There is something ringingly ironic in the fact that a country so backward is in the year 1384 ...

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Speaking of nuggets..

BlogWorld Overview up date to August/05.

This from James Thesis..yours free..
=============
A Pew/Internet Study dated January 2005 states that:

• 7% of the 120 million U.S adults who use the Internet say they have created
a Blog or web-based dairy. That represents more than eight million
people.
============
Full page over view thumbnail at;
http://Anchorpin.Redpin.com

You can download the full 145 pages or just
follow along as James is posting each chapter 73s TG

Graham Brown & Prairie Dogs .. Reviewed.
========================================

Morning Light.. Work of Art... A Hit!

Moving On ... OK song...Rework vocals

Control of my Heart... Good

Gone gone gone .. Nice song.. 4th change down low

Tight.. these boys been playin' awhile.

They could do a good version of the Thunderbird's Scratch my Back.. Do it! Really works the crowd. 73s TG

The problems with bidding for major defence equipment:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Cana...pf- 1229362.html
'Bureaucracy, red tape hamstring military's efforts: study': By JOHN WARD

Excerpts:

'OTTAWA (CP) - Government red tape and bureaucracy have become so cumbersome that the military finds it easier to keep patching up junk than to buy new equipment, says a study from Queen's University.

The paper from the Kingston, Ont., university's school of public policy warns that if government regulations and procedures aren't streamlined, the Canadian Forces will just crumble away as ships, planes and vehicles decay into uselessness...

"Departments do not need to seek cabinet approval to spend large sums of money to maintain previously approved capabilities," Marsh says.

The same problem applies to the country's fleet of 32 Hercules transport planes, which Marsh says "can justifiably be classified as a junk pile."

Some are more than 40 years old. Many are plagued by cracks in their wings, which means reduced loads and availability. Some days, only a handful of them are capable of getting into the air.

Replacing them with a mix of new Hercules planes and some giant C-17 transports would cost about $4 billion, Marsh says. That's about same as the cost of keeping the existing fleet fleets flying for another 10 years...

Capital spending involves a bureaucratic maze.

"It usually can take up to nine departments to agree on the purchase of a major Crown project, something worth more than $100 million," Bland said.

"Getting nine deputy ministers in the same place at the same time is hard enough but getting everybody to agree - with all the policies, other interests, their own stake in things - is really difficult."

Bland says the problem runs through the army, navy and air force, as key systems age. If nothing is done to streamline the system, the military will begin to lose important capabilities within five years...

Bland says the key to saving the military lies with Prime Minister Paul Martin alone, because he can push the whole system...'

Want to place your bets on action by the PM?

Mark
Ottawa

So much for Canada's great R2P initiative at the UN.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/westview/story/3042403p-3527712c.html
'High ground lost on UN's responsibility to protect', Sun Sep 18 2005, by Michael Byers

Excerpts:

'THE Canadian government has claimed credit for the UN's recent endorsement of the "responsibility to protect." But our diplomatic success has come at a substantial price. In the search for international consensus, the content was stripped out of the responsibility to protect, leaving the legal constraints on humanitarian intervention firmly in place.

Under international law, force may only be used in the face of an armed attack, or if the UN Security Council has authorized military action. In 1999, Canada and other NATO countries broke the law when they intervened -- properly -- on moral grounds to protect the Muslim population of Kosovo. The intervention took place without UN Security Council authorization, and over the strong objections of Russia, China and many developing countries.

After the war, then-foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy established an independent body -- the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty -- and charged it with finding "some new common ground." The resulting report canvassed the possibility of unauthorized humanitarian interventions but concluded that, "as a matter of political reality, it would be impossible to find consensus ... around any set of proposals for military intervention which acknowledged the validity of any intervention not authorized by the Security Council or General Assembly."

At this point, the Canadian government had a choice: embark on a long and difficult effort to shift international opinion towards a right to unauthorized intervention, or work within the existing legal constraints. Prime Minister Paul Martin selected the second, less ambitious option...

Last week's summit declaration limits the responsibility to protect to "genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity," even though there is nothing in the UN Charter to suggest such a limitation. The council has previously authorized humanitarian interventions for other purposes. It approved the use of force in 1992 to prevent a mass starvation in Somalia, and in 1994 to restore democracy after a military coup in Haiti.

The limitation of the responsibility to protect to a set list of atrocities creates the risk that fewer rather than more humanitarian interventions will now take place.

In any event, nobody expects the Security Council to treat whatever criteria it adopts as anything more than non-binding guidelines...

...As far as the responsibility to protect is concerned, it's nice to see made-in-Canada terminology in a UN declaration. But before celebrating last week's endorsement of the concept as a foreign policy success, shouldn't we ask how much protecting we've actually done?'

Mark
Ottawa

I saw the O'Reilly show this morning on the net. Bill got turned into lunch meat. I wish O'Lielly's head would explode.

Is that a hurricane in your pocket?

Techscamdal>>

Tech fund scandal widens
OTTAWA (CP) - A scandal at the federal government's giant technology fund has widened as Industry Canada acknowledges that as many as 15 companies improperly paid commissions to middlemen...>>> more
http://www.rapp.org/url/?RY4L0IEB cnews

I think you got it wrong Steve. Bill did just fine. But Phil proved to be an overbearing loudmouth who didnt want Bill to speak at all. In fact he came across as a typical liberal: Everthing you say is wrong, everything I say is right. Does Phil realize that in 2005 the draft no longer applies?? He kept harping on sending your children to die as if the parents are responsible for them joining the military. Typical liberal thinking, always play up the victim card and make sure the blame goes elsewhere.

