Category: Media

I’ve seen a lot of odd stuff in my life but this not only takes the cake, it quite frankly creeps the hell out of me. Never thought I’d see the army called out for something like this; not in this country, at least. The Freeps and the TO Red Star seem to be the only ones that have picked this up so far but look to hear more of it as word gets around.

It seems that a couple of kids were with their mom walking the family pooch on Friday along a creek that crosses Inadale Drive between Strathroy and Mt. Brydges (not sure about the name of it yet but the locals seem to just call it “crayfish creek”) and they stumbled on… two antitank mines!

That’s right. Two God damned landmines — like the one in the photo on the right, taken at the scene — were found in the creek right by a culvert that a buttload of people drive over every day.

We’ll start off with what the Freeps had to say about it today:

The potential for devastation was evident yesterday as a military team detonated the mines from a safe distance.

The force of the blast ripped bark and limbs from a tree and sprayed water so high it could be seen by observers a kilometre away.

“I could feel the percussive force,” Overdulve said, “It was 100 times louder than any fireworks you ever heard.”

Seven centimetres thick and 25 centimetres in diameter, the mines appear to be the kind used to disable tanks.

“We can’t definitively prove that, but that is the direction we are leaning,” Overdulve said.

After the detonation, the explosives experts found debris “consistent with timers,” he said.

The first mine was found Friday afternoon by nearby resident Lynn Denning, who walked to the creek with her two teenage daughters so that their yellow lab, Jesse, could enjoy the cold water.

“It’s upsetting,” she said.

While Inadale is a two-lane country road, many residents cross the culvert to commute to London, Denning said.

“There’s quite a lot of traffic during the week,” said Denning, who commutes to work at London Health Sciences Centre.

The family called Strathroy-Caradoc police, who sought help from the OPP, who called in the explosive ordinance disposal team from CFB Base Borden.

The explosives team left its base 100 kilometres north of Toronto at 6:20 a.m. yesterday.

“We responded quickly — we take this matter quite seriously,” said Capt. Cheryl Swarbrick, a base spokesperson.

Their presence was soon felt and heard on a normally quiet, tree-lined road.

“I’ve seen hand grenades and ammunition, but I never encountered anything like this,” Overdulve said.

Until a year ago, Overdulve lived near the creek, taking his three kids there to fish so often, they called it “crayfish creek.”

“This area is typically occupied by children, who come here to play,” he said.

The Red Star, of course, took their usual “nothing to see here, folks, move along” stance. You know; the same one they take every time something happens that has the potential to suggest that those on the Right side of the political spectrum just might be right about the idea of national security…

“It would be very premature to say how they might have got there,” Overdulve said. Around 1 p.m. after inspection, the military detonated what they describe as possible anti-tank devices – a type of land mine capable of damaging or destroying tanks or other armoured vehicles.

Investigators are unsure whether the suspected land mines were modern or from a bygone military era. “It’s possible that the ordnance is quite old,” Overdulve said. All the debris was collected and sent for analysis, with results expected within the next two weeks.

Bygone military era, my lilly-white ass. Dawdling around and leaving antitank mines all over southwestern Ontario has never been a part of the Canadian Armed Forces’ training and exercises regimen. 🙄

Meanwhile, over at Canada Free Press, Judi McLeod seems to be the only one asking the right questions, out loud:

The big question about two live landmines found in a countryside culvert running under Inadale Drive between Strathroy and Mt. Brydges, Ontario yesterday is who put them there?

Appearing to be attached to timers, the landmines were likely of the type used to blow up tanks, according to Strathroy-Caradoc police.

[…]

The Strathroy and Mt. Bridges communities are 20 kilometres west of London, Ont. and 30 kilometres from the former Military Camp Ipperwash (also Camp Ipperwash, a former Canadian Armed Forces training facility, now held by Stoney Point First Nation natives.

