Damn.
Here’s a man I could have voted for…
Following a 2005 lecture at the University of Dublin’s Trinity College, Ignatieff excoriated Canadians for trading on Canada’s “entirely bogus reputation as peacekeepers” for 40 years and for favouring “hospitals and schools and roads” over international citizenship. “If you are a human rights defender and you want something done to stop [a] massacre, you have to go to the Pentagon, because no one else is serious,” Ignatieff said.
“It’s disgusting in my own country, and I love my country, Canada, but they would rather bitch about their rich neighbour to the south than actually pay the note,” he said, in response to a question about peacekeeping. “To pay the bill to be an international citizen is not something that they want to do.”
Of course, that means he’d have been running for office in the US, and I’d be voting Republican.
John Lewis.
I disagree with you on pretty much every point. The arrow and the rest of the aerospce industry was peopled by Brit expats soused on g&t by 2 in the afternoon building on legacy technology left behind by a Britain that was far too preoccupied with other things to care. The arrow was the last gasp of this stunted venture – building an interceptor in the ICBM age was folly and dief was wise to end the silliness when he did. Chalk river was also a leftover of the us/uk manhattan project – cda contributed very little towards it and the pipedream of a national nuclear energy company -AECL at long last looks to be being put to death after fifty plus years of misery, fifty four billion in taxpayers dollars that we know of and tens of billions that we do not and hundreds of billions on environmental remediation sometime in the future. And the current final debacle at chalk river leaves this country looking like a laughing stock.
And the other issue – a navy that ranked fifth in the world (if memory serves) in ’45 was an albatross around the neck of the navy consuming maintenance and manpower funds that could have been better served in building/buying a modern but far smaller postwar fleet and a much bigger coast guard (which is what we really needed then and now.
Cdns need to get over these myths – And the smug attitude they have fostered – and get on with becoming a true world leader – not just one in our own minds and no one elses.
And this – conveniently for me – is precisely what iggy is driving at In his comments above.
It occurs to me that iggy could be the best CONSERATiVE prime minister that we never had. (apologies to bob stanfield – the best LIBERAL PM we never had. Bob would have been a disaster as a PC PM. His red Tory roots would have driven the party and the country somewhere to the left of Sweden. I digress)
Maz2: the arms length funds are the holy Grail for the Libs and the quiet Buber one target of the consevative party – particularly it’s reform segment. IMO it is the number one reason why a majority Tory mandate is essential. Otherwise we will never get these things into the public light.
“You most likely never heard of it because PM Dhretien didn’t want you to hear of it. ”
Gene Kruton was awarded an intl merit award(heard on the radio) of intl prestige and bestowed only on VERYFEW people on the planet like Mandela,..
I dont see how CountIgor shouldn’t receive it./or any fullfledged pointyhead of derliberal.
*
i dunno about canada being parsimonious…
‘cos 10 billion dollars a year ain’t exactly
chicken feed.
just depends on the line item, i guess.
*
the Cdn right wing is a long supporter of american interests.
what I don’t get is why you have it in for a Cdn pol party leader steeped in american viewpoint.
Perhaps the Conservatives should simply agree with the Iggster on this one. Then we can all put the fantasy behind us.
Oh, that would mean the Conservatives would have to take the high road and miss an opportunity to make Iggy look bad. In our world of poisoned partisan politics, where making the other guy look bad is more important than getting the issue right, that is not likely to happen. Pity.
Curious George:
Steeped he may well be. A harvard sphincter-puckered version of American tea to be sure. But the biggest beef that I and I suspect many conservatives have is that steeped or not he has two huge flaws:
1. He believes in big government. In the elitist mould I would (and ET et al) would add. He is a Rockefeller republican. Not a good thing IMO.
2. He’s in it for him. He wants to be PM for his own personal glory – not to better the country. If he really had it as his lifelong ambition to serve Canada as it’s PM he would have stayed in country and fought it out in the political trenches and risen to the top on merit not because he looks like the second coming of PET. (and I know that ticks off more than a few liberals too.) That he is only too quick to turn his back on his previous statements such as those above only proves it to us.
