ZenOps

Nothing pisses off a frenchman more than taking his money or his job. If Paris is any indicator, you can increase taxes without too much anger.

I don't need to, its already sold. Its just a matter of scooping it up or pumping it now. If my guess is right, the oilsands will shift in the media from a dirty operation - to the most amazingly wonderful environmental blessing ever. Extracting oil from unusable soil - is basically oil cleanup of a naturally occuring gigantic oil slick on land. The day that people see that hundreds of thousands of acres of land that was literally choked to death by oil - come alive for the first time in a million years and support vegetation - is the day that the tarsands turns from devil to archangel. Its just a matter of media spin. Oh Stelmach, thank you for this "dirty" land.

Mau Tse Harper is heading that way. He started out as slightly minority government democratic - but moved to undemocratic very quickly. Not that I can blame, but he seems to be modelling the intellegence community (CSIS) on Chinese intellegence and not on MI6. If that is because he sees China as the enemy and in order to understand the enemy you have to become it first than thats pretty scary. If hes doing it because he sees the Chinese system as more efficient and effective (usually at quelling public unrest) thats pretty scary too.

China at the time of Chretien was a little different. China hadn't really subjugated Tibet fully back then. Now - they are pretty much in control and harnessing the full grain potential of Tibet (about 20x output and higher quality than under the Lama) China got a little fed up with Canadian grain (and beef) prices. It is awfully high, especially considering a pound of bread is more expensive than a pound of steel (which is also probably why the united mostly US steelworkers are protesting - but I digress) China now in 2010 has the capacity to refuse Canadian genetically modified canola oil, and all beef and not have it adversely affect them. I can't help but think - that if Canada had even a slightly increased output of foodstuffs from the 1950's - that the invasion of Tibet might never have happened, China might not have "had" to subjugate that area. Chretien bowed to the Chinese, Harper bowed to Bush when Harper gave the US 1 Billion dollars worth of free softwood lumber. Favoritism is everywhere. It all evens out, but I would not want to be a Saskatchewan wheat or beef farmer for much longer.

For use for arctic defense: Anything in the air: Bombers, other fighters and hijacked commercial planes is what its primary role would be. In the water: Ships in the Northwest passage. Land vehicles (over ice) : Tank based invasion over the arctic? Hah. No. Not happening. It would not be able to target or track anything under the ice (submarines) I don't think there is a munition that can be dropped from a fighter that would be able to break through several feet of ice and still maintain tracking ability. Satellites are also useless for tracking underice. Which is of concern.

Sure the USAF is going to say the new fighter is 4x more effective than the old one. The people outside the US are still testing them for themselves. Its just a matter of time to determine if its a flop or not. Intel said its Itanium chip, was vastly superior to its previous generation. About 1 year later its was discontinued because the people who actually use them - found out they weren't up to par (they were actually pure crap) Canada has been duped many many times with military equipment. France sold us crap, Brits sold us crap, and the US has also occasionally sold us crap. I think the reason Canada doesn't have a military - is because we always get the crap helicopters and leaky submarines dumped on us. "Oh, just sell it to Canada - they won't need it anyways." If the US were to manufacture 3,000 F-35's and sell 60 to Canada, what is stopping you from giving us all the ones that had minor problems and glitches that could never be fixed? Why do you in the US think Canada is more concerned about the "warranty", the service agreement - than the actual plane itself. Its the sell the Canadians the "Crap" factor, just like a used car salesman. Small rant.

I'm not too sure who majorially owns Lockheed Martin anymore. There is a lot of India influence from Lockheed nowadays yes. I believe one of their Billionaires has been buying it up slowly (People in the US tended to stick their money to the "safe" banks, and lost bigtime in the sub-prime mess) British Petroleum is still mostly British pension funds. Bell Canada could almost be considered Canadian (if they actually let the Ontario Teachers Pensioners buy it, which they didn't.) The actual physical location of the corporation is almost moot nowadays. Hudsons Bay is owned majorially by a US investor now. Tata buying out Jaguar and Land Rover was impressive as hell. They could get away with it because of their associated "old" laws as under the British Empire as IND:EMP made it a lot easier. China could never get away with buying Lockheed, it would simply be blocked. Lockheed martin website slogan "We never forget who we are working for." Thats the man with the most money right, haha!

Efficient, is what the Tata Nano is. When talking efficient with fighters - I'm pretty much assuming that means scaled down and inferior for the sake of either saving money or ease of production and maintenance.

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." That the F-35 is a minimalist (inferior) model of the previous generation - means that its no longer an engineering limitation. Its now a manufacturing/process limitation, in which case you usually end up outsourcing it for mass manufacture. Thats probably why its going offshore. I mean you *could* make a plane that could do mach 15, but would any pilot be able to survive a turn in it? Is it better to spend one billion on a better plane, or one million on a contact lens that will allow the human eye to see with eagle eye vision while you are actually flying the plane at high G's? Which one is the greater benifit to actual use? I think even the US military is questioning the need for "faster, better" fighters. Nothing grows indefinitely. Nukes need not reach the Gigatonne level - where you can nuke an entire hemisphere in one blast. As usual, it shifts. I still say two Uber polar satellites would be a worthy endeavour.

