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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 02:03 pm
Canada is insulted a great deal—Cuba del Norte, the land that warm forgot, line up here to do Margaret Trudeau, etc.—but it never deserved an insult so grievous as this:
“Thank you, Mr. Loney,” I would have said. “Thank you for being part of the Canadian idea that this world will become a better place only if each of us does our bit in the best way we can. And you certainly did that.”
- If I were Tony Burman, I’d be careful not to be left alone with any Princess Pats lest my head be forcibly introduced up my behind (where some might suppose it already is).Posted by Monroe Doctrine on 2006 03 28 at 11:06 AM • permalink
- And here I thought the Canadian idea was that for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.Posted by Paul Zrimsek on 2006 03 28 at 11:08 AM • permalink
- As Eli Mandel put it..
The Canadian idea used to be a nation of stops on the world’s longest railway lines.
A nation of bulldozers vs nature, mostly losing to nature.
It doesn’t so much have borders as perimeters.
Poets had a hard time coping with it, and wisely left it alone.
Now TV has given them a spokesman, always a menace. Meaning is instead brought up by hysterics, busybodies and handwringers.
Treat it as part of nature and bulldoze the TV towers, is my advice.
- “A desire to get involved. To help out. To make a difference even if it involves real personal risk. That’s what Canadians do, in very real terms.”
Except in the very real terms that were the Vietnam War, of course. They just missed helping out on that one.
Posted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 28 at 12:06 PM • permalink
- Burman’s province must be Kvetchatchewan.Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 03 28 at 12:06 PM • permalink
- more Canadians than ever feel that news shouldn’t be a passive process. It should stimulate action and engagement
Just what Canada needs, more taxpayer-funded political activism masquerading as journalism.
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2006 03 28 at 12:11 PM • permalink
- …the peacekeepers’ organization failed to express immediate “gratitude” to them for the rescue. This also happened with some in the U.S. media who were prodded on by their military.
Any proof, Dudley?
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 03 28 at 12:18 PM • permalink
- “Thank you for being part of the Canadian idea that this world will become a better place only if each of us does our bit in the best way we can. And you certainly did that.”
Just what was that “bit”, exactly? Giving the soldiers a little hands-on rescue experience? Isn’t it possible that they’ve already done enough of that to qualify as experts? A strange, and imminently forgettable, article, like 99% of the imbecilariat’s production.
- sorryPosted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 03 28 at 12:22 PM • permalink
- “only if each of us does our bit in the best way we can”
This Canadian idea, along with the knowledge that Canadian soldiers are capable of rescuing my sorry ass whenever I do something stupid, has given me the courage and conviction to fulfill a lifelong dream of mine – opening a kiosk in downtown Mecca where the locals can purchase Bibles at discount prices. I’ll be a hero.
According to this study, more Canadians than ever feel that news shouldn’t be a passive process. It should stimulate action and engagement, and help connect Canadians with the major challenges of our times.
Well, I just did my own survey of Canadians (my visiting in-laws) and they said that one of the
major challenges
of their times is getting decent news coverage. I’ll bet my survey is at least as scientific and representative as the CBC’s survey.
Posted by Polish Frizzle on 2006 03 28 at 12:28 PM • permalink
- #17: Why yes, there certainly is a Canadian army. And they have soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan. Credit where credit is due, Bob.
- The boys over at Daimnation have Burman sussed out:
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/006127.html
The CBC has a long history of laying down the law to Canadians about what they’re supposed to be. Burman’s simply in that long tradition. And while it is great that you can find a Canadian doctor in deepest darkest f**ked-uppedest Africa, or RCRs in Kandahar, to equate professional nuisances like Loney with real international involvement is a lot of tendentious nonsense.
- In defense of Canada, (for MY earlier remarks) ‘they’ do have seriously excellent snipers and as Austin Bay** blogged or wrote, a damn fine military force at one time.