This guy is hazardous to the health and well- being of canadians and it’s citizens.
Oz,
It was really the result of the Americans and others enforcing harsh conditions on Germany that led to the rise of National Socialism.
America and others wanted their pound of flesh (and more) from the defeated Germans, and set out onerous conditions which chafed the German state.
As far as the Germans were concerned, there was no way they were going to let the French dictate freedom of movement,or control access to coal and mineral reserves….
Gorld Tulk, sorry have to disagree…I grew up around Malton and never saw these drunk expats living off the past you mention, just hard working and talented people who wanted to build a dream and were damn good at it.
No need for interceptors? We were so sure, we scrapped the Arrow, replaced it with the Bomarc (epic failure), then spent the next 25 years buying jet interceptors from the U.S. Voodoos and Starfighters.In fact , after the Arrow disaster, the CAF never flew another Canadian made jet in a combat role again, a situation unfortunately made possible with the collapse of the industry after Black Friday.
Some progress.
sub @9:09: Of course we agree with him. He was criticizing the Liberals of the day.He just wrongly assumed the government was interested in roads and education, and he was obviously ignorant of the provincial jurisdictions.Wonder if he has that straightened out yet.
What conservatives and Conservatives know is that Iggy will squirm when and if any media challenge him on those ’05 statements today, because as ET pointed out he loves to tickle the ears of the moment.
And how will he explain that to WK?
Iggy does a good job making himself look bad. You gives us way too much credit.
curious-george said: “what I don’t get is why you have it in for a Cdn pol party leader steeped in american viewpoint.”
ET said it best. Its because he’s an elitist Big Government loving socialist. Canadians are stupid. They must be controlled. By Iggy.
That’s the American -socialist/fascist- viewpoint, not the individual liberty “live free or die fighting” American viewpoint. We don’t like socialism/fascism. We think its sucky.
Also because in 2005 he’s an American disgusted at the “hate America” crowd, 2009 he’s head of the “hate America” party in Canada.
Get it yet?
Kursk: the drunken habits of the president were common throughout management. Ask Michael bliss et al. Bomarc a lame attempt to get into the rocket age thankfully it too failed. The voodoos were an excrptioanlly inexpensive plane That was also able to fill the interceptor role and be pressed into other roles with mixed results and lots of dead NATO airmen.
I do not mourn an industries death when it never really existed. Our energies and talents should have been user elsewhere.
Oz- Monday Morning quarter backing is always right. However, making decisions in ‘actual time’ is subject to context and many uncertain and incomplete information bases.
~ET at July 18, 2009 4:56 PM
How is this for context and “actual time”?
Several months before the end of the war, General Patton had recognized the fearful danger to the West posed by the Soviet Union, and he had disagreed bitterly with the orders which he had been given to hold back his army and wait for the Red Army to occupy vast stretches of German, Czech, Rumanian, Hungarian, and Yugoslav territory, which the Americans could have easily taken instead.
On May 7, 1945, just before the German capitulation, Patton had a conference in Austria with U.S. Secretary of War Robert Patterson. Patton was gravely concerned over the Soviet failure to respect the demarcation lines separating the Soviet and American occupation zones. He was also alarmed by plans in Washington for the immediate partial demobilization of the U.S. Army.
Patton said to Patterson: “Let’s keep our boots polished, bayonets sharpened, and present a picture of force and strength to the Red Army. This is the only language they understand and respect.”
Patterson replied, “Oh, George, you have been so close to this thing so long, you have lost sight of the big picture.”
Patton rejoined: “I understand the situation. Their (the Soviet) supply system is inadequate to maintain them in a serious action such as I could put to them. They have chickens in the coop and cattle on the hoof — that’s their supply system. They could probably maintain themselves in the type of fighting I could give them for five days. After that it would make no difference how many million men they have, and if you wanted Moscow I could give it to you. They lived on the land coming down. There is insufficient left for them to maintain themselves going back. Let’s not give them time to build up their supplies. If we do, then . . . we have had a victory over the Germans and disarmed them, but we have failed in the liberation of Europe; we have lost the war!”
