Canada’s Robin Hood

“Stephane Dion is Not A Leader” “Stephane Dion, Not Worth the Risk” Welcome to the new era of Canadian Politics. After years of Liberal control, Canada’s government changed hands 2 years ago to the Conservatives. Now there isn’t an election called, but the Conservatives are doing smear attack ads on the Liberal leader. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has these ads on the radio and on tv but some of them don’t even make sense! “Not a Leader” Well, by definition, he clearly is a leader. He survived something called a “Leadership Convention” Is that enough? Or how about when he tossed a member from the Liberals for voting against the party on a confidence motion? Yes, that last one is proof he is a leader because few others were in a position to force that MP from the party.

How about the Prime Minister? Well how is he portrayed? A hardliner? Yes, that’s a good word. When you compare the leadership qualities between Dion and Harper you would say Harper is a stronger leader. However Hitler was a stronger leader than Clinton. Which one is better? Not saying Harper is responsible for the death of 6 million jews, but he does seem to chain his ministers to tow the party line. Dion just scraps those that don’t follow by example. He knows there are others willing to step into place.

Which way is more successful? Harper’s iron fist or Dion’s welcoming hand?

Where is Osama bin Laden? We’ve been searching caves in Afghanistan for going on the 7th year and there is nothing. If he keeps sending out these videos and audio tapes, you think they could find him. Well, they do know where he is….kinda.

Afghanistan is a battle that would have been avoided had there been proper infrastructure in place after the Soviets left in the 1980’s (See the film Charlie Wilson’s War for more details) Now that the infrastructure is being put in place there is hope that Afghanistan (unlike Iraq) may be able to take the fight to the insurgents themselves. It is a powerful statement of the progress in Afghanistan but where is their former leader hiding out? Right next door just waiting until we leave so he can get back into his home country. A quick geography lesson, Pakistan borders Afghanistan, and the terrain of the border? Ridiculous. The mountain ranges and everything between the two countries makes it one of the most difficult borders to control in the world. Pakistan has acknowledged this problem and is struggling to deal with the fleeing terrorist climbing the mountains to seek refuge. They tried planting landmines along the border to ease that problem. This is of course a terrible way because it harms so many innocent citizens (although that doesn’t stop the terrorists from using the same style of murder against NATO). So what can they do? They’ve set out with their army searching for Osama but refuse any foreign help asking that other countries respect their sovereignty.

Well earlier this week Canada’s Liberal Leader Stephane Dion visited Afghanistan. He proposed that NATO intervention may be necessary in Pakistan. Whether or not Osama is alive anymore doesn’t even matter. There is a tremendous wave of insurgents sitting there and waiting and every once and a while they will sneak into Afghanistan to stir up some trouble and run back to their safe haven in Pakistan. Yes, I said it. Pakistan is a safe haven for terrorists. Despite the fact they have joined the International Community in fighting terrorism, their arrogance for sovereignty is obstructing the mission to end the Al Qaeda threat to Afghanistan.

Free Trade is an interesting idea. It has the word “Free” in it so it must be good! Laissez-faire economics in our capitalist societies believes that money is like blood and it must flow without impedement. Of course this same capitalist system brought us the rise of Burger King, the most fatty, artery clogging food out there. All right so if the money should flow freely then that’s cool, this brings to mind a picture of money and goods being exchanged between countries at an equal pace. That’s just such a beautiful picture to imagine. Two neighbouring countries equal, and everything is fine. Oh wait a second, Canada and the US have been at par in currency for nearly half a year. How’s that treating them? The once powerful juggernaut of the United States is in a reccession and can barely afford the Canadian oil. So? That can only mean good things right? We finally clean up the air! Well yes, and being a Canadian being considered equal with the US is quite an achievement….or so I thought.

Companies only want to grow, it’s no secret. They do this by finding cheaper ways to produce their goods so to keep those goods at a lower cost and thereby ensuring an increase in sales. All right, so US/Canada free trade is signed in 1989 and companies are licking their lips, those cheap Canadians will be put to work in assembly lines. Back then an American Dollar got you $1.20 in Canada so the jobs started moving North. Now we cost the same as American workers with our dollar at par, but there are those pesky transportation costs. Oops! As you can imagine the jobs are now moving back South.

