Well now, isn’t this just tooooo cute? Anybody else out there remember all the hubbub and hullabaloo over those Canadian “spy coins” a few months ago? The ones that were supposed to be being used to track the movements, conversations, sexual preferences and video rental habits of American defence contractors.

Yeah, those coins.

Turns out that the explanation for that sturm und drang is a little — how can I put this diplomatically? — anticlimactic:

WASHINGTON — The surprise explanation behind the U.S. government’s sensational but false warnings about mysterious Canadian spy coins is the harmless poppy quarter, the world’s first colourized coin.

They were so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. army contractors travelling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them.

The worried contractors described the coins as “anomalous” and “filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology,” said once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails.

The 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy inlaid over a maple leaf. The quarter is identical to coins described as suspicious by the contractors.

The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the colour from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 to commemorate Canada’s 117,000 war dead.

“It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source,” wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. “Under high-power microscope, it appeared to be complex, consisting of several layers of clear but different material, with a wire-like mesh suspended on top.”

The accounts led to a sensational warning from the U.S. Defence Security Service, an agency of the Defence Department.

[…]

Meanwhile, in Canada, senior intelligence officials expressed annoyance with the U.S. spy-coin warnings as they tried to learn more about the oddball claims.

Seriously, guys, just what the hell were ya thinking???  

After tripping over Katey’s “firearms facts” video yesterday, I decided to do a little more poking around on her dad Bruce’s website (brucemontague.ca) and learn some more about how he came to find himself in his fracas with the CFC zombies.

Anybody who’s spent any time at all reading any of my rants likely has already figured out that I’m a firm supporter of the rights of law-abiding gun owners — I happen to be one myself — and so won’t be surprised to hear that I did have a passing familiarity with Bruce’s case. Yeah, that translates into “I knew what I read in the papers.” How unlike me 😳 is that?

Anyways… Bruce’s site has all the info you could want on how he’s been getting screwed over. He also has a page of audio and video downloads available describing what he and his family have been forced to put up with over the last couple of years, all of them definitely worth the time to check out.

Since I don’t know who hosts Bruce’s site or how much bandwidth he gets — and since I don’t think he’s going to mind getting his message spread around a little bit more — I’ve decided to pilfer the best media files from his site and post them here for my legions of adoring fans.

Screw off; I can dream.

We’ll start off today with a 15-minute fund-raiser/information vid that tells of how Bruce found himself in his predicament and what you can do to help. Be warned: it’s kind of a big video (about 14MB), so if you don’t want to stop your surfing to wait for it to load, you can just download it here (just right-click the link and save) and watch it later.
(more…)

Wow. Don’t you just love it when you’re bopping around, not really looking for anything in particular, and stumble on something that just manages to make your day? I love it when that happens. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, kinda like how Liberals must feel when they piss my money away.

Anyways, movin’ right along… I was poking about over at the LUFA site (no, not that sponge-thing, bonehead; the Law-abiding Unregistered Firearms Association… check it out) and stumbled on this little gem that put a grin on my ugly mug so big that it damn near met in the back and toppled the top half of my skull off. Yeah, it was messy. But I digress…

This here is Katey. Katey lives someplace in Canada (I don’t know where but if I find out she’s from around here, I am totally gonna try and set her up with Edward… 😉 ) and, for a thirteen year old, she is sharp as a tack. Yeah, she’s blonde and talks like a total airhead. Don’t be fooled. This kid’s smarter than a good-sized chunk of the House of Commons. See for yourself:

[UPDATE: After a little more poking around, I found out that Katey is Bruce Montague’s daughter. Some of you might remember Bruce as the law-abiding hunter and gunsmith from northern Ontario who has been fighting the good fight against our country’s bullshit Firearms Act since he was arrested and jailed under it on September 11, 2004. For more information on Bruce and his quest to have the Firearms Act declared unconstitutional, and what you can do to help, see his website.]

Here, at long last, is the final and conclusive proof that several of those old adages that your mom, dad, grandma and grandpa were flinging about for all those years were really right after all. I’m talking about those little homilies that left you scratching your youthful head in utter befuddlement, wondering whether or not the old folks had finally reached that point that people referred to as “ready for a home,” whatever the heck that was supposed to have meant. Those little nuggets of wisdom that so often only make any sense at all in hindsight.

You know the ones I’m talking about:
“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”
“Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.”

You can now add another one to that list:
“Even the CBC will broadcast some sense sometimes.”

I even found proof…

Okay, show of hands now… Who would have ever guessed that the Ministry Of What You Should Think’s redeeming virtue would be found in Rex Murphy??? 😯

Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Once again it’s that time of year. It’s now officially May first (has been for a few hours now) and just on the off chance that you might have somehow (gee, I dunno, maybe you were abandoned in the wilderness as a child and raised in a cave by wild rednecks or something) forgotten just what that means, here’s both a little reminder and the most honest explanation possible.

Ah, the simple pleasures of spring, eh?

I know; not a lot of posting getting done here lately, but I couldn’t let this pass by now, could I?

A very happy 48th birthday today to our Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper. 🙂

HMPM Harper was born April 30, 1959 in Toronto (nobody’s perfect, eh?), the eldest of Margaret and Joseph Harper’s three sons.

Congratulations, Steve, and many happy returns.