canada. That suggests delusions.
"Why is the White House white?
It has nothing to do with the burning of the house by the British in 1814, although every schoolchild is likely to have heard the story that way. The building was first made white with lime-based whitewash in 1798, when its walls were finished, simply as a means of protecting the porous stone from freezing. Why the house was subsequently painted is not known. Perhaps presidents objected to the dirty look as the whitewash wore away. The house acquired its nickname early on. Congressman Abijah Bigelow wrote to a colleague on March 18, 1812 (three months before the United States entered war with England): "There is much trouble at the White House, as we call it, I mean the President's" (quoted in W. B. Bryan, "The Name White House," Records of the Columbia Historical Society 34-35 [1932]: 308). The name, though in common use, remained a nickname until September 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt made it official. "
Rob wrote:
"From what your saying, the US will never invade while you hold your imagination on the border."
Nope. Makes no sense and there are afterall, thinking people in the US that can figure out "two plus two equals four, no more and no less".
However, for neocon bullies, they may need a second repeat lesson from the War of 1812.
For Emperor George II to "invade" Canada, that would be his last mistake.
What is the matter Rob, do you not have a backbone?
Are you not prepared to defend your home and country the way you endlessly chatter in your presentations about gun controls?
Well I understand that your knees are knocking, but the Americans pose as much of a threat these days to Canada as did the Soviets in their day. They look scary, but its mostly a mirage. Disinformation is like that.
Besides the obvious question most Americans will ask is "why are we now invading Canada"? Even a lunatic like Don Rumsfeld can figure out that there is no answer to this question.
Gee Joe,
The west just marginallized the eastern mentallity, how does it fill to be on the recieving end.... ET just bitch slapped ya....
Are you not prepared to defend your home and country the way you endlessly chatter in your presentations about gun controls?
Defend it for missinformed exaggerating idiots like you, I think not, I would line up on the americans side and porobably fire the first shot to put you out of your missery.
Another exaggeration What is the matter Rob, do you not have a backbone?, you know nothing about me, I used to fight mil/civil for a living, and don't back down from anything including weasels like you.
ET wrote:
""Why is the White House white?
It has nothing to do with the burning of the house by the British in 1814, although every schoolchild is likely to have heard the story that way."
Look ET, you do not do American youngsters any favours by revising history in this fashion. I know that it does not sit well with many Americans that Canadian and British troops and officers burned down the White House as part of a reprisal for American actions that sacked the town of York, or modern day Toronto. But that is a "fact" of history. And it behooves teachers to try to explain how it was that Americans decided to attack this peaceful town on the northern shore of Lake Ontario in the first place.
If you really want to make a contribution to both American and Canadian youngsters, teach them actual history, without the politically motivated revisionism that is so rampant these days with "neo-conservatives". And take the lesson of history when Hitler tried to "revise" German history in a rather like manner.
The lessons of history are exquisite, and wonderful for youngsters to learn. Because if American and Canadian kids learn the lessons, the longest undefended border in the world will remain that way, since one of the lessons of the War of 1812 was the utter futility by Americans to force anything upon Canada or its people.
Perhaps one of the problems these days is that Pentagon officials like Paul Wolfwitz and Richard Perle were educated in Israel and did not have the benefit of an American education, so they do not appreciate the lessons of history.
Those that do not learn for history, are doomed to repeat its lessons.
Your right ET, he is delusional....... SEEK HELP JOE!!
You won't even accept the facts in front of your face.
Hey joe,
Try this site:
http://www.communist-party.ca/
I'm sure there willing to listen to your insane exaggerrations and spewing.....you never now, it might be an avenue for you to spew your garbage. You should actually join the MSM, CBC comes to mind, you would fit right in.........
Joe- you are the one who is revising history. The White House was not painted 'white' to cover up the torch marks of the Sacred Brits/Canadians fighting against the Evil Americans. It is white to cover up limestone. I admit this doesn't have the romantic heroism of the Fight but in this case, it's fact versus fiction. I opt for dull facts.
America isn't imposing anything on Canada. The Liberals are indeed imposing a great deal on Canada - without discussion, without a Commons vote, without due process. But, don't let that lessen your admiration for them.
Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle BOTH were educated in the USA. Wolfowitz has a BA in math from Cornell, and a PHD from U of Chicago. Perle has a BA from U of S. California and Masters from Princeton. All of those universities - rather goods ones too - are in the USA. So, contrary to your fiction, they factually were educated in America.
Are you saying that if one is educated in Israel then you cannot appreciate the 'lessons of history'? What's that supposed to mean?
I consider it extremely offensive for you to equate Americans with Hitler's regime. More fiction.
Oh - and stop with the pontificating of 'those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its lessons'. That's trivial and meaningless. History is not an intact data bank but an interpretation and therefore has no singular lessons to give. On the other hand, reason, logic and evidence do indeed provide knowledge. I suggest that you refer to these three: reason, logic and evidence when considering your conclusions, rather than fiction.
Poor Canada! In the exchange of migrating people we get your doctors and entrepreneurs, while you get more folks like Joe Green. We don't need another War of 1812 to wreck the place.
Careful Jeff,
If we all flush our toilets he may be headed back your way... ;-)
If you guys want to see a witless response to this piece in the Standard, head over to blogscanada.ca and check out Norm Spector's diatribe on nazi Germany and gassing babies.
I think maybe he _has_ had a mild stroke. It's ... bizarre.
I'm confused about Norm. is he related to a superior being like Joe who has the ability to change history, or is he an "ilk" like the rest of us.
Don't follow him, he seems like a bit of a dweeb.
New Conspiracy Theory:
Joe (Jaw) is Norm; Norm is Joe (Jaw).
My theory is that Joe was married to an American and went through a bad divorce. (Most of our women down here are great, but we do have a few that can do that to a man.)
Thanks Maz ... .got the picture
Which brings up another question after reading Greg's. Is Joe a man, women or both?
Psychological profile could suggest he goes everyway....
Hmm... Joe's email address would suggest that he is from a local provider, but I would have to sniff Kate's packets for a while to determine what IP it was.
She would probably feel kinda violated, and i'd be in the crowbar hotel for that... ;-)
Norm Spector is still blogging? But he told us all that blogs, bloggers and blogging was the domain of the ignorant, the intellectual illiterates, the depraved and deprived. I don't get it.
Consider this:
"Apart from your focus on fiction rather than facts, what also puzzles me is your intense hatred of Americans and your complete and utter neglect of corruption in Canada. That suggests delusions."
But you see, I do not "hate" Americans. I do not "hate" "democrats". I do not "hate" "republicans".
I do loath "communists". I do loath "fascists". I do loath "neo-cons", which should be abundantly clear from all that I have written.
I understand Americans, admire some of them actually.
But I also insist on their respect for Canadians. And for the most part they do, although there are assholes in the current administration that are too damned dumb to know what they are dealing with, either in Canada or Iraq or the United Nations.
Nor am I afraid of Americans, particularly those that spew threats and violence. In fact, I rather thrive on going into the jungle after them.
As for Greg's speculation, I am not a woman, nor have I ever married an American. I have never been divorced. I do have relatives that I love that are Americans, and who sometimes are afraid to speak up and tell their fellow citizens where the bear shits in the woods.
I have no such fear. Nor do I plan to attend funerals for nephews and nieces in the US because there is a lunatic in the Whitehouse that starts wars and loves mass murder and mayhem.
As for Jeff in Pullman, it seems to me that what this current crop of "neocons" have set off around the globe is rather like the current eruptions at Mt. St. Helen's. It will darken the skies, it will harm much life, but it will not end life.
As for your crack about doctors, fear not. Most are not quite so foolish as to move to the US in order to face malpractice insurance premiums that are larger than what many of them earned in Canada, or what their earnings prospects are in the US. Calm down Jeff, take a deep breath, and the stars will stop spinning in front of your eyes.
To conclude, I don't "hate" Americans. I "hate" your "sins".
Joe,
Now you look for redemption for spreading blantent lies. I think not, you stated your objectives and thoughts clearly in a previous exchange.
ET assures us that:
"Wolfowitz has a BA in math from Cornell, and a PHD from U of Chicago"
Then how come he could not count up the right number of troops for his misbegotten invasion of Iraq? General Shinseki said under oath before your Congress that he needed "several hundred thousand". Wolfwitz said that they did not need anywhere near that number. I would expect that the Chief of Staff would have basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills, so how come Wolfwitz got it so wrong?