On December 9, 1945, Patton was severely injured in a road accident. It was a 3 vehicle accident and Patton was the only one injured.
Although he had recovered and was to prepare for a flight home to the U.S. the next day Patton died of an “embolism” on December 21, 1945. No autopsy was ever performed.
Douglas Bazata, who died in 1999, detailed how he staged the car crash by getting a troop truck to plough into Patton’s Cadillac and then shot the general with a low-velocity rubber projectile, which broke Patton’s neck while his fellow passengers escaped without a scratch.
Douglas Bazata said he had been ordered to assassinate General George S. Patton jr, by OSS* head General “Wild Bill” Donovan.
-*the OSS was the forerunner of the CIA
Now that Douglas Bazata assassinated General Patton is known for a fact. And it is know for a very simple reason. Because an agent of the well-known OSS (Office of Strategic Services) or American military spy, Douglas Bazata, a Jew of Lebanese origin, announced it in front of 450 invited guests; high ranking, ex-members of the OSS, in the Hilton Hotel in Washington, the 25th of September, 1979.
Bazata said, word-for-word:
“For divers political reasons, many extremely high-ranking persons hated Patton. I know who killed him. Because I am the one who was hired to do it. Ten thousand dollars. General William Donovan himself, director of the O.S.S, entrusted me with the mission. I set up the accident. Since he didn’t die in the accident, he was kept in isolation in the hospital, where he was killed with an injection.”
Monday morning quarterbacking, hey!
The U.S. government knew the Russian Communists were an enemy worse than the German Nazis.
One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!
~Winston Churchill
The West had to maintain a posture of war preparedness that cost $Trillions for the next 45 years under the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction because the Americans refused to win WWII and Ignatieff excoriates Canadians for not spending enough when the threat could have been settled back in 1945.
Next up, the Battle for Honduras, and Canada looks to be on the wrong side.
Stay tuned for Zeylas’ predicted return on Monday.
Meanwhile Russian TU-95 and TU-160 strategic bombers are running exercises over the Caribbean based out of Venezuela and Cuba.
Can NORAD pick them up?
No.
They are flying below the equator so the curvature of the earth prevents it.
I recollect the Arrow debate and scandal and black friday.
once I even browsed Hansard to check my recollections. yup.
Q: if the Arrow ‘wasn’t as good as the proponents said’, the wtf was in ‘necessary’ to destroy every trace of its existence? was it because . . .
– the Arrow was way ahead of its time. so we had to keep the design out of the hands of the russians.
well which is it? smash it completely because we don’t want the russians stealing the design, or . . . egh. no big deal. run-of-the-mill plane. not worth mass producing.
these 2 explanations are completely mutually exclusive. I have yet to get a satisfactory explanation except the dief the chief was a petty man who could not cotton any remnants of the Liberals and this was one.
jeezuz murphy, not even a moth-balled copy in the war museum or such. nothing. all gone.
and NEVER has there been any point after the first jet aircraft in WW II have nations abandoned the use of jet fighters, so the crapola about the NEVER ARMED bomarc was crapola right from the start.
any time the subject of the kiboshing of the Arrow program comes up I bristle at the pettiness and ghastly shortsightedness of john diefenbaker. Canuckistan could have been a leader in aircraft design and manufacturing instead of a microclone of the american industrial model. subsidiary across the board. and look where its got us, back to pawning our resources.
gawd help us when the american economy really sours in 2020.
The Arrow was merely a cover for another project.
Project Silver Bug
http://greyfalcon.us/restored/Project%20Silver%20Bug.htm
The cover may have been needed for secrecy to design a radical propulsion system or… something else.
Kursk: At the negotiations at the Treaty of Versailles, the American were against the heavy reparations demanded of Germany, but weren’t able to prevail against the French and British, who had lost millions of lives and had so much property destroyed.