We (the U.S.) tried to hand out awards (medals and citations) for their bravery and ability, but Jean Chrétien and/or possibly Paul Martin did or tried to nix that. From what I read or heard (will try to find the link)
**The term “Canadian military” should never be an oxymoron, but after a decade of reduction and decline, what was once one of the world’s most able and elite combat organizations is now a hollow force.
“Canadian Military” an Oxymoron?
by Austin Bay
January 25, 2006
strategypage
- Unfortunately, that’s our CBC.Posted by andycanuck on 2006 03 28 at 02:37 PM • permalink
- Part of the link and story I alluded to in post #23….
OTTAWA BLOCKS U.S. EFFORT TO HONOUR OUR SNIPERS: Canadian snipers pose with their 50-calibre rifle at base camp in Kandahar. Five of the men, whose names the military withheld for security reasons, were nominated for Bronze Stars by the U.S. for their prowess in fighting near Gardez. The sixth joined the unit later in the war.
Sources told the Post that U.S. General Warren Edwards had already signed the recommendation for five Bronze Stars for the sniper teams, drawn from 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, last month. Gen. Edwards, deputy commanding general of coalition land forces in Afghanistan, had recommended three Canadians for a Bronze Star and two for a Bronze Star with distinction.
The night before the troops were to be awarded the medals, about three weeks ago, Canadian military officials in Ottawa put the decorations on hold, according to a U.S. Army source in Afghanistan.
The Canadian military told their U.S. counterparts to wait before awarding the medals for reasons of “Canadian protocol.”
- Well, out of respect for paco’s feelings, and that fact that the Canadians aren’t French…… well, mostly aren’t French, I say I’d be proud to have em as a neighbor. As long as there were, say, 6 or 7 states between us. But hey! What about the beer!…. Its…. its….. Its pretty darn good (if you’re into that skunky smelling kind). But anyway, I think Canada is great. I’ve never been there myself, nor do I see me traveling there anytime in the future, but I say its great nontheless! Ah, who’m I kidding. I’m stalling trying to think of something good that comes from Canada….. Syrup?…no that’s Vermont…
Do they make any cars there? …I dunno
Hey! I got it! Comedians! Canada is a great place and has given us some seriously funny comedians!
What else comes from Canada…help…
- #29 Answer, Peter Jennings. Peter Jennings, a couch salesman on Canadian TV became the news anchor of ABC, leading national TV news, together with that inestimable liar Dan Blather, down the toilet bowl. In a way we should thank Canada for sending that pea brain to US TV land. One of the many reasons for the blossoming of the Blog.
- mmmm….maple-smoked bacon…ohhhrrrmmmmPosted by LeftieLatteLover on 2006 03 28 at 04:40 PM • permalink
- TB 29
What else comes from Canada…help…
Al Capone.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 28 at 05:08 PM • permalink
- Let’s not forget Canada’s contribution to sport.
Their performance at the recent Commonwealth Games was simply breathtaking with their 86 medals, only 135 behind Australia.
And let’s not forget their world famous golfers & tennis players.
And they have been regular first round exiters at Rugby and cricket world cups. Have they ever made the soccer world cup – can’t remember.
And let’s not forget their national sport – ice hockey. Their men had a brave 2-0 defeat to Russia in the quarters in the last Olympics but their women got gold.
And then of course there was Ben Johnson.
Well done, Canada.
Posted by Flying Giraffe on 2006 03 28 at 05:35 PM • permalink
- I’ve only been to Canada once (Ontario), and most of the people I met were friendly and helpful, but one does tend to encounter the occasional oddball who insists on telling you “what the problem with the U.S. is”. This may well not be much different from Americans delivering their opinions to foreigners on their countries. I commute via train to Washington, DC five days a week, and a fellow commuter – and world class bore – spent an hour lecturing a very nice, and obviously well-educated English lady not only about English history, but about current events. The interesting thing is that he was vehemently anti-Blair, and simply assumed that the English lady would be, too. I never found out whether she agreed with him or not; she seemed determined to simply weather his maunderings politely, though she demurely suppressed a yawn from time to time. I do recall that I was doing a fairly poor job of stifling my increasing anger at his left-wing twaddle, and at the first opportunity rose to change seats, doffed my fedora to the lady, and, in my best Richmond, antebellum manner, wished her a safe journey and pleasant stay in Virginia, casting a well-crafted scowl at the bounder who was undoubtedly giving the English visitor a fine stock of notions about the boorish presumptuousness of Americans. Cad! Now that I reflect on it, I wish I had called him out (difficult to do, of course, on a moving train).
