Canada’s Military

It’s safe to assume that Canada produces some of the best military snipers in the world. The Canadian forces are competent… on par with the Yanks, but not as good as the Brits yet. The problem is the value that Canada places upon its military. Here’s a news story I picked up from a newspaper which made me very pissed off with Rick Hillier.

A former Nova Scotia man who was turned down when he tried to join the Canadian air force has won the Distinguished Flying Cross for demonstrating “great courage and composure” while piloting a British military helicopter in Afghanistan.

Flight Lieutenant Christopher Hasler grew up in Bedford, near Halifax, and learned how to fly gliders and Cessnas with the local air cadet squadron.

After job-shadowing a Sea King helicopter pilot at 12 Wing Shearwater and graduating high school, he turned his eye to the sky with the hope of making a career out of flying military choppers.

“I applied out of high school to the Canadian Forces and didn’t get in, for whatever reason,” the 26-year-old said during a Christmas visit with his parents, who live in Ottawa.

“These things happen. So I went to university and still really wanted to fly. So I gave the Royal Air Force a call and then I was successful.”

After a relatively peaceful stint in Iraq in 2004, Hasler was sent to Afghanistan last summer for a two-month tour.

He was the captain of a Chinook on July 17 when he led a group of helicopters into Sangin, a Taliban stronghold where a soldier had been killed the day before while trying to secure the landing site.

The mission was to bring desperately needed supplies to British paratroopers.

The citation says that “he held his nerve while his troops were disembarking at the hottest of helicopter landing sites, allowing them to suppress enemy positions with minimum U.K. casualties.

Hasler, who did another two-month tour of Afghanistan in the fall is to return again early in the new year, plans to attend a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in the spring, when Queen Elizabeth II will present him with the DFC.

This makes me twice as mad because those in Canadian Forces Recruiting turned down my application because I’m not a Canadian citizen. HOW STUPID CAN THE TOFFS IN BUSINESS SUITS GET? The Canadians are bearing the brunt of the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan… Canadian soldiers are dying, yet they won’t send more soldiers or boost the national spending on defence.

Of course… Italy, France and Germany are still a bunch of pussy whipped bunch of pansies who are a disgrace to NATO, by keeping their sorry ass troops up north, and refusing to put them in danger down the south while Canada, Britain, Denmark and the U.S are taking all the crap.

NATO / Daily Stuff

As I long suspected… most European countries are still a bunch of wimpish pussies.

At the latest NATO meeting, apparently they all agreed to do more – but upon reading the website of the German government, they are still wimping out and not redeploying ANY troops to other parts of Afghanistan – Check out the story!

I bought three more books by Patrick Robinson – awesome writer.  I love the Arnold Morgan character in his books.  Too bad there isn’t a real life character like that.  Mebbe there is, as I suppose they have to be loosely based upon someone – that’s usually the deal with inspiration for stories with authors and movie directors.

It’s getting extremely cold around here – other night it was -25 degrees.  The Toyota Matrix I bought is proving to be a worthwhile investment.  I went off the road on the reserve yesterday and came within about six inches of hitting a fire hydrant.  I couldn’t back up onto the road – as my tyres are not very good.  But at least the four-wheel drive allowed me to go further off the road in clean snow, turn around and make a run at it – which got me back onto the road.

Nicolas is sick.  Got an ear infection.  The Nurse Practitioner prescribed him Amoxycylin.  Should clear it up quickly hopefully.

I’m putting into action the words I preach about hatred on the reserve… I’ve cause to not like a few people on the reserve, and whilst there’s a few people I’d rather not hang out with, I no longer hate anyone or want them dead.  I came to the harsh realisation that it just isn’t achieving anything, and only serves to bring my health level down.  So being polite and civil to people on the reserve that I used to not like, I think is going to help me tremendously.  I don’t mind if those people still think I’m a bastard – that’s their prerogative, but I am going to go out of my way to be polite and accomodating.

Right Or Wrong

Colonisation in general has always been a favourite topic of mine. It’s happened on every continent in the world, and close to every single country in the world where the people are predominantly white.

Whilst I abhor colonisation for the effects of it, I truly believe it is meant to happen. I’m not sufficiently educated in philosophy to try and work out why.

For me at least, the issue is not so much with colonisation in general… rather the way it is done. The stealing of the Americas, and Australasia could have happened in a much gentler and less violent way. There’s never been any valid excuse for the blankets handed out with smallpox in the U.S… or any valid excuse for the chemical experiments upon Indigenous children in Nanaimo Indian School in British Columbia… or any valid excuse for the residential school systems in the U.S, Canada and Australia.