Syncro: You, like most, have misinterpreted what Macluhan meant by “the medium is the message”. The content is irrelevant to the total effect of any new popular medium. His favourite example was the car. The passengers in any given car are completely irrelevant to the total effects of the car, which are (among others) a huge shift of urban populations to suburbs, children used to seeing their fathers disappear in a car in the morning and return home at night from some mysterious place called “work”, increasing obesity, increased air pollution, and of course, increased oil imports from such non-corrupt states as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, etc.
Another example was TV. In WWII, many of the news trailers shown at movies were carefully staged photos of “our brave GI’s attacking”. Even in Korea, there was virtually no TV coverage. Now, you can read about gory war shots – like heads blown half off, people missing arms or legs, etc. – without even blinking (as you just did). Print media have a distancing effect. Still photos are a little more disturbing, but people can still generally look at the black and white grainy photos published in newspapers of the 50’s without being revolted. But in Vietnam, the TV pictures were instant and involving, and people couldn’t stand what they were seeing. I find it ironic to point out this out a day after Walter Cronkite died; there are many who think the day Cronkite denounced the Vietnam war on his broadcast was the day the pro-war forces lost middle America, and the beginning of the long defeat.
Now we have high speed internet. Again, the contents of any single web-page are irrelevant to the effects. Now we have immensely dispersed communities who communicate on a daily basis, like SDA; we have highly effective on-line communities which are changing the political process; we have on-line retail which has changed the face of the entire sector. We see the record companies reeling due to downloads. (When I was 15, I had well over 100 LP’s; my 15-year old daughter doesn’t have a dozen CD’s, but she does have 1,000’s of songs on her iPod.) I could go on, but I won’t.
And it’s not just you, Syncro; I hear this mistake repeatedly, even from people who supposedly have studied (and, gasp, teach) communications.
WTF…TFB
re. KevinB @11:05 –
http://criticalcommons.org/Members/adiab/clips/FF_WoodyAllen_AnnieHall_McLuhan.mov/view
Allen: “…Well I happen to have Mr. Macluhan right here”
Macluhan: “I heard what you were you were saying; you know nothing of my work; how you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing…”
I’m sure you’re right about everything, KevinB; I just love that clip; it seemed unavoidable.
Also: The thing with Iggy is that he has no principles he wouldn’t sell for a quarter; at a pinch, a Canadian quarter; that’s why he’s in politics.
Oops, seems it’s “McLuhan”. I know nothing of his spelling.
Re: the arrow.
Pointless to argue with it’s fans. They are like Kennedy conspiracy theorists.
I will just quote Michael bliss: “A lot of the former Avro engineers defending their baby late in life have been quite successful in exploiting a naïve nationalist media in Canada,”… “The myth is, if only the government had stayed with the Arrow, it was on the high-tech frontier. The myth has functioned in the interests of the people who feel technology should have a first claim on the public purse.”
The party of Ignatieff and John Manley have won my vote. This week’s capitulation to union interests against US Steel was the last straw for me. The Tories are demonizing anyone who is sympathetic to the USA and frankly I am sick of it. Go ahead and call me a “Republican for Ignatieff”. As if that’s so shameful when union interests are leading Obama and the House Dems into a deficit abyss.
The party of Ignatieff and John Manley have won my vote.
~Brian Dell | July 19, 2009 12:57 AM
They “won” your vote?
Or did they buy it with some of that still missing Adscam money.
No, but seriously, have they paid back that $400 million they took yet?
Do you think they will steal more or are you naive on that point?
Would it bother you to know that Western Canadians won’t sit still for another Librano government, especially after they tried to make an alliance and steal the government with the NDP and the Bloc after the West overwhelmingly voted for the CPC last year?
Does it bother you at all that the Liberals politicized and corrupted the RCMP or used Mafia bagmen to distribute stolen taxpayer funds?
Am I getting through to you, Dell?