- Well, if no-one else will stand up for Canada I will – eh?
Stands up, steps forward, waits for applause.
<crickets>
Don’t forget, Canada gave the world Bre-X
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 03 28 at 05:51 PM • permalink
- I spent a long weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2001 (three months before 9/11 as a matter of fact), and was unfailingly treated with kindness and courtesy. It’s wise to remember that everything we do affects them, whether they like it or not.
Their greatest sin, IMO, is that they invented poutine. They also made us take William Shatner, but hey, he’s good for a laugh now and then.
- Damn those Canadians and their do-your-best ideas. I had thought I came up with it first.Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 28 at 06:37 PM • permalink
- Actually, I have a problem with the Canadian government, not Canadians, although the government is slowly being improved (thanks to recent elections). I grew up just south of the 49th Parallel.
Canadians make a fine brew, and I’ve worked with some good Canadian soldiers (I just wish we had more of them). I’ve spent time in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, and there are some very polite people there (although the Vancouver side of the Strait is not so kind, at least in the urban area). The rest of British Columbia has many courteous people as well.
I also know a very fine lady from Canada, plus my sister-in-law is part Canadian herself.
So there are many redeeming features for the land that warmth forgot. ;-P
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 03 28 at 06:49 PM • permalink
- oh goody – another excuse to sing a place to live, a place to grow, ontari-ari-ari-o while trying not to giggle
btw the original words started with a place to stand… but in the 70s the film board of canada decided that was too static for an a promo jingle for canadas’s most dynamic province – still cracks me up all these years down the track, thinking of ontario as dynamic. Begin planning your sledding getaway now and get the information you need to ride on almost 42,000 km (26,000 miles) of maintained, interconnected and uncongested trails …
- Uh, Ann Murray. Gordon Lightfoot. Celine Dion. And of course the GEO Tracker (or Vitara, I guess, now) while a Suzuki design, was build by GM in Canada.
I’d be tempted to add Bob and Doug MacKenzie to the list but, ummm…
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2006 03 28 at 07:28 PM • permalink
- Sorry, but I fucking hate Canadians. They see themselves as a major country and yet cannot even beat England in the Commonwealth Games. Too busy trying to deny how cold they are in the face of their perceived gloabl warming. The sooner the US invades Canada and puts them all up against a brick wall the better.Posted by Karl Fidel Adams-Kingston on 2006 03 28 at 08:49 PM • permalink
- World’s second largest oil reserves. Tar sands, baby. Come buy our delicious crude, $65/barrel.
As for sports, we did quite well in the Winter Olympics, by the, um, interesting expedient of sending more athletes than all but two other nations. Of course the majority of our medal-winners came from our most American of provinces.
Anyway, Burman is a dipshit, like so much of Canada’s ‘elite’ ‘intellectual’ class. Loney’s hollow best, which Burman so incomprehesibly hails, appears to consist of being a childishly naive clown and then waiting for adults to remove him from the easily-foreseeable situation his colossal ignorance placed him in. Whatever that is, it’s not this Canadian’s way.
Posted by Crispytoast on 2006 03 28 at 09:07 PM • permalink
- #42 RebeccaH
mmmmm ….poutine…mmmmm …. Especially when followed by tarte de sucre – sugar pie. Together, a well rounded meal of about 6 billion calories.
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 03 28 at 09:19 PM • permalink
- BS — The Bugaloos were Canadian?Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 28 at 11:38 PM • permalink
- Maybe he’s talking about BTO, eh?Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 03 28 at 11:53 PM • permalink
- Good things from Canada?
