Thi is going to be fun

[Jazzzoline]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/st...070909151.html

[claude]

Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.

Three centuries thereafter, I take passage overland
In the footsteps of brave Kelso, where his "sea of flowers" began
Watching cities rise before me, then behind me sink again
This tardiest explorer, driving hard across the plain.

And through the night, behind the wheel, the mileage clicking west
I think upon Mackenzie, David Thompson and the rest
Who cracked the mountain ramparts and did show a path for me
To race the roaring Fraser to the sea.

How then am I so different from the first men through this way?
Like them, I left a settled life, I threw it all away.
To seek a Northwest Passage at the call of many men
To find there but the road back home again.

Chorus:

Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.

[Jazzzoline]

No joke, this kinda thing is going throw us sooner or later into some kind of Iraq. Iraqanada !
I wonder what will Mme CLinton find as a lie as a start to a war : Canada hides Ben Laden and MMW.

Probably the reason under bringing Canada into a war against Afghanistan.
Pffft!

[tippy]

Wow, Jazzz, that's pretty cool. We could all end up in prison (Guanatanamo if there's any space left) for talking to you and patricia and Canuck Don.

Here is my advice to the Canadien government: Siphon that territory dry in one big overnight gulp - if you don't I can guarantee that U.S. will.

[Enforcer]

Originally Posted by tippy

the Canadien government

What a scary thought.

[Jazzzoline]

Originally Posted by tippy

Wow, Jazzz, that's pretty cool. We could all end up in prison (Guanatanamo if there's any space left) for talking to you and patricia and Canuck Don.

Here is my advice to the Canadien government: Siphon that territory dry in one big overnight gulp - if you don't I can guarantee that U.S. will.

Well, since the seal hunt is permetted again, we'll need quite a few of them US citizens to feed the polar bears.

And, I wouldn't mind being in Guantanamo for 8 months a year, when it's damn too cold around here, until the weather really warm up.

[patricia]

Remember when our countries' leaders used to be friends? Seems like a lifetime ago.
Sad. Truly sad.

[Gary Sisco]

I've been warning for years about those hordes to the north.

[Gary Sisco]

Bronwyn had an idea once for an Inuit restaurant. The waitron would bring a cart of baby seals to the table so the customer could choose one, like people choose lobsters.

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Bronwyn had an idea once for an Inuit restaurant. The waitron would bring a cart of baby seals to the table so the customer could choose one, like people choose lobsters.

Do you have to bring your own club?

[jeff54]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I've been warning for years about those hordes to the north.

Actually if Canada wanted to invade, now would be the perfect time.

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by jeff54

Actually if Canada wanted to invade, now would be the perfect time.

Except that Canada doesn't invade other countries (we have never started, nor lost, a war). And even if we did, right now our army is too busy trying to clean up the mess in Afghanistan.

[claude]

Originally Posted by Larry Nagel

I wish that was what our government looked like...

[Gary Sisco]

Originally Posted by Dan G

Except that Canada doesn't invade other countries (we have never started, nor lost, a war). .

Um, Canadians fought in Vietnam, no? Korea? Afghanistan? Oh, wait. That last one was a victory. How could I have forgotten?

There were also several tussles between the French and the Brits, and then the Brit Canadians and the Americans.

WW1 would have been a mighty different story had the US not entered it. It wasn't like the "Allies" were teetering on victory, there, son.

Not Canadians but a bit forgotten history: The northernmost attack of the Confederacy in the American Civil War, was a cavalry raid launched from Quebec into Vermont, where they robbed a bank in St Albans and beat it at a gallop back to Quebec, blowing up the several bridges behind them to impede the chase.

[Dan G]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Um, Canadians fought in Vietnam, no? Korea? Afghanistan? Oh, wait. That last one was a victory. How could I have forgotten?

Canada wasn't involved in the Vietnam war. Canadians fought there with the US, but we didn't send our army. And as to losing in Afghanistan...not over yet, but hoepfully we'll get our troops out of there really soon and let the US try to clean up the mess. They're so good at that these days

There were also several tussles between the French and the Brits, and then the Brit Canadians and the Americans.

WW1 would have been a mighty different story had the US not entered it. It wasn't like the "Allies" were teetering on victory, there, son.

Yes, both WW1 and WW2 would have been very different if the US hadn't gotten involved. And they would have been more different (probably shorter, less loss of life) if they would have gotten involved a lot earlier.

Not Canadians but a bit forgotten history: The northernmost attack of the Confederacy in the American Civil War, was a cavalry raid launched from Quebec into Vermont, where they robbed a bank in St Albans and beat it at a gallop back to Quebec, blowing up the several bridges behind them to impede the chase.

Anything pre-confederation was Britain, not Canada (or in the case you mention, maybe France? whoever it was, it wasn't a Canadian army). When I said we haven't invaded a country, I meant not started a war. We are willing to go in soon after though.

[Jazzzoline]

Bank robbery?

What bank was that? What year?

Is a bank robbery a war?

[tippy]

Originally Posted by Jazzzoline

Bank robbery?

