This is an interesting blog to write……….it is about you, the readers. Whoever you are or (as in some cases) whoever you work for…….
Firstly, I encountered one of my ‘regular readers’ on another and very unrelated news-oriented website yesterday. He used the same nom de guerre on that website as on mine. Wrote with the same voice (sane). It was like bumping into an old friend while traveling in say, California. Weird. But neat. Birds of a feather……..
Another friend was a student at Tiananmen in ’89. His input was simple: the protest will not end well in HK unless the students de-escalate their demands. Methinks he should know.
According to Google stats about 25% to 33% of my readers are in China or HK. Or Russia. I have no idea why. Some are likely friends from our travels there but most likely my site is monitored. I occasionally write about Hong Kong and China, after all, and their government does tend to monitor such things. Mind you, I sometimes rant about our government, too, so maybe some of the Canadian readers are CSIS staff. I never write about Russia. So, who knows?
I should write more about the CIA and MI6 just to keep the whole spook community equally engaged, I guess. It increases my readership at the very least. I could end my blogs with ‘Allahu Akbar’ but that might be pushing things a bit too far. Big Brother has no sense of humour. And they do have jails and tasers. Well, they all seem to find jailing and tasering folks somewhat amusing so maybe it is just a different sense of humour, eh?
Since this blog is a bit deviant, let me ask a few questions…..ISIL/ISIS is reported to have 30,000 soldiers (more, according to Obama). But they don’t have significant numbers of vehicles, no tanks, no planes and, presumably, no discernible supply lines. Young men eat a lot. They need food and toilet paper. And soldiers need transportation. So, how are they doing this?
Iraq has 250,000 soldiers, tons of planes and tanks and the backing of the world. So why is Harper sending them 60 or so advisors and a few F-18s?
Why is Harper doing the same kind of thing in Ukraine?
Did Canada become a superpower while I have been away?
My guess? Canada and the US intend to get aggressive around the Arctic circle and they have some kind of quid pro quo thing going on. Plus Harper is an idiot and fancies himself a historical figure in the making. He is easily manipulated as a result.
Ebola is getting out of hand. It will likely ‘burn itself out’ as they say but it hasn’t so far and more efforts are needed to stop the possible pandemic. Canada has offered up some supplies but the supplies can’t be shipped because commercial air carriers aren’t going into Liberia and Sierra Leone anytime soon. So our contribution sits in Winnipeg or wherever. They are planning to ship it by sea! Doesn’t the Canadian government have a few more planes other than the F-18s? Aren’t the US flying in? Can’t we hitch a ride?
How is it that we can join the forces against ISIL and not the forces against Ebola?
Where has Canada’s peace-keeping role gone?
How did a dickhead like Harper hijack our nation?
POSTSCRIPT: Seems Harper DOES read the blog! After that last post, he announced a stepped up effort to address the Ebola issue. Authorized a whole new mobile clinic to be sent. I think the man suffers from a number of psychiatric disorders but making better decisions has to be acknowledged and fighting Ebola with more aid is a better decision. ‘Bout time.
Our Off the Grid Home 
The foreign “visitors” to your blog make for interesting debate. I think you’re probably right as to some of the Chinese visits are probably security monitoring, Russia’s visits are a tad odd. But then again, I’ve never met a Russian that didnt think he was being too paranoid. A very dour group of people.
I think your comments about ISIS now have you on several other security websites…. HOWDY FOLKS ! Hows the weather in Bejing, Moscow, Washington, Ottawa, and London? ……. 🙂
As long as they dont show up on your doorstep with pliers and an inordinate interest in the length of your fingernails, You should be fine…..
C’est la vie.
I like reading and commenting on political blogs. This blog being a somewhat hybrid political/ back to nature exception.
I have commented on some political blogs that are either pro conservative where I have been critical of pro comments about Harper .
I have also commented on sites that are anti Harper that I have disagreed with some statements. I react more to the comments than the blogs.
A stupid comment gets a rebuttal from me. Usually I couldnt care less about the elected official unless they suffer from “foot in mouth” disease(Christy Clark comes to mind). Or their sense of entitlement surpasses even a Saudi prince’s ego( Clark, Harper, Duffy, etc.)
Essentially while I voted for Harper once….I will be hard pressed to vote for him ever again.
Justin ( Lucky Sperm Club) Trudeau is an intellectual lightweight that couldnt debate his way out of a preschool fingerpainting session.
Mulcair seems very intelligent but he’s surrounded by loose cannons just waiting to , once again, experience “foot in mouth” disease.
I shudder at my choices in the coming federal election.
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I agree except for the reference to ‘choices’. As you know, I think we have a dearth of choices. That is essentially why Democracy is a sham. And, as you know, none of us can even vote for one of the THREE that are being offered up! I have to vote for a local puppet-on-the-end-of-a-whip and the leader is chosen by them.
