54-40: Canadian
“One Day In Your Life”; ‘Show Me‘ (1987)
Fifty-Four Forty Or Fight!
[This one’s for Puddle, who’s having a crappy day… week. Okay, month.]
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The First Three News Stories On 04/02/07
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(6pm) BBC World News:
1) Iran And Britain: Everything that has happened until now has been aboot Iran trying to humiliate Britain and, by extension, the United States. Everyday brought at least two statements, one from the Good Cop — “Of course we will release them, as soon as Britain apologizes for their years of imperialism and hatred of Islam.” And one from the Bad Cop — “The British infidels who trespassed against us will be tried in court and will be dealt with according to the customs of Persia… by the way ‘300’, while a special effects marvel, was still a hateful representation of Everything Persian.” Every “diplomatic” note has been used as a prod in the side of the British people and every broadcast of the hostages eating, apologizing and smoking Iranian cigarettes has been an attempt to make Tony Blair’s blood pressure shoot up. This is what Fascist governments like the Islamic Republic of Iran do for kicks. Read Kamangir’s blog for up to the minute news reports from Iran, including translations from the Government news services. They’re fascinating.
2) Yushchenko Dissolves Ukrainian Parliament : Russia has been trying to screw with Ukraine since the “Orange Revolution” which tossed the Russia friendly government out and brought in the government of Victor Yushchenko, the guy Russia fed poison. Russia has been trying to regain its pride since 1989. Embarrassing Russia by voting to separate from the MotherLand did the Baltic States, Georgia and Ukraine no favours within the Russian political hierarchy. Yushchenko claims the pro-Russian Prime Minister is usurping too much power and Parliament is fighting back claiming Yushchenko has no mandate to tell them what to do. Both parties are planning massive street protests and the general consensus is the situation will be resolved in the street. Last year Russia turned off the gas to Georgia, this year it’s aboot Ukraine… Russia is a failed state grasping for its former glory by fucking with its former, and now successful, colonies. A good way to stop this from happening might be for the European Union to start negotiations with Ukraine over membership. But that would involve the EU growing a set of balls, something which — at this point — would seem to require genetic engineering.
3) Somalia Gets Worse: Honestly, did you ever think you’d read “Somalia gets worse“? There is some support for the “Islamic militia’s” because, once again, desperate people mistake making the trains run on time for peace and security. Of course Islamic Fascists would stop the trains entirely, but you get the point. The Islamic militia is making its last stand in a series of attacks in and around Mogadishu. Somali and Ethiopian troops are fighting back along with some occasional and extremely clandestine support from the American Air Force. An estimated 380 Somali’s have died in this latest fighting with another 500 injured.
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(6.30pm) ABC Nightly News With Charles Gibson
1) Nuclear Iran Closer Than Thought : Since January of this year Iran has added 1000 centrifuges to its uranium enrichment program. It previously had 370+ centrifuges in its program which, according to a CIA report to Congress just a few days ago, would have given the Iranian government enough uranium for a bomb by 2015. With the additional 1000 units the estimate is now two years. Whoops. Iran has also recently said that it will have 3000 centrifuges by May… of this year. These units aren’t operational, yet, but they will be soon. This spending spree by Iran will triple their uranium capacity. Here’s the Thing aboot That… the uranium produced by these centrifuges is completely wrong for the types of reactors Iran is building for their “domestic power initiative”. The Iranian Government is trying to speed up the process because it knows they are being isolated by the “Rational Resolute”… you can read all aboot it here: “Iran vs. America In ‘The Marketing War’: Where Being The Victim Is Victory.”
2) British Diplomacy In Action: Once a British diplomat says “we regret how this situation is being perceived” you know it’s just aboot over. No one beats the British in Diplomacy. Don’t forget, they invented the English language. Iran is now promising not to show any more broadcasts of the hostages… but they did it once more just to prove that Persian Logic is supreme.
3) Tsunami Hits Solomon Islands: Initial reports say eighteen people have been killed after an 8.1 earthquake just to the North-East of Australia. The numbers will go way up. The Solomon Islands have a really interesting history we could learn from… if you can find “Collapse” by Jared Diamond pick it up. It looks at how successful civilizations manage to kill themselves off through nine easy to follow steps… he looks at the Vikings in Greenland; modern Montana; the Polynesians and a few others. Fascinating book. Setting up societies in an environmentally insanely-unstable region, like a line of volcanic islands in the Southern Pacific, is on his list somewhere.
