You pretty much have to be Canadian to get this:

Aspirin is for when you feel like AAS.

I had to replace he old computer I was using (a PII-350 purchased in 1998) as a spam filter. It had become too slow to deal with the volume of crap I get. Not only do I get the usual barrage of spam that everyone gets, but for nearly a year now I have been getting a heinous amount of backsplatter from spam-zombies using spoofed @gothic.bc.ca return addresses. The latest crudtastic tactic of putting the advertising message in an image is what put the poor little box over the edge after nine years of valiant service. Adding OCR slowed the processing down enough that messages were coming in faster than they could be processed. Time for a new spam-pig.

Given that I was replacing a PII-350 even the most bottom of the line machine out there now would be orders of magnitude more powerful, so I went looking for just that - bargain-basement last-year's clearance models. The clearance model I went with was configured for Canadian French. Not needing the keyboard nor giving a rat's ass about whatever OS was preinstalled since I'd be wiping it off anyway, French was not a problem.

I couldn't resist firing it up as-is though, and I was greeted by this très amusant welcome:

( Welcome to this Microsoft System of Exploitation )

And now that I have it and since I have an e-acute in my middle name, I'm now really tempted to use the French keyboard.

Vancouver is not transmitting. I have the Victoria transmitter tuned in, but it doesn't come in well. This is very odd.

E. J. Hughes died on Friday at the Cowichan District Hospital in Duncan at the age of 93. Hughes was born in North Van and grew up in Nanaimo. He'd lived in Duncan for the past 29 years. The gallery representing him is on the main street in Duncan, Station Street (which is all of three blocks long). My old work had one of his paintings in the boardroom. E. J. Hughes holds the distinction of one of his paintings receiving the highest price ever at auction for a living Canadian artist, over one million dollars taxes and fees in. Of course he sold the painting for $300 many years before and never saw a cent of that.

I've been a fan of Hughes' work for decades and it has been an influence on my own. If you don't recognizes the name, you may recognizes the style:

"View of Maple Bay" (Incidentally. this is where I used to row in high school. The building with the reddish-brown second floor immediately behind the red railing of the government wharf is the Maple Bay Rowing Club. I know this strip of shore so well that I recognizes individual rocks and have a good idea of when it was painted from the height of the trees)

This very excellent article summarizing the history of U.S.-Canada relations appeared in the Toronto Star today:

Coming to aid of 'family' a myth
The idea that the U.S. would rush to save us is touching. The reality is less comforting, says historian James Laxer

When U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci said that his country was disappointed because Canada was not at America's side in the Iraq war, he claimed that if Canada faced a security threat "there would be no debate. There would be no hesitation. We would be there for Canada."

That's the way things ought to be when you're dealing with "family," the ambassador told a Toronto business audience.

The idea that the United States would rush to our side is touching.

The only problem is that there has not been a single case to which anyone can point when the U.S. has come to our side to meet a security threat to Canada since the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence in 1776.

The two countries have been allies in previous conflicts when Washington and Ottawa decided that their interests were parallel. In the two world wars, the Americans sat out the first couple of years of the conflicts while Canada was at war.

Indeed, during World War I while it was still neutral, the United States continued to export Canadian nickel to Germany.

As an Ontario Royal Commission later reported, some of that nickel went into the production of munitions that were used against Canadian soldiers in the trenches.

Early in World War II, when Canada dispatched an RCMP vessel to Greenland to ensure that the island not be taken over by the Nazis, the Americans, perhaps fearing the rise of a Canadian empire, issued a stiff official complaint to Ottawa.

Later, in the war, the U.S. occupied Greenland.

By no stretch of the imagination could anyone claim that the United States entered any of its many foreign conflicts over the past two centuries out of concern for the security interests of Canada.

The truth is the U.S. has relentlessly stood up for its own interests in a long list of security conflicts with Canada.

Several acute boundary disputes between the two countries — on the East Coast, the West Coast, and over the Alaska boundary — came close to generating military conflict between Canada and the U.S.

At the end of the American Civil War, the U.S. secretary of state suggested that Americans would get over their hard feelings toward the British for selling naval vessels to the Confederacy if Britain would hand over Canada to the United States.

Indeed, there remains a very potent territorial dispute between the United States and Canada over the question of Arctic waters.

