Category: cCanada

An open letter to the Defence Minister

February 24, 2008

The Honourable Peter Gordon MacKay
Minister of National Defence
National Defence Headquarters
Major-General George R. Pearkes Building
101 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1A 0K2

Dear Sir:

I was alarmed to learn via the National Post that Canada is currently
negotiating an agreement with the United States to allow American
troops on Canadian soil and vice versa for the purposes of mutual
assistance during civil emergencies.

There is no question that the US and Canada as part of NATO must
rehearse and communicate coordinated military maneuvres and strategy.
American troops on Canadian soil, even in the event of an emergency,
is an entirely different — and to me, horrifying – prospect and unless
the locality affected by the disaster (ie province, municipality)
specifically asked for the assistance and expertise of the US military
and coordinated the request with the federal government, not to be
borne.

Why do we want US troops on Canadian soil when they mismanaged the
Katrina response so badly that the US became the shame of the
developed world?  Civilian Canadian responders were on the ground in
the lower lying parishes faster than the US military anyway.

As a citizen of Canada and resident of BC, the first thing I thought
when I read that is that we’re going to have US troops walking up and
down the streets of Whistler in full combat gear during the Olympics
in 2010.  I can think of other, equally gloomy and distasteful
scenarios.

Unless the full text of the agreement is publicized prior to
government approval (I am assuming that this will be passed by an
order in council rather than being exposed to the harsh light of
parliamentary democracy) this proposed coziness with the American
military is a looming disaster for Canadian civil rights and
sovereignty.

Please publicize the details of the agreement.  Perhaps I’m upset over
nothing — but at this point I can hardly be sure.

Yours very truly,

Allegra Sloman

Coughiness.

I mailed my “I am so annoyed with you, you great Canadian” letter to Mr. Peter Gordon MacKay and cc’d Bill Siksay, who’s only going to be my MP for another 4 weeks. I don’t think that Canadian troops belong on American soil either, by the way, not that there’s a snowball’s chance in hell the US will ask for them.  See previous post about sending off a letter.

It was lovely havng both the kids here.

I lost my bloodwork requisition.  I’ve now looked everyplace logical and I think – I mean it’s possible – that I threw the damned thing out while cleaning my apartment.  Annoyance and irritation.

and it’s 3:01 in the morning and I can’t sleep for coughing and I am officially out of cough syrup and won’t have any until after singing class tonight, the earliest I can get some.

The only thing wrong with this video… and other random posts all sfw

Is that it isn’t mashed up with Thomas Dolby’s Wind Power.

(spectacular failure under load of a commercial wind turbine in Denmark).

An old post from boingboing, reminiscent in many ways of a Monty Python sketch.

A copyright picture of an F-16 intake vortex. Hath coolness!

Buffy’s going to Paleyfest???? ho lee chow!

wOOt, real time satellite tracking!

Ooh, slashfic. Where was I again? Actually, this is fanfic, but you get the point. For those of us who love SF and don’t understand slash, it’s where you rewrite the stories so all the right, or all the wrong, people actually have sex. Throw in some Buffy, Pirates of the Caribbean and Terminator, and … well, it’s a bad idea, but everybody’s doing it, including me (Jayne and Zoe??????). The difference between me and all the other slashficcers is that I DON’T PUBLISH IT, and you thank his noodly appendage for that. Ooh, an all cast photo….

Physics continues to operate for this unfortunate pole vaulter.

I’m up, might as well drink coffee.

Is it the world’s cutest lizard? It’s plenty cute!

Some guy did a cartoon of this, and next thing you know, the power of the internet made it so.

If you got this far, go look at some Mitch Hedberg on youtube. I just want you to understand that I think he is one of the sexiest men who ever lived. Yes, I am sick. That haircut! All the guys in my high school had that haircut! Heart Heart.
Look what I found on a contemporary feminism site!

Happy Valentines Day, Canada – Harper rams one past us YET AGAIN.

Now I’m really mad. I have to write a letter to somebody.