1. Stryker APC,
2. Fire Control Computer on the Abrams.Cheers
JMHPosted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2006 03 29 at 12:54 AM • permalink
- …Not to mention the Royal Canadian Air Farce show, Dave S. (going back a while now though)Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2006 03 29 at 02:36 AM • permalink
- “The sooner the US invades Canada and puts them all up against a brick wall the better.”
Sorry – it’s been tried before. Remember 1812-1815?Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2006 03 29 at 04:14 AM • permalink
- And let’s face it, Tony Burman is, well, he’s a wiener.
By the way, there are NO Frenchmen in Canada other than diplomats, tourists and temporary residents.
Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2006 03 29 at 04:17 AM • permalink
- A comment from the article that tickled my fancy…
March 27, 2006 | 17:55 PST G. Holden Courtenay, B.C.
Thanks for some sanity. It’s not hard to imagine how different the situation would be in Iraq had the Americans funded 100,000 of Mr. Loney’s ilk over the last decade, rather than the 100,000 or so armed jugheads they choose to support. Has the American strategy worked? How many Christian activists are kidnapped and executed? Too many I’m sure, but what is the current total of young men and women in uniform who have died? Perhaps the fingers are pointing in the wrong direction.
“Quick Jhean activate the peacekeeper reserves, Cuba is invading”
“Sorry msouir but they are busy fertilising the tigris agrucultrual zone”“Bugger better call the yanks then” (spit, curse whine)
Yup the cure for war is!!! Pacifist knobheads!!!
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 03 29 at 05:02 AM • permalink
- #60
In other words, rather than have soldiers dying, he’d rather see Christian activists dying? I wonder how long the Christian Peace Keepers could meet their recruiting goals under those circumstances. What a moron.
I must admit though, in my lesser hours I’d actually support the wholesale slaughtering of pacifists by crazed dictators, just to see what the remaining pacifists’ reaction would be.
- BTW, exquisitely on-topic are Mark Steyn’s introductory observations in this old column of his.
- I dont understand why everyone’s pickin on the Canadians. Afterall, they did win the cold war single handedly. I saw it on CBC so it has to be true.
You see, what really won the cold war was Canadian “soft power”.
It turns out, all that had to be done to win the war and bring down the wall and end the hostilities for ever and ever…was to invite Gorby over for a meeting.
But there was a trick. They invited him to a meeting in a farmhouse with really pretty wheat fields around it.
Gorby took a walk out in the wheat field during one of the breaks in the meeting and when he came back he was in tears.
The wheat field was so pretty and well groomed and splindiferous that he knew he couldnt ever do anything to harm people that could grow such wonderful wheat.
So, Gorby declaired peace over the whole world. And it was all due to a Canadian wheat field.
Honest. They said so.
- More on the things we get from Canada. (For the research deprived Lefty who trolls these posts and cannot pick out references or key words from a text, I have included references and clues.) Here is a view of human export from Cuba del Norte:
““Successful Canadians”” like Peter Jennings, usually have to leave your country to make something out of themselves. Aside from ““Joe Canadian”” (who was conceived on Madison Ave, NYC) who actually makes it big up there without moving down here to do it? Just ask Jesse…… ““looking for work, Not necessarily in Canada””……
vivelecanada.ca
On the quality of the export such as Peter Jennings, Jacques Steinberg / NYT tells us that he was a high school dropout while http://Www.hollywood reporter.com tells us he had limited journalistic experience when ABC News installed him at 26 as its primary anchor in February 1965.
One may wonder why, ABC did so but that is not the subject of this post. But it is interesting to find out what influences were at work. Continuing on the quality, we have this from http://Www.memorandum.com: Before there was al-Jazeera, there was Peter Jennings…
Peter Jennings did more for the cause of Islamic terrorism than any media figure today. It is no coincidence that al-Jazeera’’s chief Washington correspondent praised ABC –– and Jennings, in particular –– for their ““objectivity.””
