Quotulatiousness

October 30, 2009

“Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark”

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:53

OMG! US invasion plans target Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg . . . and Sudbury?

The United States government does have a plan to invade Canada. It’s a 94-page document called “Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan — Red,” with the word SECRET stamped on the cover. It’s a bold plan, a bodacious plan, a step-by-step plan to invade, seize and annex our neighbor to the north. It goes like this:

First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.

Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.

Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts — marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada’s Atlantic and Pacific ports.

At that point, it’s only a matter of time before we bring these Molson-swigging, maple-mongering Zamboni drivers to their knees! Or, as the official planners wrote, stating their objective in bold capital letters: “ULTIMATELY TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL.”

Old news indeed, but still of historical interest. The plans in the other direction were held in Defence Scheme No. 1:

Lt. Colonel Brown himself did reconnaissance for the plan, along with other lieutenant-colonels, all in plainclothes. These missions took place from 1921 and 1926. As historian Pierre Berton noted in his book Marching as to War, these investigations had “a zany flavour about it, reminiscent of the silent comedies of the day.” To illustrate this, Berton quoted from Brown’s reports, in which Brown recorded, among other things, that in Burlington, Vermont the people were “affable” and thus unusual for Americans; that Americans drink significantly less alcohol than Canadians (this was during Prohibition), and that upon pointing out that to Americans, one responded “My God! I’d go for a glass of beer. I’m going to ‘Canady’ to get some more”; that the people of Vermont would only be serious soldiers “if aroused”; and that many Americans might be sympathetic with the British cause.

Even CBS News has difficulty with the “jobs saved or created” claims

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:02

The formula for deciding how many jobs are created or saved doesn’t come close to passing the giggle test:

When the WH demanded that those who received Spendulus money “report” back on how many jobs were “saved or created,” they insisted upon a nonsensical rule: If a single dollar of Spendulus was spent on an employee’s salary, whether that employee was a new employee or an old one, that gets counted as a job “saved or created.” If he’s a new employee, that job was created. If he’s an existing employee, that job was saved.

For $1.

Yes, $1. Because the nonsensical rules the White House told these people to count “saved or created” jobs by simply stated: If any employee’s salary is paid, in whole or in part (any part!), count that as a job “saved or created” by the spending.

And then report that number back to us.

Note that the White House’s rules do not seek to discover which jobs really were “saved or created.” To come to that conclusion, one would need a set of more rigorous rules — which excluded some jobs from the “saved or created” category, rather than attempting to include them all under that rubric.

The criteria for deciding are so unrealistic that it would be possible to claim that 787 billion jobs were saved or created . . . and it would be valid under the reporting formula.

Cory Doctorow on Britain’s ill-advised ‘3 strikes’ move

Filed under: Britain, Law, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:39

Cory Doctorow would have the British government do something other than their idiotic ill-advised move to enforce the “three strikes” rule:

Peter Mandelson’s proposal to disconnect the families of internet users who have been accused of file sharing will do great violence to British justice without delivering any reduction in copyright infringement. We’ve had 15 years of dotty entertainment industry proposals designed to make computers worse at copying. It’s time that we stopped listening to big content and started listening to reason.

Since 1995 — the year of the WIPO copyright treaties — the entertainment industry has won extrajudicial powers to enforce its rights without the need to prove a case in court. “Notice and takedown”, as the system was called, was supposed to stop copyright infringement on the web. It gave rights holders the power to compel internet service providers to take down material simply by stating that it infringed their rights, and obliged those providers to act or face liability.

A decade and a half later there is no indication that this has reduced copyright infringement online (certainly there is more today than there was in 1995). And, predictably, a system that allows for legalised censorship without penalties for abuse has itself been abused.

We are already at the point where it is a reasonable and sensible thing to say that access to the internet is a human right (at least in the west). Mandelson’s three strikes provision will deny innocent people access to the internet (for all it will take is accusations that do not need to have proof), which for more and more people will be the practical equivalent of being exiled from the country. No internet access would mean children can’t get access to school work, parents can’t get access to their bank accounts, and everyone will be cut off from large parts of their social circle (more and more people depend on email, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media to stay in touch).

Due process? That seems to have been lost in the rush. Proportionality? That’s been gone for years.

Tweet of the day: Expensive food

Filed under: Economics, Food, Humour — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:25

Stephen Fry: A spoonful of paté de campagne Ardéchois à l’ancienne is not really that far distant from a spoonful of catfood. Just notably more expensive

Justice is (belatedly) served

Filed under: Law, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:07

A short summary from The Guardian:

The Pennsylvania supreme court has dismissed thousands of juvenile convictions issued by a judge charged in a corruption scandal.

The high court today threw out more than five years worth of cases heard by former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella. He is charged with accepting millions of dollars in kickbacks to send youths to private detention centres.

The court says that all the convictions are tainted and that the youths may not be retried.

This is very good news for the young people who were railroaded . . . one wonders if a class action lawsuit can now be prepared against the state for the wrongful imprisonment?

Green Berets to combat-test latest wearable military computer gear

Filed under: Military, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:05

Although the Land Warrior program was officially cancelled in 2007, the US Army is still actively working on making better technology available to troops in the field. The next phase will be equipping a Special Forces unit:

In the US military, the term “Special Forces” isn’t generic as it is in the UK — it refers specifically to US Army Special Forces, aka the Green Berets (as distinct from Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Rangers, Marine Force Recon etc etc, all generically grouped as “special operations forces”). If the report is accurate, then, it’s Army Special Forces who will get the new Land Warrior.

The Green Berets, while undeniably frightfully elite, are “Tier Two” specwar people, not “Tier One” like Delta Force, the best of the best. The Berets are the rest of the best, as it were.

For supertrooper use, the Land Warrior’s ordinary radio networking will apparently be upgraded to include satellite comms. Every operator will carry it, rather than just team leaders as in line units, and reportedly there will be a new and improved GUI as well. The kit is expected to weigh about the same as the 7lb sets now in use by the 5th SBCT.

Powered by WordPress