KevinB, that was a… powerful explanation. I now understand the McLuhan quote.
WRT the Arrow, Peter Zuuring is the historian who ran down all the paperwork on this beauty. It was his conclusion, after reading every last packing slip, canceled check, memo and file he could dig up from public and private sources, that two things killed the Arrow. First was government stupidity, second was stupidity at Avro. They didn’t communicate properly with each other, they didn’t listen, and they ended up pissing Deifenbaker off so bad he killed it.
In other words, business as usual between Big Business and the Canadian government. Avro bet Ottawa wouldn’t destroy the entire Canadian aircraft industry deliberately, Ottawa actually went and did it. Just to show them they could, pretty much.
Kind of like what just happened with GM, but much more sudden. Avro was dead in a day, Black Friday. GM is going to take years and years to finally die.
Black Mamba:
I love that quotation from Annie Hall, but you left out the funniest bit:
“I heard what you were saying! You know nothing of my work! You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing!” (emphasis mine)
McLuhan wasn’t above poking fun at himself. Gotta love a guy like that.
Amen to Ron at 1:40
Hah!
international citizen not canadian.
Little off topic, Liberal Jane Taber says Iggy is picking his Cabinet.
The Liberal enabler forgot that Iggy is not the Prime Minister.
Curious George said of the Arrow “jeezuz murphy, not even a moth-balled copy in the war museum or such. nothing. all gone.”
There is at least 1 Arrow in existence. Possibly 2. I don’t know if the sources I have are talking about the same plane. It’s in private hands and it’s mothballed.
I know some of you might think I’m talking trash here but my sources on this are 100%.
“Re: the arrow.
Pointless to argue with it’s fans. They are like Kennedy conspiracy theorists.
I will just quote Michael bliss: “A lot of the former Avro engineers defending their baby late in life have been quite successful in exploiting a naïve nationalist media in Canada,”… “The myth is, if only the government had stayed with the Arrow, it was on the high-tech frontier. The myth has functioned in the interests of the people who feel technology should have a first claim on the public purse.”
Posted by: Gord Tulk at July 19, 2009 12:40 AM ”
well that Gord, is the other half of my arguement: why the cutting torches if it was no big deal? why the determination from high places to erase every trace of the plane? why?
Canadians are a bunch of dumbass drunken tom turkeys when it comes to our historical artifacts. Bluenose syndrome. we put the goddamn boat on our stamps and 10 cent coin but refuse to keep the real authetic original craft from getting sold off and sunk in the caribbean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluenose
” . . . Fishing schooners became obsolete after World War II, and despite efforts to keep her in Nova Scotia, the undefeated Bluenose was sold to work as a freighter in the West Indies. She foundered on a Haitian reef on January 28, 1946.”
we have NO pride in the accomplishments of individual Canadians. it’s the ‘Canadian way’.
I blame the low standards we have for our elected leaders. easy to prove THAT eh?
Kevin B
I admit that I am no scholar but I think you may have misinterpreted my misinterpretation.
In my original post I cited specific examples that pointed to an overall circus atmosphere in the MSM.
The specific examples are unimportant…the circus is. As McLuhan said…
Hence in Understanding Media, McLuhan describes the “content” of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. [5] This means that people tend to focus on the obvious, which is the content, to provide us valuable information, but in the process, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time.[4] As the society’s values, norms and ways of doing things change because of the technology, it is then we realize the social implications of the medium. These range from cultural or religious issues and historical precedents, through interplay with existing conditions, to the secondary or tertiary effects in a cascade of interactions [4] that we are not aware of.
Before the internet was developed I was a network news junkie, I watched political conventions on the tube when my peers were playing hide and seek…I believed the information I was fed. No more.
The medium (in this case MSM news reporting) has become a stylized circus that jumps from high wire acts to acrobats to freak show oddities with the greatest of ease.
Facts…the truth… are tertiary considerations if they are considered at all. Every good circus has an on going narrative presented by the ringmaster and events are contorted to fit the narrative. Some might call this narrative a bias.
