The time has come to position our forces along the Alaskan border.
The Canadian government demanded an answer immediately on the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline. It has now received a reply from the United States government that amounts to: Maybe next year.
The project is now paralyzed for an indefinite period, with the U.S. administration Friday announcing another delay in a process already beset by political and legal challenges.
The announcement made it clear that Canadian pipeline backers will not get the answer they wanted in time for the summer construction season, pushing completion of the project until 2015 — at best.
Related: ‘Bought the president’: Does lib billionaire Tom Steyer hold all the Keystone cards?
The F-18 Super Hornet can be had off the shelf for $52 million per plane.
RCAF pilots already know the plane, it has more range, stronger landing gear and is much more suited to Canada’s needs.
The F-18 Super Hornet production line in St. Louis is to run until sometime in 2016 unless more are ordered.
I despise Obummer as much as the next guy but he’s doing us a favour on this one. We need to build the refinery capacity ourselves. Keystone is short term gain for long term pain. There’s no logical reason why it shouldn’t be built but in the long term its better for Canada if its NOT built. So for all the wrong reasons the stuffed shirt is doing us a favour. Don’t expect me to thank him for it.
To repeat what was put on some earlier threads: costs for bulk shipping increase as multipliers. Trucking is 5-10 times the cost of a rail for equal distance. Rail is 5-10 times the cost of conveyor or pipeline for equal distance. Conveyor or pipeline is 5 to 10 times the cost of bulk ocean transport. It is probably cheaper to send to tankers on the west coast and go around the world than it is to build a pipeline across the country. Once the system is up and running at a steady state, the time in shipping (on blue water) becomes irrelevant. That’s a simplified version that compares operating costs, it’s usually the up-front capital cost that prevents rail or pipelines.
I work in coal. Even when we’re shipping to Europe, we use west coast ports because the rail costs to go across country would raise our operating costs too high, and we couldn’t compete on a cost basis.
Typically, billionaires are concerned mostly for preserving their own profit stream; they certainly aren’t motivated by ensuring plentiful supply and low prices which would benefit the populace as a whole.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Hence Warren Buffet as puppet master pulling Obama’s strings.
All of the ‘green’ posturing by Obama, Steyer, Buffet and other Democrats is just so much compost.
The environmentalist being nothing more than useful idiots.
Good call on the Super Hornet.
IMO the F35 multi-role fighter is nothing but a glorified swiss army knife. Somewhat capable of many things, but not particularly capable of any. Some pilots have actually likened it to a flying piano.
As any skilled craftsman will attest there are no substitute for purpose built tools.
Obama has principles. But if you don’t like them he has other ones.
No to Keystone. No the Gateway/Kitimat. No to Canada. What BS
If the Republicans fall for this obvious deke in the mid terms, they deserve to lose, again. The pro pipeline Democrats are outraged by the delay, but they’ll get over it right after the elections. How many of these Democrats will pledge to support Keystone in 2015? IOW they’re ditching the voter for party gain and if the GOP doesn’t excoriate them on this, along with their sclerotic foreign policy and its attendant dangers, then load up the tankers to China, bud ’cause Uncle Sam is going to bury himself in debt and impotence.
v.v CF18 vrs CF35. In terms of mission capability, interoperability and stealth, no new generation fighter comes close to the F35. Understanding the cost of this project, its issues, we may decide as a country to forgo the purchase. If that is the case, then no new aircraft should be purchased, as it will be already obsolete in the future full on stealth environment, and will probably cost nearly as much as the F35.
The Super Hornet would be a good choice if we decided to limit our missions to frontier protection and collective defence outside stealth dependent environments. It would be a waste buy any new system except the F35 and the new CF18A would be a fine addition to our inventory.
The whole Keystone XL saga exposes how immature Canada is in our relationship with the USA. Instead of waiting on every nuance of opinion coming from Washington Canada should have had alternate oil export infrastructure built over 10 years ago. It is a fundamental error in industrial planning. To put the Canadian economy at the whims of a foreign power is a unbelievable reality. To let foreign powers(Rockerfeller, OPEC and probably Russia) fund anti pipeline protests is a challenge to Canadian sovereignty. To me Keystone XL means little. It is a shining example of the weakness of Canadian foreign and domestic policy.
The idea that this situation is not a national debate in Canada is another black eye. IMHO Harper had better realize this situation and use it as a major plank in his re-election campaign. Canada has to have the capacity to export crude oil to foreign markets. It comes down to whether Canadians want the ability to pursue and independent foreign policy. The Liebela and Dippers have climbed into bed with foreign groups and country who want to stifle independent Canadian policy. They should be made to pay in the next election.
Yup, exactly what I was saying earlier.
If the Super Hornet is good enough for the US Navy, and the Australian Air Force it’s good enough for Canada’s jet fighter needs.
I can’t see why we Canadians are not building a pipeline to eastern Canada and a super refinery somewhere along the way.
paid for by whom? Taxpayers? No thanks, we’re taxed enough already.
The oil companies are not interested, they already have the heavy oil refinery capacity on the Texas gulf coast.
Phase One of Northern gateway is presently under construction, on schedule.
Not exactly what you were saying earlier, most of your discourse is disjointed gibberish with no basis in reality.
If you can’t understand, then it doesn’t concern you.
Have a nice day.
My apologies to Canada for this delay. (President Obama, as he has more than once before, makes me feel like the parent of a misbehaving child. We can’t get rid of him; we can only tell our friends and neighbors that we are sorry for the way he behaves.)
For what it is worth, polls show that most Americans favor the pipeline (or, if you prefer, favour it).