How can any civilised person look at how Indigenous people lived before the expansion of caucasian people across the globe, and how they’re living now, and not think compensation is justified?

It makes me sick to my stomach when I see the full extent of racial predjudice in Canada. The sheer amount of caucasian people in Canada with resentment or outright hatred of Indigenous people, black people, and asian people is sickening. Correct me if I’m wrong (with proof of course)… but it seems like at least 80% of white people in Canada either have ‘issues’ with non-white people in Canada or straight out don’t like other races.

Then you’ll get these fools who refuse to understand why Indigenous people are in some of the situations now. It bothers me that the Federal Government of KKKanada aren’t spending hundreds of millions of dollars in drives for racial harmony and education.

It bothers me even more when you have non-aboriginal people whining about having to pay certain taxes and aboriginal people not… or having to pay for medication and aboriginals not having to. What most people don’t realise is that life is a sloping playing field – in order for all to be equal, the ones on the lower end must be pushed onto the same level as the ones on the higher end. All these various little privileges that Indigenous people have are there because Indigenous people have so many other areas in which they’re far behind everyone else.

I’m an non-indigenous person in Canada with only four years here. I don’t resent paying taxes to give natives a better education. I don’t whisper under my breath when a Native person in the checkout line pulls out a status card and gets to pay less. Why can’t everyone try to understand what it’s really like to be black, or native, or asian?

It All Continues

The killing goes on. With cowardly cluster bombs. 400+ civilians is shameful. What’s the Lebanese death ratio of Hezbollah to civilians in this conflict? Israel needs to get its shit together.

What makes one person better than another? People could argue many things, but what I’d say makes it so is the content of a person’s character. Nothing else makes someone better than another… money doesn’t, power doesn’t, employment doesn’t. The sooner some people around me start realising that, the quieter my life will be.

My stepson’s got his eye on a couple of girls. They’re all his age and quite pretty – I hope he gets one for his girl.

My son has had a persistent cough for about a month now. We took him to Doctor Harland where we got some anti-biotics for him. We’re giving them to him and his cough seems to be calming down more. His breathing is still laboured a bit so every so often we’re giving him the two types of inhaler that Doctor Harland gave us.

It’s going to a great loss for this town when Doctor Harland decides to retire. He is a truly magnificent paediatrician. Aside from being British, he’s got this excellent ability to put your mind at ease.

I’ve put a list of people who have the same name as me – Ryan Paul – as one of the pages on this blog. So if you look on the menu to the right, you’ll see a link to Ryan Paul’s. Check them out – figured it’d be cool for people to see who else has this excellent name.

No Particular Title

I was totally psyched the day after my birthday – my sister called me and we spoke for around ten minutes.

She’s got a new job now after her previous asshole boss did what he does best.

Lorraine’s just come out of hospital yesterday after being in there for three days. Pancreatitis caused it and now she’s on insulin for her diabetes. We gotta start shopping real carefully too with a next-to-no-fat diet.

My cousin Storme added me to her hotmail a while ago and I didn’t know who it was. This name kept appearing on my MSN online and I ignored it coz I didn’t know who it was until I saw the avatar photo. She’s awesome most definitely. I wish I could bring Storme and Kalme to Kenora. They’d LOVE it! I wish Marie & Aunt Jennifer could come here but I doubt they ever will.

It’s mad hot here at thirty degrees – totally uncomfortable, hot and sweaty too. I wish it would rain and rain and rain and rain. No more damn forest fires. Those are a real danger too. It’s growing evidence of how much the United States and China really are messing up our environment. Why can’t people just stop using damn motor cars and use hybrids instead? Or at least tell all these stupid ass morons in Canada and the United States to stop using four wheel drive vehicles with engine sizes of 4.0L or more? It’s not needed… and more than one is just an example of western greed. I do perfectly well in my 2.0L Neon in the summer and winter so long as I drive careful and have good tires. Stupid stupid stupid.

The same idiotic fool that accused my woman of stealing from the pow-wow committee is the same idiotic fool that’s accused the Cobiness family generally of stealing, saying that they all will keep stealing.

If we’re going in for this whole trying to smear the names of members of particular families, I could sit here and tell the complete truth about quite a few people, which would not only make them look like the dirtbags they are, but no doubt they’d be up in arms over it.

There are two families on the reserve I do like, and have never had any problems with. One member of one of those families I have an issue with because something was said concerning the Cobiness family, which includes my son… but aside from that these two families are pretty decent. Don’t cause any trouble as far as I know.

The Dalles reserve is poison. All that it would take to make it a nice place is get rid of ten people, and all the families would get along famously. Obviously that’ll never happen so I’m doomed to not liking a few people forever.