While Canada claims the waters of the High Arctic as Canadian territory, the U.S. rejects that claim, insisting the Northwest Passage is an international waterway. Twice the U.S. has sent warships through that passage, without seeking the permission of Ottawa, to keep its claim alive.

In his speech to the Economic Club of Toronto, Cellucci said "we'll have to wait and see if there are any ramifications" as a result of the current squabble. Analysts and right-wing Canadian politicians who have warned darkly of the economic consequences that could flow from offending our largest trading partner, apparently have not given much thought to the nature of Canadian exports to the U.S.

The overwhelming bulk of our exports to the U.S. are autos and auto parts, pulp and paper, nickel, oil and natural gas, and other primary products — most of this shipped south by U.S.-owned corporations.

To punish Canada, Washington would have to shoot itself, or more exactly, General Motors, in the foot.

In the few acute trade disputes Canada has with the U.S., it seems not to make much difference how Canada behaves.

Sending Canadian troops to serve under a U.S. commander in Afghanistan did nothing to win Washington over to Canada's position on softwood lumber.

The Chrétien government decided that it was not in the interest of Canada to participate in an arguably illegal assault on a small country that poses no direct threat to the United States.

For a middle size country like ours, multilateralism and respect for international law are essential to our survival as a sovereign country. The government of Canada was acting in our national interest.

Cellucci was not wrong when he suggested that the U.S. and Canada are like members of a family, although a rather dysfunctional one. The older sibling left home early, while the younger sibling stayed home hoping that mom would help fend off assaults from big brother.

In practice, living next door to a superpower means that the superpower can be counted on to defend you against everyone except itself.

Former Social Credit leader Robert Thompson got it right when he remarked, "The United States is our best friend whether we like it or not."

---

James Laxer is a professor of political science at York University. He is writing a book on the Canada-U.S. border.

I downloaded some of stats from the CIA Factbook and did some number crunching: at roughly 32 million people, Canada is only 36th most populous country on Earth. Other countries with equivalent populations are Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Canada, however is 19th in the world for military spending ($7.9 billion USD), placing us in the neighbourhood of Israel ($9 billion), Spain ($8.6 billion), Turkey ($8.1 billion), Taiwan ($8 billion), the Netherlands ($6.5 billion), and North Korea ($5.1 billion)- and just over six times the military budget of Iraq ($1.3 billion).

While sipping on your cup of shut-the-fuck-up, you can stick this in your pipe and smoke it.

In this article (Sorry, but you may need to register to view the whole article) reported Clifford Krauss notes:

Two days before the first day of allied bombing in Iraq, Mr. Chrétien finally defined Canadian policy by saying no Canadian troops would fight in the war. Still, more than 50 Canadian air and ship technicians and liaison officers are stationed at the allied headquarters in Qatar and at sea with American Navy ships. A Canadian destroyer and two frigates are also patrolling in the Persian Gulf, available, Canadian military officials say, in an emergency.

It is a quiet effort, but more significant than those of most of the nations explicitly backing the war. Meanwhile, the Canadian Army will send 2,000 troops back to Afghanistan later this year, freeing American forces for operations in the Persian Gulf.

Further going to show that all the "disappointment" at Canada's lack of support is really only about the fact that we failed to condone unilateral agressive action. Why should our sanction even matter to the U.S.? I don't hear a lot one way or the other about Mexico not being on board (incidentally Mexico has three times the population of Canada). Why? Because Canada has an earned reputation for even-handed diplomacy and the resultant respect of a great many nations. What we say matters to the rest of the world.

And just how much more are we doing than the countries that have expressed support? Only Britain, Australia, Denmark and Albania have comitted troops to the war. And only Britain has more people there than Canada does.

The list of disclosed supporting countries is: Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Britain, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Palau, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, Singapore, Slovakia, Solomon Islands, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, and Uzbekistan.

There are other countries that are undisclosed but presumed to be on the supporters list because they are providing bases including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt

Notice how Israel isn't on either list? Talk about waffling! Here we are willing to say that we don't condone this agression but all the while still supplying material support (which, if we had said nothing would have put us on the latter list), yet Israel which was bombed by Iraq in the last Gulf War won't stand up to say that anything or offer any material support.