Here’s something from the President and vice-chairman of Chrysler Tom LaSorda regarding assembly lines in Canada. “You only have so much capital and where’s the growth? The growth is outside NAFTA, More investments will have to go in other regions.”. Thank you NAFTA. Looks like NAFTA doesn’t strengthen economies at all. If it does it is only a quick surge.

After 2010 you can expect these same jobs to be made available in Detroit or Flint, Michigan. Because hey! Money should flow freely between countries. It’s too bad that with that assumption comes the sad truth that the people must be willing to move with the money. In the words of the industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers. “The writing is on the wall for the Canadian GM, Ford and Chrsyler CAW worker.”

Conspiracy theories are always an exciting bit of literature to follow. They are always a uniquely distinct perspective because they dare to ask the questions we overlook. However, what happens next is humourous. Rather than asking their questions and listening for answers, they go ahead and pull a story out of nowhere, present it in a loud and ignorant manner, then slam the door before hearing any responses. This type of thinking I’m going to call the Teenage Girl method of drawing conclusions.

The 9/11 video called Loose Change is a perfect example of this. They proclaim themselves to be “truthers” or “truth seekers”, then a few years later these truthers require a second video called “Loose Change 2nd Edition”. Funny! If the same person told you two different stories on the same event and called them both the truth, how seriously would you take this person? Well meet the makers of this film Mr. Dylan Avery, Mr. Korey Rowe and Mr. Jason Bermas whom together form the Teenage Girl model for drawing conclusions.

One of the questions that is presented in this movie is: Why did the towers collapse in a freefall style? An excellent question, but rather than presenting the question and letting debate transpire from there, these Teenage Girls push their own story of bombs in the building. Yea, that’s right. Their side is “secondary explosions” were used and the building fell at a freefall speed. Now for the loud and ignorant part of this Teenage Girl model. With all those camera angles to choose from, they selected the one with the shortest visible time of collapse, and made sure it also had enough smoke to hide the core of the building falling after the exterior. Then when presenting it in their documentary, the Teenage Girls didn’t even show the beginning of the collapse nor even acknowledge the core stood longer.

Are you ready for the door slam? Those “secondary explosions” that appeared as horizontal bursts were visible on so many different camera angles but, the idea it was planted to bring down the towers has several problems to it. By now any “truthers” have quit reading my post because this is the part they like to ignore. Here are six rebuttals to the “secondary explosives” theory.

#1 The plumes were random and therefore could not have been strategically placed to bring down the structure.

#2 The plumes were pockets of air building up and bursting through the windows as the floors inside the tower pancaked down prior to the visible collapse.

#3 These plumes had no fire and little to no flash, when in demolitions the explosives used light up brilliantly

#4 The counter to #3 is the use of thermide. However, thermide eats away at metals and goes inward, not exploding outward.

#5 These tiny plumes are almost invisible when compared to the massive destruction caused by the planes. If conspiracists don’t believe a plane at full speed could bring down the towers, why should we believe their pinhole explosions could?

#6 Controlled demolitions are implosions. On 9/11 debris flows outward and even strikes neighbouring buildings.

This is just one of their theories. It goes on to say a missile hit the pentagon, Flight 93 landed safely, and Osama Bin Laden’s multiple confessions are a hoax.

My first blog on here will be on what I am most passionate about, that evil thing called bottled water. What reasons do I have to hate bottled water?

People will say to me “I understand the pollution makes it bad but why not go after soft drinks or something like that?” Well my response to that is always the same. I can’t just go drink from a fountain of Sprite.

The stat I use all the time is taken from the United Nations. Around 1.2 billion people in the world do not have access to safe, clean water. This is a number too large for us to really understand. We are talking about nearly three times the # of people in North America. What’s worse are the preventable deaths of children from waterborne illnesses. 5,000 children die every day because of this. Again, another way to understand this number is to imagine 12 jumbo jets filled with children crashing every day. Do you feel like doing anything yet?

Every time we use bottled water as a luxury item we are wasting money that could be spent on those that truly need it.

My friends, it is time we look at water as a Human Right. It is essential to life and should not be sold for profit. Canada has consistently prevented any steps by the International Community to make water a Human Right. Every day we waste is another dozen jets crashing. Wait a week to tell your local politican? That’s 84 jets. I ask all of you to write to your President/Prime Minister and to your other local elected officials stating your views and include the tagline: “Water is Essential to Life, Make it a Right!”