Then there is this:
"Are you saying that if one is educated in Israel then you cannot appreciate the 'lessons of history'? What's that supposed to mean?"
Well, I would not expect history students in Israel to focus in on Canadian American History.
And if Wolfwitz did his academics in the US as you suggest, what was he doing in Israel writing papers for the Israeli Government that later got incorporated into US Defence Policy? Were these papers written for the Government of Israel, or for the Government of the United States, or is there no difference as far as Wolfwitz is concerned.?
And what exactly did Wolfwitz get his PhD in? What was his thesis and what was his original research on? As I understand it, and this may be an over-simplification, it was that "unilateralism" was the wave of the future in US Foreign Policy. Did the University of Chicago actually give him a PhD for this???
Or was he part of the Milton Freedmann Group of "neocons" that brought currency speculation to the world?
As for Richard Perle, what did he actually do to earn his Masters Degree? What did he do in Princeton by way of original research that would warrent recognition of original research for a MA?
Finally ET, I wish it would be easy to accept your statements as fact and stand corrected, but with "neocons" its something like dealing with pathological liars, you have to independently check all their statements.
If your information in fact checks out, I will acknowledge that. Now answer me what Perle and Wolfwitz were doing for the Government of Israel during the Clinton Presidency.
And how does the Israeli spies in America figure in this contract by Perle and Wolfwitz as "agents of influence" for the Mossaud?
Joe babbledFinally ET, I wish it would be easy to accept your statements as fact and stand corrected, but with "neocons" its something like dealing with pathological liars, you have to independently check all their statements.
Your are a total laugh. You ask ET to justify his information when you can't even justify your claims and statistics.
he has proven you blatently wrong and you expect us to believe anything you say.
Rob wrote:
"Defend it for missinformed exaggerating idiots like you, I think not, I would line up on the americans side and porobably fire the first shot to put you out of your missery."
Ah, the gang that couldn't shoot straight!
Did you know his girlfriend is an Arab feminist?
Did you know his girlfriend is an Arab feminist?
Ah....that explains it. I wondered were how he MADE UP all these stories.
Hey Joe Green, how ya been?
I loved your Coke commercial. When I recall how you tossed your game jersey to cheer up that young fella, I have to choke back a tear.
You popped back into the public eye just in the nick of time.
I was beginin to believe all that malarkey about freedom and democracy by Bush & Co.
Your ability to parse Mein Kampf, Winston Churchill, a former French Foreign Minister, and The Bible (New International Version) and then synthesize them into an alternative universe is staggering.
I only wish that the NFL had tightened up it's helmet standards while you were playing.
Come back often. Humour is a necessary component to healthy living and some of the stuff at SDA can be a bit of a downer :-(
Exaggerrrating Joe stated:
Ah, the gang that couldn't shoot straight!
Cool.... just keep thinking that Joe. Wouldn't take much to snuf out that single cell organism you call a brain cell, and as long as you believe I can't nail anything.... I guess you have the advantage...... or maybe...
Yo Joe!
Your cheap retort was as amusing as it was pitiful. I am acquainted with a large number of doctors who left Canada. Despite the large malpractice insurance premiums (which are mostly the result of greedy, litigation obsessed trial lawyers - who, by the way, supported Kerry in the last election)have none-the-less decided that they could no longer stomach the third world medical farce Canadian health care has become. Hence, they were tired of seeing their patients needlessly die.
As for "the stars in front of (my) eyes", the only stars there are those that are "big and bright" and "deep in the heart of Texas". May the ghost of Andrew Jackson kick your measly moonbat ass, ala The Battle of New Orleans.
Now that's funny.... Jeff,
One thing, how are they going to tell the difference between his ass and his face......... uh...nevermind, all one and the same...
Crazy Joe, you say stuff like - "Perhaps one of the problems these days is that Pentagon officials like Paul Wolfwitz and Richard Perle were educated in Israel and did not have the benefit of an American education, so they do not appreciate the lessons of history."
And then after someone corrects you (repeating theme?), you are ignorant enough to to reply - "Finally ET, I wish it would be easy to accept your statements as fact and stand corrected, but with "neocons" its something like dealing with pathological liars, you have to independently check all their statements."
Hypocracy, thy name is Green.