Any what about that disclosed list? A bit padded, I'd say? Let's look at some of the padded entries:

Afghanistan: They don't even have a proper government yet. The provisional government is U.S. appointed.
Albania: Millitary expendature roughly eqivalent to the snow-removal budget of Montréal. They've offered 70 men.
Azerbaijan: their primary industry is oil and they are trying to move into the European and American markets
Columbia: The current government has been under siege for 40 years and relies heavily of US support to stay in power. The US maintains support to control the drug trade that funds the rebel groups.
Costa Rica: No standing army, 52% of GDP comes from US trade.
El Salvador: current government backed by US in order to overthrow communist rebels.
Eritrea: Separated from Ethiopia in 1991, desperately poor and still in the processes of defining how its government is going to work.
Iceland: The total population of Iceland is about 275,000 people and they don't have an army. The defense of Iceland is handled by a US-manned force.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: Do I really need to say anything about the crushing military might and massive economic influence of this triumvirate of Baltic super-powers?
Kuwait: Well, duh.
Macedonia: Claim to fame, "At independence in November 1991, Macedonia was the least developed of the Yugoslav republics, producing a mere 5% of the total federal output of goods and services." (CIA Factbook)
Marshall Islands: OK, this one made me laugh out loud. A bunch of coral atolls. Total population 77,000. Main source of income: US aid and restitution for US atomic testing.
Micronesia: No military. Population 111,000 and I'll let the CIA Factbook speak for itself on this: "In 1979 the Federated States of Micronesia, a UN Trust Territory under US administration, adopted a constitution. In 1986 independence was attained under a Compact of Free Association with the US. Present concerns include large-scale unemployment, overfishing, and overdependence on US aid."
Nicaragua: Quothe the factbook: "Nicaraguan aid to leftist rebels in El Salvador caused the US to sponsor anti-Sandinista contra guerrillas through much of the 1980s. Free elections in 1990, 1996, and again in 2001 saw the Sandinistas defeated."
Palau: Another set of coral atoll that used to be a US trust and are totally dependent on US aid. No army. Population 11,000.
Rwanda: Home of some of the worst massacres since WWII. A military budget that about the same as Montréal's snow removal budget. Population just under the population of the island of Manhattan. Current government targeted by an Islamic rebel group.
Solomon Islands: Another highly influential bunch of South Pacific islands with no army.
Uganda: Right up there with Rwanda.
Uzbekistan: Quothe the Factbook: "the country seeks to gradually lessen its dependence on agriculture while developing its mineral and petroleum reserves. Current concerns include insurgency by Islamic militants based in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, a nonconvertible currency, and the curtailment of human rights and democratization."

So there you have it, the bulk of "The Coalition of the Willing" are either U.S. vassal states, desperately poor, have no army, or have human-rights problems that make Iraq look like paradise.

The list comes from this New York Times backgrounder. Most of the country information comes from the CIA Factbook and general knowledge.

As usual we are, despite all the flack for "doing nothing" quietly doing more than expected, more than we said we would, and doing it right. The headlines on all the papers today are about how "disappointed" the American government is with us, yet the American embassador to Canada, Paul Celucci, also had these words about our naval presence in the Persian Gulf which is still there because we are still in Afghanistan:

Ironically, because of the presence in the Persian Gulf, they will provide more support for this war in Iraq indirectly than most of those 46 countries that are fully supporting us. It's kind of an odd situation.

So, to those that are "ashamed" of our "lack of involvement" - shut the fuck up. Our government did the ethically right thing by staying in line with our prinicples regarding the UN, international law, and peacekeeping. Never forget that Canada invented peacekeeping and ever since we first distinguished ourselves in the Boer War, Canadian soldiers have continued to earn and maintain the respect of friends and enemies alike. General Rommel, the German commander of the North African theatre in WWII, said that if he had Canadian soldiers with American equipment he could win the war. In the first gas attacks of WWI at Yprès, it was the Canadians alone that held the line while everyone else ran and died. Canada was in WWII two years ahead of America and it was the Canadians (including my father) who spearheaded the invasion of Italy in WWII and cleared the way for the Brits and Americans. It was Canadians (again including my father) that landed at Dieppe and prooved that the invasion of Normandy, while difficult, was not impossible. Our peacekeepers were in Korea and, despite the reputation garnered from American draft-dodging, our volunteer millitary was in Vietnam. And in the first Gulf War it was Canadian fighter jets that were sent in first, specifically to be shot at, so the Americans could come in with relative safety to take out the anti-aircraft guns.

Be proud of Canada. Be proud that we have the guts and moral fortitude to finish wars and ethics enough not to start them.