MikeP: You saw a different show.

I saw the one in which Bill got his ass handed to him. When the hollering starts along with the finger pointing you know O'Reilly has lost the argument.

Bringing a loud mouth to a battle of wits is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Sharia Law---- in practice!!! Death by stoning for adultery--- only the female is stoned, not the male.>>>>>

RICHARD CARLSON: Dispatches from the Danger Zone

New moves against women by radical Muslims in Nigeria.

In Kano, a busy trade center of a half million people in the North, women are now banned from motorcycle taxis and can only sit on the back seat of mini-buses.

This, the authorities say, is to preserve public morality.

They are upset because women passengers have been sitting too close to the male drivers.

Kano is one of 12 states in Northern Nigeria now dominated by Islamic Law.

Authorities have introduced flogging for drinking liquor, amputations for stealing, and death by stoning for adultery... >>>>
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/

Another blog to bookmark: Claudia Rosett included. Wow.>>>>

Below is a library of Claudia's reports on the Oil-for-Food scandal:

U.N.-Plugged; Imagining the End of the "World" as We Know It The Wall Street Journal (Opinion Journal) (09/21/2005)

They've Been Partying Long Enough National Review Online (09/13/2005

Talking Their Way Out of the Scandal National Review Online (09/09/2005)

Exposé, At Last? National Review Online (09/06/2005)

The U.N.'s Spreading Bribery Scandal: Russian Ties and Global Reach FoxNews.com (09/06/2005)

The U.N.-Touchables The Wall Street Journal (Opinion Journal) (08/24/2005)

Oil for Enron The Wall Street Journal (08/18/2005)

U.N. Secretary-General's Brother Kobina Annan May Have Played a Role in Oil-for-Food Scandal The New York Sun (08/15/2005)>>>> more
http://www.rapp.org/url/?C2VFZOPS
defenddemocracy.org

Steve, Phil's argument: So you want to see more troops die in Iraq?? Thats the typical liberal default postion, if you are for the war then you must want troops to die. Well no asshole (Phil) we want them to win with no American casualties if possible.

When Bill said to him and I quote loosely, " you shook hands with a woman who said that the terrorists are right to kill Americans." That one statement alone won the debate for O'Reilly.

Once again, Bill is unbelievably hypocritcal. He admitted that he would not send his own children to liberate Fallujah. Now of course, his nephew (someone else's child) is a patriot. Perhaps this makes up for Bill pussying out of military service during wartime.

The Coming War For Oil
The New York Post ^ | September 23, 2005 | Arthur Herman

Posted on 09/23/2005 6:17:54 AM PDT by TheForceOfOne

MENTION "blood for oil," and most people think of Iraq. But the place where the scramble for control of the planet's fossil-fuel resources is actually pointing toward a shooting war is the Pacific rim — and the United States would find itself in the crossfire.

Oil and gas are the lifeline of today's economies; Hurricane Katrina (and now Rita) showed us what even a brief interruption of supplies can cost. Now imagine the impact on a major industrialized country — one even more dependent on imported oil than we are — when that lifeline is severed not for a month or two, but through a permanent naval blockade by a powerful competitor.

That's the catastrophe Japan will face if it can't protect its access to energy from another energy-hungry power, China.

Both nations find themselves in a new world where oil and natural gas are the big stakes in global competition — stakes so huge that nations must be ready to go to war to secure them. And given America's commitments to Japan, and strategic interest in the region, that means us, too.

At stake in this case are the rich natural gas reserves in the remote uninhabited Senkaku Islands, located in the East China Sea roughly halfway between Taiwan and Okinawa, where 70,000 Japanese and 12,000 Americans died in a previous war.>>>> more
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1489895/posts

Forget your worries. Calm your nerves and laugh. Royal Commission - Special Friend’s Edition © is a board game that lets you live like a special friend. One of the county’s elite. Inspired by the Gomery testimony, this hilarious board game lampoons Canadian politics.

Spend lavishly on the taxpayers tab. Entertain your friends and idle away the hours as you testify at this special inquiry into government waste. At the end of the day, all your expenses will be reimbursed out of government coffers.

The player who spends the most wins.....

Here is a taste of the hilarious game cards
"Testimony reveals several south seas vacations. Your spouse files for divorce. Miss a turn. Pay $200,000 directly back to the public purse."
::
"Get out of jail free. Since there is no chance of going to jail in this game, this card had no value.">>> more
http://www.royalcom.ca/
Disclosure/Disclaimer: This commenter has no interest in this venture. Posted for public knowledge only.

How could anyone "send his children" to liberate Fallujah? The most he could do would be to ask them nicely to think about it.

I had an idea for a new website, called "Great Canadian
Pinkos". Each month would feature a different, high-profile Canadian such as
Donald Sutherland, Naomi Klein, Sven Robinson, etc....and show the these
scum for what they are: spoiled rotten, disgusting, self-righteous, morally
bankrupt and hypocritical.

I was inspired by a feature at the back of this month's Vanity Fair, a
nauseating interview with D. Sutherland, who, amongst other things, has a
great admiration for totalitarian socialists of various sorts. Go figure!
Ex-son-in-law of Tommy Douglas, wasn't he (curse his wretched soul)?

evilprinceweasel

Thanks Tony!

American intellegence in North Korea.

Now.

The quintessential North Korea link...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kim/view/