Here’s what I just said in my post:
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: When you have a neighbor as good as Canada, you should treat them well; in particular, you should approve projects like this one, even if you think that there is no gain to the United States from the project — though almost every analysis says there is, which makes this further delay even more ridiculous.”
But I will go a little further than that. Canada has been such a good neighbor that I think we should approve the pipeline, even if we think that it would be a small loss to the United States.
Again, my apologies.
What goes around comes around. In the future when USA wants to
tap into Canadian fresh water Canada should make it plain that
it’s payback time and reference the Keystone XL merry go round.
“BTW stealth is a myth….long wave radar (a primitive concept) can see them…..Maybe Saddam’s new radar couldn’t see ’em but the Serbians old sets sure did…..and down the F117…..and made the B2’s nervous.”
If you bothered to look just a little you would have learned that the F-117 downed over Serbia was hit by an optically guided missile. NATO made a mistake of following the same attack route over and over again, Serbs moved an obsolete SA-3 into the area routinely overflown by F-117s and optically guided an obsolete missile to the target (i.e the operator was guiding the missile by a joystick literally the same way early ATGM were guided). Skill of the operator combined with luck trumped routine and arrogance. If you count the number of munitions delivered with pinpoint accuracy to high value, highly defended targets F-117 still stands as one of the most efficient delivery systems ever deployed.
Yes some radars have historically detected first generation stealth aircraft, sometimes, sometimes even they could identify them. Get back to me when they can routinely get a missile lock and maintain it before evaporating. Stealth is not, nor it ever been an automatic “I win button”. It is a highly useful tool which is why all aircraft are getting stealthier.
Ugh ok, because Canada’s jet fighter needs are the same as USN or Australian air force? Based on what analysis?
In any case, has the fact that Super Hornet is a new aircraft not an upgrade package to existing Hornets sunk in yet?
BTW USN is buying a lot of F-35s and there will probably be many more users of F-35 than of Super Hornet, I assume that by your standard of analysis it means that F-35 would be enough for Canada as well?
It is a replacement for an F-16 another Swiss army knife, coincidently F/A-18 is another Swiss army knife, just one that as two engines and can land of carriers. There is a raeson why many more F-16s have been sold than F/A-18s.
Super Hornet is stop gap measure that was born because USN did not get on the F-22 bandwagon and A-12 got cancelled. Nothing more than that.
Since the subject is oil and the denial of a means for getting it to the sea, why not remove the profit motive the Americans now enjoy: put an export tax on Canadian shipments of oil to the US. Since we already supply close to half of the imported oil the US uses, there would have to be a price increase which would hit every American at the pumps.
Naturally the US ill launch an appeal under the terms of NAFTA, but with good management we can spin that process out until we finally get an ocean destination for our oil. Then we will be able to charge the full price to Americans anyway.
If we could spin this out for two years, the Canadian treasury would be richer by something like $100-Billion. Better to have the money here than in the US.
At the same time, even a dolt like Obama would have to take notice of the change in his economy and the hoards of angry Americans protesting at his doorstep.
It is time for Canadian energy companies to band together and consider the domestic security and economics of constructing large scale state of the art refineries in Northern Alberta to take near source local Canadian oil, create high paying energy employment jobs, and create valued added products (fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals, chemicals, plastics, medicines, etc.) so that they can be offered for sale and sold domestically and internationally. This will reduce the need to transport bulk oil and allow others to add the value to Canadian raw energy resources. The United States, and other international countries call their own domestic policies (via their own politicians, monarchs, dictators, etc.). Therefore Canadians should follow and forge our own path and not wait or rely on the “decisions of others” in foreign nations.
If a minority number of Canadian west coast (or eastern) individuals, special interest groups and politicians find Canadian energy and the associated value added products and benefits to be so objectionable, then they can stop purchasing them or these products can then be stopped being shipped to them for local consumption. This would last a maximum of several weeks before the negative impacts and consequences to their personal lifestyles, health, employment, and local economies should clarify their opinions, beliefs, decisions, and priorities. The reality checks and common sense should then become clear to the low informed segments of society, or Darwin’s theory of natural selection will simply play out and the remaining Canadian population evolutionarily stronger.
For hundreds of years it has been called progress (yet ironically opposed by some self described “progressives”) and the reasons we are not all still living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, living in caves, struggling to create fire so as not to freeze in the dark, and have an average life expectancy beyond 20 years as during the not distant past Neolithic and Classical Rome time periods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
http://longevity.about.com/od/longevitystatsandnumbers/a/Longevity-Throughout-History.htm
Why are these basic concepts so difficult for far too many environmentalists, left wing political ideologues, and Main Stream Media types to understand?
FedUp
I suggest ya review yer intel……
That F117 was downed in a NIGHT raid…..rendering optical and heat seeking SAMs flying telephone poles.
The F35 is more effective than mounting AMRAMs on Air Canada A320 Airbus.
This has been debated to death already:
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20051121.aspx
“Up to 100 Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II (CTOL variant)—are scheduled to be delivered from 2014. In a first stage not fewer than 72 aircraft will be acquired to equip three operational squadrons. The remaining aircraft will be acquired in conjunction with the withdrawal of the F/A-18F Super Hornets after 2020 to ensure no gap in Australia’s overall air combat capability occurs.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Australian_Air_Force
F-35, F-22, F-18 Super Bug, Eurofighter and Gripen are all expensive toys.
We are better off acquiring large numbers of MiG-21s. Remove the cockpit and fly it remotely. Flown at 40 feet above ground level it would evade Soviet radar. Furthermore, with their transponders radiating Soviet IFF signals imagine the chaos it would cause amount the Soviets. Plus you don’t have to worry about losing a pilot if the aircraft is lost.
Best of all, they will cost peanuts.
Heh, heh, heh……………spilled my coffee, doh!