(I personally heard Jennings on Sept. 12 blame our support for Israel for 9/11. This from a journalist. I was so outraged by this blatant Arab propoganda that I wrote a letter to ABC, just to make a record. It turns out that Jennings mistress (about whom he later publicly confessed)was and is a leading Paleo propogandist living in the West Bank, and was often interviewed on ABC. (Look it up.)Not since Jenning passed away, however.
More: On February 24, 2005 hosted a special on UFO’s. (look it up) Although he essentially sympathized with the Farrakahn view of the universe, he failed to reveal Dan Rather’s home planet.
And this only on one asshole who has been sent down here, makes millions (Jennings left $50,000,000 (look it up), and then trashes the place and wont go back. I personally know a herd of them.
- #66 Canadian produces the bravest and most efficient military (what’s left of it) found on the planet. We do not have enough gratitude to give these brave men. The Canadian government should be ashamed of itself for the way it treats them. Ex. Refusal to let the US give them the hightst honors, recognition they deserve which their own gov’t wont give them. My posts do not refer to these gallent men, but to a great deal of human refuse that comes here, sucks off this great country and then demonizes it.
- I lived in southern Alberta for about 3 years (1968-summer 71). My mum was a school teacher in a farming community – 100 students in grades 1-9, 6 teachers. The grade 8 & 9 girls & boys rode the bus 21 miles to town school once a week for home ec & shop (when we got to grade 10, we rode the bus to town school every day – for my friend Carol it was 50 miles one way).
Don’t get the idea this is a “walked 10 miles uphill in the show without shoes” comment. It was a tough life, I guess, when I look at it NOW, but if you ain’t tough you don’t survive. We had LOTS of fun. No phone, no tv, weeks of weather well below zero…but a good experience all the same.
We were accepted as much as any other outsider & still keep in touch with a few of the kids we knew then.
EVERY government made us (or our parents) mad, because for a very long time now, it seems our government representatives pay no attention to the working folks they are elected to serve. In Canada AND the US. Also, if you want to talk to real regular folks, GO WEST to the Prairie Provinces.
I love western Canada & its people. But I feel the same way about the States, as I identify much more with those in Flyover Country.
- Andycanuck
We all appreciate Canada’s contribution to the war effort. Statements like this “The violence in the area has renewed calls for an open debate in Parliament about whether Canada should cut its mission in Afghanistan short” give one pause however.We are in a war and wars involve casualties. Apparently 12 Canadians have been killed in 4+ years now (by comparison the Regiment I was with in Iraq had 11 deaths in one year in a relatively quiet sector), but support for the continuation of the mission is at only 52% according to the poll that accompanies the article. Harper appears to be a rock, but I wonder about the rest of the political leadership.
- You know, given all the good works Canadians do out in the world and how beloved Mounties and maple syrup are and all that, maybe its time at last for Canada’s big post 9-11 navel-gazing session: “Why do they mock us?”Posted by crittenden on 2006 03 29 at 12:29 PM • permalink
- Well, as a Canadian, I believe it is more than past time to put the September 10 whiny, happy-clappy, it’s-a-small-world-after-allCanada of Trudeaupia behind us and get on with confronting the realities we all face in the September 11 world.
That means good old-fashioned Dominion of Canada values: gumption, grit and quiet, deliberate determination.
Vive le Canada! À bas les maudits islamistes!
Boy, I feel a lot better for saying that…
Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2006 03 29 at 03:55 PM • permalink
- – The “Canada Arm” on the space shuttle
– SCTV(BTO was a joke, forgot to add /sarc tag)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2006 03 29 at 08:46 PM • permalink
- #69 91B30
You’re observations are correct, I just don’t want anyone judging us by our lefties (and MSM screw-ups). And the recent change of government will change things, alot I hope.And re. another post: “hoser” rhymes with “bulldozer”.
Posted by andycanuck on 2006 03 30 at 01:37 AM • permalink
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