The Kopp-Etchells Effect by Michael Yon

17 August 2009
Sangin, Afghanistan

The roads are so littered with enemy bombs that nearly all transport and resupply to this base occurs by helicopter. The pilots roar through the darkness, swoop into small bases nestled in the saddle of enemy territory, and quickly rumble off into the night.

A witness must spend only a short time in the darkness to know we are at war. Flares arc into the night, or mortar illumination rounds drift and swing under parachutes, orange and eerily in the distance, casting long, flickering but sharply defined shadows. The worst that can happen is that you will be caught in an open field, covered by nothing and concealed only by darkness, when the illumination suddenly bathes you in light. Best is to stay low and freeze and prepare to fire, or in the case of a writer, to stay low and freeze and prepare to watch the firing.

Explosions from unknown causes rumble through the cool nights while above drifts the Milky Way, punctuated by more shooting stars than one can remember. The Afghanistan nights will grant a wish to wish upon a shooting star. And while waiting for the next meteor, the eyes are likely to catch tracer bullets.

Read more here, really it's worth it.

Simon's Cat in 'Santa Claws'

Thankfully Zeus is not that interested in the ornaments, he might play a bit with them. His thing though is that he likes to drink the water for the tree. He started this as a young kitten when we first got him and he discovered the fact that the tree had a water dish underneath. Except now we have an artificial tree, he was so annoyed that we ended up putting a cup of water under the tree for him!

When rockers get old.

Some people age gracefully, others must be dragged from the limelight kicking and screaming. Excellent stand up comedy I must say!

Uber Snowman

So combine cold, lots of snow, time, a bunch of buddies and likely a fair bit of vodka and what do you get? A Snow Tiger!!!!
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Courtesy of this site (in Estonian I think)

Provinces of Canada

Autocomplete Provinces of Canada

Through a few links recently on Twitter, I visited a site called www.verysmallarray.com. A few days ago, they did a Google autocomplete search for all the states in the U.S.
Some of the results were pretty funny (Kentucky Fried Chicken, for example), so I thought I’d do the same for Canada.

From "My Corner of the Universe"

BC Rail, the lingering stinkbomb in BC politics

Well this should prove to be interesting, considering the maneuvering that must be going on in the Liberal party right now for the leadership, it would not surprise me that camps within are busy sticking the knives into each other and a leak or a threat of a leak will have a chilling effect on potential candidates. They must be thanking their various deities that the NDP opposition is in disarray as well.

Later today, the court will fully release two search warrants that, until today have been redacted.

Both are search warrants related to apparent benefits received by David Basi and Bob Virk from former Pilothouse PR partners Brian Kieran and (star Crown witness) Erik Bornmann.

The warrants will raise questions about what former Finance Minister Gary Collins knew about the trip to Denver and what role Kieran is alleged to have played. Unfortunately, Mr. Kieran will not face the tough questions from his friends in the media (he is a former columnist) about his role and why special prosecutor Bill Berardino did not lay any charges against him.

Though we’ll raise some here.

But the more interesting warrants which should be released are the ones wherein Christy Clark’s brother Bruce’s bank account records were sought. This was after Erik Bornmann, friend to Christy Clark, then husband Mark Marissen, her brother Bruce Clark and many of her immediate circle of political influence, suggested to the RCMP that Bruce Clark bribed David Basi.

This is a most serious allegation that was NEVER examined or explained.

So, to Christy Clark who told Bill Good this morning that accusations of her involvement in the ‘BC Rail Affair’ “are completely and totally false” and that the whole matter, for her, is “case closed “: That can’t possibly be good enough for an honest public.

She also said that she wants to bring a “more inclusive, better culture” to Victoria. And she wants people to be “more engaged in government.”

Well then, please respond as to why the public should not want you to answer how it is that your brother is accused of bribing a staffer, who was part of a government that you were Deputy Premier of.

Please explain Christy, how it is that during that same period of time, you appear throughout the diary of the man (Erik Bornmann) who claims that one of your then political allies (David Basi) was bribed by your brother.

The fact remains that when Christy Clark tells you that she wants the BC Rail Affair to go away, she’s telling you the truth. Because the questions she’d have to answer are not ones she would ever want to respond to.

You can follow it here

ELVIS - Santa Claus Is Back In Town

A blues version of the song and now for a more upbeat version. This post inspired by taking my kids to see Santa tonite.

Wikileak

Lots of press on this issue, so I don’t think you need any links. Julian Assange, is the one of the founders of Wikileaks, he has hosted a great deal of leaked information from the US State department. Now leaking information that embarrasses governments and leaders, both democratic and otherwise is good fun and good for democracy. But when you endanger peoples lives, actually more likely get them killed and/or being imprisoned that where helping us or fighting for democracy in their country, then you are being an asshole. Even worse when it’s done more for ego, than any true cause. I suspect as price of these leaks go up and people realize what he has done, then any public sympathy for him will vanish. I suspect one day Julian will be doing his own version of the famous scene from McBeth "Out damm spot, out"

Erza levant nails it in his blog.

WikiLeaks published a document that named an Algerian activist covertly aiding the democracy movement there. It identified a Venezuelan reporter secretly exposing the appalling conditions of hospitals for the poor. Both are real whistleblowers. Both were outed by Assange.
Assange admits WikiLeaks will probably end up with "blood on our hands." But he's not too worriedRead the rest here

Wildfire

Stunning pictures of the wildfire in Israel that claimed 42 lives. Most of whom were in the bus pictured here moments before they were engulfed. It’s pretty clear that Israel was not prepared for this event and now that the crisis is over the blame will begin. I won’t cast a lot of blame, out here we are used to such fires and are prepared for them, yet even we have had to learn the hard way that fire can never be taken for granted.
Now they must rebuild, relearn and replant. For some families, they must live with the grief of young sons never to return home. What does give me hope is that despite the harsh words between countries, one of the Canadair waterbombers pictured there is Turkish. There was also a Russian or Ukraine waterbomber and the recently deployed Evergreen 747 waterbomber.

Day of Infamy