Archive for: August 2006

This is bad. Several MSM outlets are reporting lately that the CAF is lowering its standards when it comes to security checks for new recruits. “Secret” clearance now requires only a seven year check and “confidential” requires a mere five year check under the new rules. Landed immigrants are also being considered for service even before becoming citizens. Since even I’m not so partisan that I can’t point out stupidity on my own team, I’m left with no choice but to ask:

Guys, what the hell are you thinking???

I understand the need to bolster our troop strength, and do it now, but this is not the way to go about it. After decades of having their budget savaged by an uncaring Grit government, one thing that the military managed to do was to keep the army an effective fighting force by focusing on quality over quantity. The result of this, as has been demonstrated in Afghanistan, was a small force with equipment that was second to everyone being manned by soldiers that were second to no one. Eligible candidates were often turned away, not because they failed to qualify, but simply because the army didn’t have enough money for more soldiers. We don’t need to lower the standards, we have plenty of bodies to fill the jobs and now we have a budget that can begin to let them in.

Slacking off on security checks does nothing, it merely dilutes the security of the Forces which, given the nature of our current enemy, could very well prove to be disasterous.

Let’s be blunt here, folks. Security checks should be kept right where they are, if not increased. And Muslim males aged under 30 should get extra scrutiny. And if you’re a male Muslim landed immigrant from a country known to export or sponsor terrorism, the armed forces should crawl up your arse with a microscope before they let you in, if they let you in at all.

There, I’ve said it. Bring on the hate mail.

The ugly truth is that the preferred tactic of the enemy is to infiltrate (which may already be happening elsewhere) and gather intel to do as much damage as possible from within our midst. That’s the nature of terrorism. That’s what we’re fighting, and you can bet your arse that the enemy doesn’t play by the rules.

Whether or not the useful idiots on the left want to admit it, we are at war, whether we want to be or not. And you don’t win a war by being tolerant, inclusive, or any of the other politically correct bullcrap that “progressives” are always pushing.

Wars are won by the side that has the stomach to win. They always have been, and they always will. Tolerance is all fine and good, but we shouldn’t be tolerating our way onto the endangered species list.

In case anybody out there is still somehow wondering just what kind of an enemy we’re up against, Michelle Malkin has put up an excellent accounting of the events surrounding the two Fox News journalists who were recently kidnapped in the Gaza strip and forced at gunpoint to “convert to Islam.” Remember this story the next time you bellyache about Christian “intolerance.”

That’s been a question on a lot of lips lately. Well, we need wonder no more, since Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has set it clear for us. In an exclusive CBC interview with Nahlah Ayed, Siniora as much as admitted that it is Hezbullshit, NOT the Lebanese government, that runs the country.

I have to admit, I for one am damned surprised that he had the guts to come out and admit it like that.

Two hundred days in office and still going.

It’s great to be conservative these days, isn’t it? Just in case you’ve been living in a cave lately, today marks the 200th day of our latest Conservative government and despite what all the nervous Nellies from the left told us, things are moving along pretty damned good.

Can anyone seriously doubt that we have seen more leadership in the past 6+ months from Stephen Harper’s rookie government than we saw in over a decade of rule under the “natural governing party of Canada?” I would find that rather hard to swallow.

Let’s indulge ourselves (just this once) on a little smug reflection on what the Big Bad Scary Tories have managed to do for the country in a mere 200 days, shall we?

• The GST, which the Grits promised to scrap but never did, has been cut by one percent, just like Steve told us it would.
• The long running trade irritant with the US over softwood lumber is finally within sight of its end. The Grits couldn’t solve this one in over a decade but Harper and his crew managed to hammer out a deal in only months.
• Money that would have been wasted on a bloated child care bureaucracy is now being routed directly to the ultimate child care specialists (parents) who can decide for themselves how best to spend it.
• We have a government that isn’t afraid to dig in its heels and declare exactly where it stands on issues, whether politically convenient or not. The recent conflict in the Middle East is a perfect example of this.
• Our long neglected military is finally getting a desperately needed injection of billions of dollars for both equipment and manpower.
• We now have the Federal Accountability Act to help keep a leash on crooked politicians.
• We have legislation working its way through Parliament to crack down on crime and make scumbags start doing some serious time behind bars where they can’t hurt anybody else.
• With vigorous operations in Afghanistan, the myth of Canada being the “mouse that roared” on the international stage is rapidly being put down.
• Federalism has been revived in Quebec, with more and more people realising that they aren’t really stuck between the rock and hard place of crooked Liberals and rabid seperatists.

All of this, and a whole lot more, from the scary bunch that the MSM howled and prophecied would bring about the ruin of the nation.

Not bad for a bunch of bogeymen, eh?

This was just too damned funny not to post. I could go on a long jag about what I think about this and all sorts of other stuff, but sometimes it’s better to just sit back and let something speak for itself. And that’s what I’m going to do now.

Man’s pump tale bombs

Fri, August 25, 2006
By APCHICAGO — Cook County prosecutors say a 29-year-old man travelling with his mother was desperate to keep her from knowing he’d packed a sexual aid for their trip to Turkey.

So he told security it was a bomb, officials said.

Madin Azad Amin, 29, of Skokie, Ill., was stopped Aug. 16 after guards found an object in his baggage that resembled a grenade.

Amin’s been charged with felony disorderly conduct, said Andrew Conklin, of Cook County state attorney’s office.

When officers asked him to identify it, Amin said it was a bomb.

He later told officials he’d lied because his mother was nearby and he didn’t want her to hear it was part of a penis pump.

Damn. This makes twice in one day that I’ve been outdone. I must be getting old or something.

This time it was John Gleeson at the Winterpeg Sun who outdid me. I was thinking up a response to several emails I’ve gotten lately when I came across John’s article which pointed out, amongst other things:

The Afghanistan mission, exactly as it now stands, was a commitment made by successive Liberal governments. It’s not open to the kind of debate that’s raged for years about whether JFK would have escalated in Vietnam as his successor did — Harper was handed this file and his position of seeing it through is a mere continuation of the Liberal position.

There are those on both sides of the political spectrum who would like to spin it another way — either to depict Harper as more stalwart than the ethically shaky Grits or as a willing pawn of the Bush White House. Neither view, however, stands up to scrutiny. Harper’s motion to extend the mission by two years, which narrowly passed a Commons vote in May with only 30 Liberal MPs onside, was inevitable, given the Liberals’ stepped-up commitment last year.

The full article, which you can see here, is definitely worth the read. It both asks hard questions and states blunt truths, even if I don’t agree with his final conclusion. Check it out and see for yourselves.