Gas leak

Man, the last 48 hours have been jammed with incident. I was supposed to go pick Kopper up at 6:10 last night but between me getting tied up with something at home and then having to get over to the other Can car and her working late, I was a full half hour late picking her up. Well and good, we’re prepared to get the evil eye from the instructor, and then we run into a roadblock on Lougheed Highway right after Kopper says, “The Skytrain’s not running,” and we’re redirected way the hell off the highway, and we’re contemplating what this might be about including, Gosh wow, an Olympic security exercise (only 750 days to go until we host the world, barfula gagula).

We turn on the radio to News 1130 (the flexible enema nozzle of capitalism in the GVRD) and pretty much simultaneously with the announcer saying something about a broken gas line WE SMELL GAS. We’re not talking about a little whiff. It’s pouring bloody rain and the wind’s blowing and WE CAN SMELL GAS. For, like, six long city blocks. I remember thinking “Well, at least I’m on the explosion side, I should mask Kopper from most of the shrapnel.” Then Kopper says the equivalent of “Sod this for a lark, I’m taking YOU to the Keg.” At that point we’d been stuck in redirect traffic along Broadway for a while and we were going to catch the last 15 minutes of the class.
So we went to the renovated Keg on Willingdon and we ate and my GOD what it’s like to hang around people who don’t require you to censor every single thought. I think Kopper feels much the same – we ate and talked and talked and talked and it was definitely therapeutic.

Canuckistani reference

When I first moved to BC, I thought, hey, wtf?  Where’s the bagged milk??  Turns out it doesn’t exist in BC, it’s an eastern Canada thing.

Daughter Katie and I worked on school application stuff for about half an hour last night.  The rest of the time we watched Deadwood. Another convert, yeah!  Then I booked the Prius to take her home.  I hate putting gas in that thing, but someone’s got to do it.

Google – is stupid the new evil?

Google is sucking these days….

A reason to go to Ottawa….  (I mean, what the hell kind of country pays for public art that will scare the bejasus outta small kids and arachnophobes).

Words to live by. 

In family news, the elephant has decided to sit on pOp’s chest again.  This means medical attention, which entirely sucks.  In further family news, the surgical drain has been removed from my mother, who’s damned happy about this improvement in her well being.

I watched Stargate Atlantis for the first time last night.  The script had me pecking a bit, but the charm of the personalities shone through nevertheless.  Finished up a re-rendered copy of Robinson Crusoe on Mars (does Paul Mantee EVER have nice body hair!  Yowza!).  Watched a Family Guy episode all the way through (1st time ever) and laughed my ass off.  Hitler juggling three fish on a unicycle?  Instant hysteria!  Why?  Mostly, says Jeff, it’s the snippet of music that goes with it.

We finished de junking the kitchen, dealt with the linen closet and itemized all the furniture for Geek House, as well as figuring out some stuff for storage, Craigslist, etc… I hardly took any cooking stuff when I left the Augur Inn, so I did grab a couple of small boxes of stuff – they will all get merged back into Geek House but I can use it in the meantime.

Today, we see Unca Barry and Auntie Mary and go for dinner with my parents – if they can lever themselves away from the emergency room.  Yeah, I know I sound like I don’t give a shit.  I am concerned and anxious, but how does that help?

More walking around and standing still.

Tammy and I walked to Horizons from my apartment this morning.  She’s in better shape than I am, as far as I can tell.  I became more acquainted with the trails around here as well as getting some exercise.  I didn’t exactly stick a gun in her ribs when we got there (ambling around rose gardens and taking pictures of roses was more my speed) but we hung about until the doors opened on the restaurant and I warmly encouraged her to feed me, which she did. Consider the meal rhapsodized about.  Then we walked home.  This time I chose, much to our satisfaction, a more level route.

She’s gone off to a family dinner and now I’m going to go back to an exciting evening of staring off into space, giggling vacantly, and folding laundry.  (Doesn’t that sound bizarre?  none of it’s true except the laundry.)