I also agree that the party and the so-called philosophy they pretend to have (it is all opportunism with different labels) is not worth arguing over. They all cadge and steal from whatever platform seems to resonate at the time. The Liberals were and are famous for stealing from the old CCF/NDP handbook. They call it middle-of-the-road. I call it lacking a moral compass.
I made a run at it once. The people who came out to help me were from every party. Cons, Green, Libs, NDP and even cynics and anarchists. Why? ‘Cause they were my friends. And that, I think, is how it starts mostly. Then the person holds their nose and ‘picks’ a party. THEN the party has to pick them. Goofy system.
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Yeah, I hear ya.
I stated on another blog that I think democracy ends at the polling station.
Once a person is elected… “poof” there goes democracy. They are now in power unaccountable to no one but the “party”. Which if they have good intentions, shouldnt be a problem.
Alan Fotheringham once wrote in a MacLean’s editorial that he was dismayed at the rise of a new breed of politician, usually a lawyer, doctor, etc. that was entering into politics to “sex up” their resume’ or their social status.
Michael Ignatteff comes to mind.
Costa Rica had an interesting political system from 1969 to 2004. 1 term. You were not permitted to run consecutively. How did they get anything done? The President of Costa Rica answered an interviewer from 60 minutes thus, “We only have one 4 year term to get things done so we have to hustle…..”
That was challenged in the courts and has been changed.
But they have other interesting ideas.
Compulsary voting( that isnt vigorously enforced).
Election day becomes a holiday.
The President doesnt have the ultimate say on national issues such as the budget, defense, etc. Free votes in their senate.
Wow. Democracy where the legislators are expected to listen to their constituents instead of the Party Whip.
Who woulda thunk it?
After listening to people from all ages and walks of life in all areas of Canada over the past year….Mr Harper has no idea of the drubbing he’s going to take at the next election.
I suspect a minority conservative govt at best or a liberal govt majority at worst. Trudeau as “prime” Minister….my gawwwd.
Mike Duffy’s trial may or may not start before the election but I suspect it with be delayed until after .
Either way the knives will be out after the election results and Brutus could learn a thing or two from the post election conservative party ejection of Harper as leader…
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You mention Isis and “…how are they doing this?” As you know the Middle East is one of many sites of state sponsored terrorism. According to the western press the USA is not a terrorists state. But clearly ISIS is someone’s proxy who could be the terrorist state sponsor? Could the state sponsor of ISIS be one of the USA’s client states in the area? A dictatorship that the Americans are supporting. It’s worth noting that the USA sponsored jihad in Afghanistan in a proxy war with the Soviet Union. What are the war aims of the USA in the Middle East? I think the presence of ISIS serves American aims in the Middle East.
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I can agree with the first half of the conspiracy theory but not the possible conclusion that the US is behind it. They CAN’T be behind everything! Seems to me that China, Russia and, possibly Iran could be the sponsor state if I were to speculate. They have more to gain. I think. But, really….? Do we even know ISIS exists? The way we are manipulated by the government and the press, how do WE know that the beheadings weren’t done by a local gang of thugs and that is the extent of it? Or, better put: how do we KNOW there are 30,000 bad guys out there cleaning rifles in the desert? If the US can read a newspaper from outer space, why is there not more evidence of 30,000 soldiers? There never were WMD’s. Maybe there are NOT 30,000 soldiers.
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The USA needs a strawman to pound. For awhile the USA was lost with the fall of the USSR but they contrived the ‘axis of evil ‘ and now it’s ISIS. American hubris is on going with its lack of insight into its own character or motives for the destruction of sovereign nations. The USA pulls out a slogans to justify its state terrorism. Millions died In Iraq, the entire region is now destabilized and for what aim?
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Hard to argue with that…and this is not really the place to try. But, of course, I’ll give it a shot: Most people are good-intentioned if not just plain good. And that applies to Americans as much as anyone. In fact, 99% of my experience with Americans (even Bush-loving Texans) has been good. In people, I have faith. It is institutions and corporations that are suspect. Why? Because the people in them sublimate their own sense of right and wrong to follow the corporate mission statement. They take oaths to serve but don’t realize that those oaths rob them of personal decision making. We sacrifice our morality for the sociopathic agendas of the inhuman institutions. The people voluntarily give up their consciousness for either a paycheque or a ‘belief’ (religion, patriotism, etc.). YOU CANNOT BE GOOD UNLESS YOU THINK. And we give that up when we join churches and armies and corporations. Again: the problem is us. WE have to be good. Our institutions won’t be.
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I’m a moron.
I didnt realize that you and the JDC on Laila’s site were the same person. Hilarious.
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It is hard NOT to write with the ‘same’ voice. That is why I knew it was you. You write to my blog usually as an ‘initialed person’ like my JDC but in LY’s one you were nonconfidence vote. But your voice is distinct. Recognizable. In fact, I have a dozen readers whose comments are somewhat recognizable. Sid fools me. He is smart and logical but sometimes he is poetic and that throws me off. John is elusive – sometimes there – sometimes not. Roger drops many connecting words like ‘and’ and ‘but’. And so it goes.
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