All He Needs Now is a Loincloth and a Bone Through His Nose
What a curious ruler we have in Steve Harper. The guy readily embraces religious superstition but recoils from knowledge, preferring at every turn to run with his gut instincts. The…
The Mound of Sound
Tory Support Dips, Prince of Darkness Still Riding High
Support for the Harper Conservatives has fallen, a few points, to 34% but amazingly but old Beelzebub hisself is still riding high at 42% even after the robocall scandal and…
How Much of Canada Could BC Power?
British authorities are meeting with their Icelandic counterparts to consider powering the UK with geothermal electricity. It’s a terrific, low-carbon solution. Take the heat the earth naturally brings to the…
Venerable Lloyd’s of London – Think Twice Before Exploiting Arctic Resources
Lloyd’s of London foresees $100-billion of new exploration in the Arctic in the coming decade. That has prompted Lloyd’s to speak out about the prospect for catastrophic environmental damage from…
When Ships Were Made of Oak, and Men Were Made of Iron
This is one of those silly “blast from the past” stories. While commenting on another blog I briefly revisited my younger years as a working journalist in Ottawa. Trudeau was…
What Victory Looks Like in American Eyes
An American asks now that the US has won the Afghan war, isn’t it time to leave? The editor in chief of AirForce Magazine concludes that the American forces have…
Of Fifth Generation Warplanes That Aren’t
No country, none, is going to get anything remotely like 50-years frontline service out of the F-35. It won’t be 20 years, maybe not even 10-years before its obsolete. Like…
Trayvon Martin Killer to Face Trial
A Florida prosecutor has announced that George Zimmerman will stand trial for killing Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman claims it was a lawful killing under Florida’s “stand your ground” law. He claims…
The Most Idiotic Journalist in Canada?
The ranks of journalism in Canada today sport no shortage of truly awful scribes. There are plenty that are openly biased, the odd one that might resort to a little…
More Questions Than Answers And That’s No Way to Buy a Warplane.
A common failure of military types is that they’re forever preparing to fight the last war instead of the next war. It’s human nature. They know the last war, they…
About All That Balmy Winter Weather
For the sake of argument let’s just call it – oh I don’t know – global warming. People in most parts of the country enjoyed a dry, mild winter and…
The Opposition Doesn’t Much Care But Canadians Do
Harper, freely aided and abetted by the opposition parties in our Petro-Parliament, has been pulling Canada’s political centre to what, in decent times, would have been considered the far right.…
A New Kind of Warfare – Computer Code, Not Missiles
Military history going back to the very beginnings of civilization has been an endless succession of technological advancement as each side tries to get ahead and remain ahead of its…
The Greatest Fighter Pilot I Ever Knew
I only wish he was around today to pass judgment on the F-35. Douglas Bader. He lost both his legs before WWII in a flying demonstration accident. Bader struggled to…
Homophobia is a Conservative Self-Phobia
In recent years we’ve been treated to numerous examples of homophobic right wingers who get later get caught in homosexual scandals. It’s said the biggest closet in Washington belongs to…
What Does China Want for Christmas? Coal, More Coal.
China may claim that it ‘gets’ global warming and that it’s going green. It’s not. This chart from the Washington Post’s WonkBlog shows who’s who when it comes to coal…
Achilles’ High-Tech Heel(s) – F-35 Must Read
There’s no KISS when it comes to the F-35. Keep It Simple Stupid is not on the menu. The F-35 is all about complex, state-of-the-art complex. It may be too…
First the Bad News, Then the Bad News
Apparently Israel’s air force is not capable of taking out Iran’s nuclear installations. That narrows Israel’s options to long-range missile strikes or sending Israeli special forces into Iran to attack…
When Two Crackers Shoot Five Blacks, It’s a Hate Crime.
“You could look at the facts of the case and come up with would appear to be a logical theory, but we’re going to let the evidence take us where…
Peter MacKay’s Dog Ate His Lunch
Of course he knew that original $9-billion figure was nonsense. And, sure, he knew that $15-billion figure wasn’t the whole story either. And, okay, he knew the $15-billion figure was…