Attack of the killer eggs

Apparently the latest threat to US security is Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs. A lady from Winnipeg bringing some over the border found out she was “smuggling contraband” She was nearly fined $300, but let off with a warning. Now she has received a 7 page letter advising her of the seizure and that she can challenge it. It would be interesting to see how far the US government would go to defend their seizure of a $2 chocolate egg that is apparently is a major threat to children who might choke on the toy. Based on this logic, bringing a portable swimming pool across the border must be a Capital offence.

CBC article here

Free divers

Free diving is a sport where one dives with no equipment other than a bodysuit, monofin and determination. As a scuba diver, I have a fair amount of respect for these people and what they can achieve and have had a close friend involved for a number of years in the sport. I do have some serious concerns about the implications of the effects of competition will have on peoples judgment. To be fair to the sport organizers, they will disqualify people who show effects after a competitive dive, which helps to limit the long term damage that could be done.
I do think that any serious scuba diver can learn useful stuff from free divers and the sports can compliment each other. Here is a read on a local girl who is seriously into the sport.

Politics and the Schizophrenic’s Language

I was going to do a post on the nutbar that shot Congresswoman Giffords, but this blogger summed it up better than I could.

It’s now a major secondary story in the Giffords shooting: who or what’s to blame for the carnage? It began almost as soon as the story broke, when fingers were pointed quite prominently even before anything was known about the shooter except that he was a young man, and that he had been taken into custody.

The anti-gun contingent sprang to action almost immediately, as did the anti-Palin faction and a particular loud-mouthed Democratic sheriff, in marked contrast to the pleas from the MSM and the left for verbal restraint in speculating about the motives of the Fort Hood killer.

Almost all the blaming in the Giffords shooting comes from the left against the right. And this despite the fact that Giffords, a Blue Dog Democrat, could just as likely have been a political target of either side, since she stands roughly in the middle.

It would be easier to judge the finger-pointers as impartial if they were equally incensed against rhetoric and images from the left as from the right. A display of evenhandedness would at least serve to establish some sort of arguable sincerity. For example, when campaigner Obama advised supporters to bring a gun to the fight if the opposition brought a knife, wouldn’t he have been to blame, too, for upping the ante?

Or do mere words lack the power to ignite acts such as Saturday’s shooting? (If one is to believe a friend of Loughner’s, the killer himself thought that “words mean nothing.”) And if mere words have no such power, what does?

Read the rest here

Road work Afghan style

Never a dull day being a Combat Engineer in Afghanistan. It’s tedious and demanding work. The Engineers have to be right every time, the Taliban only have to be right once to succeed.

via Castle Arrggh

Black magic woman Santana

Some music to cleanse your soul of all that work crap, crank up the volume, grab your lady and starting Cha Chaing with her, or if a lady grab your man and tell him he is going to dance NOW!

Sanatana is incrediable with the guitar in this song.

From UBC to Kabul

I have always said the real war in Afghanistan will be fought in and for the classroom. Education is toxic to the Taliban beliefs. A interesting series of articles on a visit to Kabual and Kandahar to visit schools partly funded by Canadians.


An Afghan girl must be strong to reach for a book instead of a broom.

She will suffer for wanting to learn.

Dare to walk to school here in the Taliban heartland and a girl must endure the cruel taunts of neighbours. Not wild-eyed terrorists, just ordinary folk who think a young lady’s proper place is hidden in the home.

They question her morals, call her venomous names, do all they can to make life difficult for the whole family.

When the Talibs punish aspiring females, the pain is much worse. Sometimes insurgents throw acid to burn schoolgirls’ faces. They poison classes with noxious gas. Gunmen shoot students and their teachers in cold blood.

In one of their latest attacks on education, insurgents murdered Kandahar province’s deputy director for literacy, Ustad Abdullah, with a burst of AK-47 fire as he walked to the mosque for morning prayers on Nov. 4.

The whole series here, worth the read.

Kapyong: Images of the Battlefield Today

A Canadian Lee-Enfield spike bayonet found at the battlefield


An excellent read on a almost forgotten battle, one that does not fit into the myth of UN peacekeeping.

How did they actually manage to pull it off? How did a few hundred out-gunned, surrounded, Canadian amateur soldiers ever manage to drive off perhaps 5,000 superbly-trained Chinese combat veterans.

The rest of a good read here

Never dull in Lotus land

cartoon via www.raesidecartoon.com

Hmm another party called BC First sprouts out of the weeds to created by the mess left in the floundering of the BC Liberals (as opposed to the floundering Federal Liberal) and headless chicken that is the BC NDP party. Briefly glancing at their website, the term “people friendly environmental polices” leapt out, likely due to people feeling that current polices do not treat people and their activities as integral part of the environment.

The party started in October of this year and grew out of the HST referendum. This gives voters at least 2 options other than the Green party which makes the NDP almost look sane. The other option and the one likely to make the most headway in the next Provincial election is the BC conservative party.
The problem I see for BC first is that they don’t have the party machine setup enough to take full advantage of the current situation, plus their polices are a little bare at the moment. They will likely gain most votes from the NDP supporters who have given up on their party and the BC Conservatives will likely reap the benefits of the large number of disenfranchised Liberal supporters.

Time for the Uber-Ban

So a convicted criminal is caught carrying a handgun and ammo illegally. The Judge throws on a lifetime ban on possession of a firearm. Problem is that he is already banned TWICE already from having firearms. Mainly it seems as he like to use them in robberies.
Meanwhile the Toronto Police Services are busy going after people with expired gun licences, because they are clearly the greater threat, right…..?

Polar Bears 3, BBC spy cams 0

Never underestimate what a bear can do. Below is a video of what polar has to do to get dinner and with the cameras not being the main course this time.
(kudeos to CenturionX of CGN for link and title)