What was it PT Barnum said? Incidentally, you may want to read Kate’s not waiting for the asteroid link.
I hope this clarifies my misinterpretation.
Syncro
Ah, the Arrow. It had the potential to be a very capable multi-role aircraft. The prevailing nationalist meme myth is that the Americans killed the Arrow.
In a way they did, by not buying it. But why would they? That was a pipe dream from day one. The US had their own aeronatical industry. By 1959 they supplied their own market. This was decades before the modest Harrier purchase.
In terms of capability the Arrow was still unproven (never did get the engine quite right) and was already hugely expensive (featherbedding abounded) at time of cancellation. We needed greater economies of scale than the Canadian market could offer and they weren’t there.
That’s what killed the Arrow in the end, though not helped by the ICBM age.
Why did Diefenbaker order the prototypes cut up? Observers still scratch their heads over that one, and it gives the nationalists all they need to meme myth the crap out of simple procurement decision.
Yes we could have retained the hi tech jobs – if we were planning to shoot rockets into space, that is.
Syncro:
OK, I’m sorry – you clearly understand the guy better than I thought you did. Hope you understand why.
BTW, McLuhan also published a short throwaway book (with Quentin Fiore, I believe) called “The Medium is the Massage”. He loved puns, and here he was saying that our media “work us over” (i.e. massage) in ways that we are unconscious to.
Are you familiar with his “Tetrad”? For any new media, he asked four questions:
1. What does the medium enhance?
2. What does the medium make obsolete?
3. What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?
4. What does the medium flip into when sped up?
Point 3 always interested me, as he posited that what was retrieved was often retrieved as art form. For example, look at horses. After being replaced by cars virtually everywhere but Western ranches, they resurfaced in many places as forms of art, from the RCMP’s musical ride to show jumping to horse racing. Nowadays, as flat panels replace CRT’s, I’m seeing retro “60’s” style CRT’s at some of the Toronto artsy decor shops (remember the one in shiny plastic that looked like a giant mushroom?). It’s an interesting concept.
Final thought – McLuhan called TV a “mosaic” because of its low resolution. Although no one had dreamed of HDTV yet, he said that it would be a completely different experience watching it. I don’t have an HDTV; does anyone who does care to share their thoughts on whether it’s changed the way they watch/use/react to TV?
If I wasn’t living in mortal fear of going off topic, KevinB, I’d ask you to elucidate Point 4.
Since this isn’t a McLuhan seminar, can you suggest a link on the “Tetrad”? Like Phantom @2:02, I feel like I’m finally getting my head around M.M. a little, I appreciate it.
I don’t have an HDTV, but I’ve watched them, and I think they partially reproduce the cinematic experience; you’re immersed in the imagery and sound, rather than observing them from a distance.
But maybe that’s my inner pseud popping up, she’ll do that.
BM:
You can just google “McLuhan Tetrad” for lots of links.
Couple of quick examples, and I’ll shut up (I promise!). If you take a series of photographs quickly enough and replay them at the same speed, the photo “flips” into a movie. Cash, when sped up, flips into debit/credit cards, electronic banking, etc. – i.e. physical money becomes electronic money.
Feel free to email me at kevinbertschglf@yahoo.com to take this offline.
Kevin B
Thanks for that. I see McLuhan’s massage as a valid extension of his prior work as massage is what we now get.
That said, the tetrad you refer to is entirely new to me and I’m the most intrigued by 3 and 4.
As far as high def goes…the thing that first struck me about it was the facial detail it shows, especially in those society most adores.
Media superstars and actors/actresses are reduced to mere mortals by zits and baggy eyes, worry lines and poor makeup. The soft gauzy eye of analog is defunct and with it the myth of celebrity.
Or not.
Syncro
Thanks KevinB, I will if I need anything explained.
(I’m printing out this thread so I can refer back to your post @11:05 the next time I read “the medium is the message” my mind freezes.)
… AND my mind freezes.
ThAnks for the help shamrock.
shameful.