The only other military base in the area was CFB Clinton, about 40 kilometres away [actually, Judi, it’s more like 100 kliks away -Dennis], shut down some 36 years ago, and CFB London, about 20 kilometres away and downsized some 15 years ago

Let’s face it, boys and girls, the friggin’ Mine Fairy didn’t leave those things there. And there are two things that suggest to me that they haven’t been there for very damned long:

1. They were submerged in water, but not for so long that they couldn’t still go off. And as one Korean War vet told me once, in the winter time the pressure from expanding ground frost (or in this case, solid ice) will often set mines off.
2. The size of them. Earlier AV/AT mines were damned big things. They had to be, simply because the kind of compact, high-efficiency explosives that we can find today hadn’t been developed yet. Most accounts put these things found in the creek as being discs about 20cm across and about 6cm thick. That’s small for an AV/AT device.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t get that little voice in the back of my head to shut the hell up. You know the voice I’m talking about; you might have one yourself. The one that keeps saying, “They said we were a target. Even before we sent troops to Afghanistan, they came right out and said we were on their hit list. And everybody knows that they always try to do a dry run first…”

Is that nagging little voice wrong? Am I just being paranoid? I sure as hell hope so.

After all this time, I figure it’s about damned time that I blabbed about something other than a murdering sack of maggot shit that has had everybody worried lately. So here goes…

HOLY [BLEEP]ING [BLEEP]!!! I’ve heard of “dragon skin” before. I even had a chance to get an up-close look at how it performed against a full burst from and AK47 and I was impressed as hell. But I NEVER thought it could pull this off. This is just too damned surreal.

From the vid, the grenade looks like a standard frag (an M67 or some such) but I can’t really see well enough to be sure. Either way, this is un-Goddamned-believable! Some of you might have seen this before, but I just tripped over it and I’m still shaking my head. Part of me is skeptical, but…

Just watch for yourselves…

PS-
I know I promised another/final Imeson post, but well… when word came out that he was bagged, me and the mates went out and tied a few on. So the Jesse post will have to wait til tomorrow, when I sober up. Sorry, folks.

Okay, there’s been a lot of chatter all of a sudden in the comments about just what I do and don’t delete on this site. It seems that just because I’ve admitted that I had to dump a few comments, some folks have taken it into their melons that this is a place where censorship lives.

It ain’t.

If you have something that you think is worth saying, by all means post it. Just don’t expect me (or anyone else here, for that matter) to agree with it. And do expect to be taken to task if somebody else gets pissed enough about what you have on your mind. It’s that simple. Some folks seem a little worried, though. Folks like Paul…

I will be disappointed if my comment is deleted as I’ve tried to stay positive about this whole thing, but even you all have to admit something more than the freaking OPP is needed in all of this.

And Lee Rock…

I am kinda sad that those other comments were deleted. […] and if my comment is deleted….well then that is just sad…this is a free country, with freedom of speech remember??? I liked hearing what other’s had to say, even tho they were a bit angry and upset…they were voicing their opinions and that is what Canada is all about….FREEDOM!!

First off, Lee is right. Voicing opinions is a big damned part of what Canada is all about. Uunless, of course, you voice a politically incorrect one, in which case you might find yourself battered from pillar to post through our “human rights” system, like Scott Brockie was. No need to worry about that here, though; I actually believe in giving air to those who agree with me AND those who don’t. It’s part of my belief in that whole messy democracy thing. Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but I live with it. So no, I’m not in the habit of killing comments just because they happen to piss me off.

There are, however, two things that need to be kept in mind:

1. This is a public site and I actually do try to keep it at least half-assed family-friendly. Yes, I have a bit of a trashmouth but even I try to draw a line. Kids come to this site too and there’s some stuff that kids just plain don’t need to hear or read. So, to that end: Ray, if you don’t learn to put a filter on the sewer under your nose, I WILL ban your sorry ass. You’ve been stopping by here for a while but you’re getting to be like a dog that just won’t take to housebreaking and I’m getting sick and tired of cleaning up your crap. Other people get hot under the collar too, but they don’t put out the kind of shit that you have.
2. This is a public forum for ideas, NOT a recruiting post for a God damned lynch mob. Anybody else tries a stunt like that, your IP goes straight to the cops. Period. Shooting some murderous prick in self-defense is one thing but hunting the bastard down and stringing him up without a trial is NOT something that I’m going to put up with. No more warnings.

