The PenOpticon

I just stumbled upon a talented Doctor of Spin. All I can say is this doctor really knows how to articulate my rage! Well done, Doctor!

Yesterday the Green Party of Canada elected Elizabeth May as their new party leader. Given the fatigue that many Canadians feel for the old left-right, liberal-conservative binaries, let’s hope that May will bring something new to Ottawa politics. It would be about time.

After all, here in southern Ontario, there is very little healthy green space left. Conservatives and Liberals alike have encouraged endless growth and watered down laws designed to encourage sustainable land use. With a surging GTA population now living in L.A.-style sprawl, air quality is terrible and we no longer have the capacity to adequately deal with the region’s sewage or the chemical soup we call “storm water”. And let’s not talk about the even bigger issues of global warming and fossil fuel depletion (Harper is certainly trying not to). Liberal and Conservative governments continue to run this country like a pyramid scheme: keep bringing in new bodies to devour resources in order to expand the infrastructure to bring in more bodies to devour resources… The Ontario Liberal “Places to Grow” plan calls for an additional 4.4 million people to move to this region over the next 25 years. Most of this growth is expected to come from immigration and is presented as a fait accompli — although groups such as Immigration Watch Canada are calling for dramatic reductions in immigration intake.

It will be interesting to see how May and the Greens tackle the problem of immigrant-driven growth, given that the current population of Canada may be approaching the carrying capacity of the country. Certainly population will have a major impact on Canada’s ability to meet what ever kind of greenhouse gas emission policy the Harper regime manages to come up with. May has announced she will run in Cape Breton during the next election. She should have more than a fighting chance, given her credentials and the good work she did to get the Feds to relocate residents affected by the Sydney tar ponds. Let’s hope so. Ottawa can use all the political biodiversity it can get.

I put together this slideshow of images from a trip to Washington D.C. we took earlier this year. See Freedom isn’t Free: The Penopticons go to Washingon. Not the most brilliant bit of video on the planet, but at least it dosn’t involve Coke and Mentos! Yuck!

We drove out to Whitby this morning and wandered around the woods to see clouds of Monarchs gathering for fall migration. Also had lots of migrant warblers: Black-thoated blue, Tennesse, Wilsons, Cape May, American Redstart, Yellow-Rump, etc.

A young Canadian soldier took it upon himself to blog the first days of his deployment in Kandahar. He talks about loading software and maps into GPSs, gripes about having to ride in poorly armoured G-wagons and generally talks about how proud he is to be there.

Walking into my commanders office to drop off my frag vest, I look at the board which lists vehicles by section. And there it was, listed beside my sections call sign was written LUVW which stands for Light Utility Vehicle Wheeled, the fancy name for the infamous G-Wagon or “casket-wagon” as some troops call it due to the many soldiers have lost their lives within it’s lightly armoured frame. The G-Wagon, built by Mercedes-Benz, is nothing more than it’s civilian counterpart except with gun racks, radio mounts and in some circumstances, a turret on the top. As great as they may seem, and as expensive as they were pushed into service after we lost two of our troops with a mine-strike on the Iltis, the facts cannot be hidden. The G-Wagon affords troops NO protection from the common anti-coalition weapons. Any caliber over 5.56mm will penetrate the vehicle and little is left after either an RPG or roadside bomb (IED).

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Tonight we zeroed our lasers and now we are ready to fight in day and night. There has been a lot of activity as of late in the local area with significant fighting happening to the West and South. We all wait anxiously for the time when we can leave this camp and head there to join the scrap, we can’t wait to fight.

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The war drums are beating louder.Sunday has been somewhat of an uneventful day as it was my first day “on the job”, not having to train. Helicopters continue to fly in and out of base continuously and some flags are flying half-masted.

Stay safe Matt — you sound like a good kid. I hope you all come back safe. In fact, I hope you all come back tomorrow.