What bank was that? What year?

Is a bank robbery a war?

We hold you to higher standards.

[Gary Sisco]

It's explained in the post. Just a historical curiosity.

[Gary Sisco]

Dan -- You can't be serious re WW1. What made the war so bloody wasn't the US not entering it. It was the Brit and Euro generals being idiotic enough -- and the governments being idiotic enough to let them -- fight the war the way they did. The US had no reason to get into it at all as far as I'm concerned. It was a war over their various imperialisms and their generals were simply stupid, refusing to recognize the reality of things like machineguns for instance. I'd have let them go on killing each other for as long as they liked, frankly. That was one of history's dumbest wars, which is saying a great deal.

As for WW2, you should brush up. First, the American military was at WW2's beginnings and even til Pearl Harbor and after, nearly nonexistent by comparison to what it was later on. The Army was very small, the Navy had been sinking warships for years (because of the treaties after WW1 and other reasons related later on) and was itself nearly nonexistent. When Churchill first came to the US seeking material assistance, he was astonished at what little there was physically existing to even offer. FDR had to really twist arms to get the US capitalists to retool for lend-lease, even, never mind for fighting WW2. Ford, for example, was an open supporter of Hitler and the Nazis and had no desire to tool up to even help fight them.

It was only after Pearl Harbor that the US entered upon an industrial effort like no other in history before or since -- and raise what was in every way a conscript military that was to grow from six digits to 16 million men under arms in what was an astonishingly short amount of time, by any standards. Had the US entered the war in Europe early on, Europe would still be goosestepping today, as the German military was by far the best in the world and the best equipped at the time. No contest. The US would have had its own ass kicked into the sea along with the Brits.

Even after Normandy, the war's conclusion was in no way guaranteed, even though the Normandy invasion was what amounted to a final blow compared to the war the Russians fought against Germany. Even Patton, who couldn't spell "defeat" with a pistol to his head, wrote in his journal during the Battle of the Bulge "this war could still be lost."

There's no point in even talking about the US having entered WW2 before it did, as it hadn't the firepower, machinery, or people under arms to do so. Chamberlain has also taken a bad rap because there was no military in the US or anywhere else that stood anything close to a chance against the Germans at the time. Talk of "appeasement" when there simply wasn't a military to counter the Germans has always been disingenuous at best and ahistorical at worst. Who was to do the fighting and with what?

It was only that astonishing military and industrial build up in an incredibly short time -- which wouldn't itself have been possible with major sacrifices by the whole US population -- that made the US the superpower it was coming out of WW2. It was nowhere close to one beforehand.

And by the way, Normandy was an invasion and Canada was indeed a part of it.

The war in Afghanistan today is as lost as the war in Iraq, incidentally. It just receives a good deal less attention.

[claude]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Dan -- You can't be serious re WW1. What made the war so bloody wasn't the US not entering it. It was the Brit and Euro generals being idiotic enough -- and the governments being idiotic enough to let them -- fight the war the way they did. The US had no reason to get into it at all as far as I'm concerned. It was a war over their various imperialisms and their generals were simply stupid, refusing to recognize the reality of things like machineguns for instance. I'd have let them go on killing each other for as long as they liked, frankly. That was one of history's dumbest wars, which is saying a great deal.

I am constantly horrified when reading about WW1 and how the people in command had absolutely no regard for human life, particularly their own men. 750,000 dead in the 3 months of the Passchendaele battle is just mind-boggling.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by claude

I am constantly horrified when reading about WW1 and how the people in command had absolutely no regard for human life, particularly their own men. 750,000 dead in the 3 months of the Passchendaele battle is just mind-boggling.

My late mother [born in 1906 in Edinburgh, Scotland] told me that fully half her classmates had lost their fathers in WWI.
I wonder whether there is any more regard for life now than there was then.
To be sure, the American soldier, being able to kill from the air, or with unbelievably efficiency, compared to the adversary, has reduced the numbers of their own dead.
But, the permanently injured are in far greater numbers than they would have been in years past, due to advances in medicine.

So, what you gain on the swings you lose on the merry-go-round.
Progress?? I wonder.

[Jazzzoline]

Where's Bush?
Here:


http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/n...c-9fc7e29c0bbb

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Jazzzoline

Where's Bush?
Here:


http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/n...c-9fc7e29c0bbb

Of course, Bush, Harper and Calderone are totally oblivious of the presence of protesters.
The news says that there are TVs in the lobby to keep the three apprised of what is going on, should they care.
They, none of them, paid the slightest attention as they passed the updates on the protesters on the TVs in the lobby.

[Jazzzoline]

I'm surprised he's still alive.

Anyways, whatever they discuss (Souveraineté of the north sea), I just hope Harper won't come to any agreement with Bush. He turns agreements at his advantage all the times (ALENA).

[tippy]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Bronwyn had an idea once for an Inuit restaurant. The waitron would bring a cart of baby seals to the table so the customer could choose one, like people choose lobsters.

Okay, that's fucking funny. I like Bronwyn.