Alright, folks, now that that bit of unpleasantness has been dealt with, I thought it would be a nice thing to put in a little something to boost the spirits of the folks back in my old Huron stompin’ grounds. If it won’t play in your browser for some reason, just click here and download it. A li’l Hank Jr never hurt nobody, right?

Enjoy, and remember: country folks can survive. (more…)

No matter how you slice it, this is more good than bad. Yes, Avi Lewis is downright embarrassing in his blatant idiocy in comparing “fundamentalist Christianity” and the USA with countries that have the boot of Sharia law on their necks but hey, I got used to being embarrassed by the Ministry Of What You Should Think a looooong time ago…

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is, in all probability, more qualified to speak on the topic of Islam and Islamofascism than any other woman in the Western world. It’s absolutely wonderful watching her occasionally rolling her eyes while Lewis gets more and more flustered as she methodically picks his idiocy to its bones with a calm and grace that is all too often lacking in public discourse on this subject (and yes, I know I’m guilty of going off half-cocked myself, every couple of minutes now and then).

I think the best probably has to be her blunt statement, “there is no Islamophobia, it’s a myth.” Check out the vid for yourself (you can download it here, if you have trouble viewing it in your browser)… (more…)

This is what I love about cartoonists. They can, if they’re good at what they do, take some of the most complex issues that you can think of and reduce them to the bare bones of what they really are; all in just a couple of panels. I have to admit that I sometimes catch myself wishing that I could do nifty stuff like that myself, but the fact of the matter is that I have all the artistic talent of a lobotomized warthog, so it’s not likely to happen. Guys like Mike Lester, on the other hand…

(you can find more of Mike’s stuff in the Rome News-Tribune, from Rome, GA)

Goddamnit, what the hell does it take to finally get over this crap? It’s been damn near a year and a half since we kicked their sorry arses to the curb and we’re still having to deal with the fallout from the Liebrals’ willful neglect of our Canadian Armed Forces! Everybody from the Freeps, to CTV, to the Ministry Of What You Should Think, and everyone in between has been telling about how the Librano$ were, as usual, too damned busy buggering things up to take care of our men and women in uniform (the Snowbirds, this time):

The air force was urged in no uncertain terms four years ago to quickly replace the aging Tutor jets belonging to the prized Snowbird demonstration squadron.

The study by the Defence Department’s director of major service delivery procurement warned that the life expectancy of the 1960s-vintage aircraft was 2010, but could be pushed out for another decade if absolutely necessary.

“With each passing year, the technical, safety and financial risk associated with extending the Tutor into its fifth decade and beyond, will escalate,” said the review, written in August 2003.

And just what did the Grits do when they were given that information? Why, they did DICK ALL, of course! Just like they always do whenever something concerns the safety, wellbeing, morale, image or the very lives of our soldiers. After all, these are the same assholes that gave us Sea Kings In The Sun, the flying caskets that are older than most of the pilots that fly them, fer Chrissakes.

Granted, the Tutor isn’t as bad as the Sea Kings, but these things are starting to show their age. In the 35-year history of the Snowbirds, only six pilots have died, but half of those have been in the last nine years.

So here we are, with yet another Grit mess to clean up. Don’t expect them to take the blame, though. Hell, NO!! That ain’t the Lieberal way. Just like they twiddled their thumbs for years over the Kyotology Kult and then had the gall to demand that the Tories implement it within months (likely hoping that such an implementation would tank the economy, making the Conservatives look like assholes, and thereby get the Librano$ back high on the public hog), look for the Grits to screech away to anyone that will listen about how the mean, nasty, Stephen-Dubya-Harper® Tories are the ones that aren’t looking after the military.

Sometimes I wonder if those bozos don’t deliberately bugger up, just so they have a failsafe to fall back on whenever they get the boot: blame the Tories for not fixing their mistakes and then act like the screwup happened on their watch instead of the Liberals’. Just a thought.

(more…)