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(7pm) PBS: The News Hour With Jim Lehrer:
1) Supreme Court Rules On Carbon Emissions: For several years the American Government has been saying that the Environmental Protection Agency did not have the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate the Carbon Emissions from new cars. Today the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, disagreed. Which means Global Warming has been cured and now it’s cool to use your hair dryer as a cooking element. This will be seen as a rebuke of the environmental policies of G.W. Bush, but really it doesn’t mean a whole lot for the environment in the short term… “short term” being the next thirty years. The EPA position was they did not have the authority to interfere with other federal environmental initiatives and also that there was no direct causal link between carbon emissions and pollution… basically that carbon emissions was too broad a term and could mean anything. Like breathing. They had other arguments as well, but the Supreme Court shot them all down. Within the Clean Air Act, the majority decision said, “air pollution” has a sweeping enough definition which includes carbon emissions. So instead of the EPA dismissing carbon emissions out of hand, they must offer scientific proof as to why those emissions should be disqualified from the “Air Pollutants List”. Which means the Supreme Court is not demanding carbon emissions be automatically added to the list of pollutants, just that the EPA must provide proof one way or the other.
2) Guantanamo Detainees Denied Appeal: Today the Supreme Court also decided not to hear the appeals cases of detainees in Guantanamo Bay until after they’ve had their Military Hearings. Which should be anytime now… nope, not now… maybe now… nope. Now? Nope.
3) Iraqi’s Killed: There were a bunch of car bombs over the weekend. 81 American soldiers died during the month of March. Several orphans were created in at least two countries. Now? Nope. How aboot now? Nope.
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11pm CTV News With Lloyd Robertson
1) Britain v. Iran: Tom Clark reported this story. Tom’s a bit of an enigma. He was chosen a long time ago to be Lloyd’s replacement as anchor — he’s got the voice anyway, but Lloyd won’t freaking retire. So Tom has been shuttled around inside the CTV News Department for years and now, surely for longevity reasons, CTV has made him their Washington Correspondent. But he has never been a very good reporter… anyway, he reported on this story using the same source I did, “according to ABC News“. There was an extra interview (it’s not clear whether it was from stock footage or done today because Tom wasn’t shown with the person) that had this interesting observation: “saving face to country’s like Iran is incredibly important”. Then there was a quick quote from the Pool Camera in the White House media centre: “by calling them “hostages” and not “captives” we’re not trying to increase tensions as a means to start a war with Iran.” Again, that was not a response to one of Tom’s questions. Reporters from Canada, especially the TV people, rarely get to ask White House Spokespeople questions and since Tom’s a bit of a dipstick and the CBC’s Neil MacDonald is still convinced 9/11 was a plot hatched by Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney back in the Gerald Ford administration, the chances of them getting Face Time with the Important Spokespeople is slim, none and no.
2) RCMP Moves To Kabul: There’s a series of scandals going on right now involving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police which I plan on writing aboot soon. The Force has been broken for over a generation now, and this ‘scandal of the moment‘ involves millions of dollars missing or not in the pension fund. So, after watching the RCMP take a shit kicking in The Press for a week, the government thought it’d be a good idea to create a “feel-good RCMP moment“. So Canada is sending another 12 RCMP officers to Afghanistan to train the Afghan police department. This brings the number up to 36 officers.
3) Arrest Warrant Issued For Lafleur: There is now an international manhunt underway for a 66-year old advertising executive from Montreal accused of pilfering millions of dollars in government money earmarked for advertising the Goodness of Government, then passing hundreds of thousands of dollars back into the Liberal Party of Canada… which was the ruling party at the time and the ones handing out the advertising money. So you can see why there’s some interest in finding this guy. Jean Lafleur, former head of Lafleur Communication Marketing, is facing thirty-six counts of fraud. Since his apartment hasn’t been used lately and his drivers licence expired a couple of years ago there’s a pretty good chance he has left the country. There’s still $40 Million unaccounted for in a scheme created by the Liberal Party in response to their completely inept handling of the last Quebec referendum. The scheme/strategy for convincing Quebec to stay in Canada was based around the Government of Canada buying ad space at “events” in Quebec and putting up huge “CANADA DOESN’T SUCK” banners. There was no oversight and the money, a lot of money, got spread around to Liberal Friendly Marketing and Advertising Firms. A lot of that money then got donated back to the Liberal Party. Lafleur, for example, hired his entire immediate family and paid them $2.8 million in salaries. His own salary went from $108,000 to $2.5 Million over two years. Lafleaur then “encouraged” his employees to “donate” money to the Liberal Party, which he then reimbursed with the money he received from the advertising contracts. No one in the Liberal Party Leadership knew anything aboot any of this. Ahem… [awkward silence]. Cough.
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properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.
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0_o
cultural sn:afu 