Yeah Harper does like to throw money at things. Normally I'd associate that with the NDP.

Yknow, ever since Harper got in there have been an unending wave of seemingly unfounded accusations against other members of government. Its moved from MP's to Cabinet ministers. The only ones who haven't been accused are the judges (I guess they are next)

I'd be more concerned about govt officials doing too much cocaine. Drug influence. Immortalized by Dave Chapelle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jojjp3VLdJw

Only two of those can be considered solid democracies, the US and France. Japan has always been under Emporer rule, but it has not been acknowledged by the public because there was no male heir until 2006 (Japanese do not recognize female heirs to the throne) I have no doubt that they will consider moving to a weaker constitutional monarchy or true monarchy when Hisahito comes of age. Italy and Germany are failed totaliatarian states. I'm still surprised that the Berlin wall was taken down. Right now - Canada could be classified as a failed democracy (Harper running to the Queen to retain office)

Just another thing to add. The F-35 was designed to be mass produced from the ground up. The original quote for a single F-35 before its completion - $35 million per unit. Could have been a great slogan "F35 for 35" If you go by the original (and always understated quote, just like a cellphone bill or plumbing repair) We should only be paying about $2.5 Billion for these F-35's.

Why is the G Summit valid? The 600,000 orders for the Iphone4 in the first day in the US (although we in Canada will probably have to wait a few months, like a Gaza trade second class citizen trade blockade for Canadian Iphone4's.) Of which Iphones are made in the 800,000 man Foxconn plant in Shenzhen (Imagine a company building housing more people than most cities in Canada) The EU/UK ban on sealskin, which can make or break the economies of any of the million people in the communities in the northern half of Canada. Chinas ban on Canadian Genetically modified Canola oil, officially stated as concern over fungus in the crop due to wet weather (now lifted) Personally I think its because China finds Canada's pricing on wheat and grains - to be exaggerated. China (as morally reprehensible as it may seem) now has prime wheat growing country in Tibet and no longer needs Canada for its grain exports. Where a Tibetan farmer used to be able to grow a decent amount of wheat by hand, China has industrialized their fields with combines and modern equipment to output 20x and have a much higher quality wheat. In the next 15 years, I fully expect the Tibet region to be producing cattle (beef) beyond the quality of Kobe beef. The US military needs to sell off their mass produced F-35. Its a cheaper, slower, more economical version of their older world class fighters. Noone could afford their previous generation fighters - so they did what TATA did to Jaguar - they made a "cheap" version for mass military consumption for sale to countries outside the US. If they don't sell, the next generation will probably be even less expensive. The one that will probably have the most impact to Canada IMO: Chinas grain independance. Saskatchewan will have a very tough time trying to compete in quality and quantity with Chinese grown Tibetan wheat. Believe it or not - Saskatchewan is not really prime wheat growing country - it just happens to be flat, that is the only reason its been scraping by.

I wonder what the military brass in Canada would say if Ignatieff was in power and tried to force a buy of 50 or so Sukhoi 37's. They are about $150 million a apiece, about the same.

Jurisdiction has nothing to do with it. There are three arms, Legislative, Executive and Judicial. Not very many singular government bodies have control over all three. If they have control over all three - its usually called despotism or totalitarianism. Harper, would attempt to pull all three and religion under one roof - Which many see as a disaster waiting to happen. King Harper! Emporer Harper the Despot! We are buying F-35's why? Because I said so dammit! Get your Scrawny hot dog stand outta my G summit.

Pssh, I'm just saying that some Cabinet ministers are breeding a new FLQ thats all (right or wrong) It may be called the Lone Star state - or WildRose Alberta. Which trumps all other influence issues. The no-contest F-35 contract is a close second (govt bowing to US military corporate influence) I think the rest of Canada assumes its somebody funding the Taliban or Halliburton, or a black guy. Rob Anders has already crept into all your minds far too deep if you believe that. France is a foreign influence. The US military is a foreign influence.

Ministers are supposed to be neutral, if they are influenced they are supposed to be influenced under the British Crown (and not the British Govt or any corporate influences either) As Executive members as a "cabinet minister" - they are not allowed to be servile to two masters. IE: Cannot be both French and British or both Chinese and British. They must uphold things like Native land rights and treaties signed under British Law, not French seperatism. The Executive system in Canada is British. Parliament is the arm that Legislative (and supposed to be independant of the Crown) Not that its necessarily right but thats the system we have. I would greatly prefer that cabinet ministers be servants of the people, but thats more of a US type of govt (representational democracy) IE: If the Auditor General were to do an audit of certain govt officials, she does not have to report the results to the general populace - but would have to report it to the Crown. Why would Csis leak this just a week before the G summits? Because the French are arguably the strongest militants of concern. China? China could care less as long as the oil flows and we keep buying Iphones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLQ "Bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange in 1969"

Foreign influence, probably China. Domestic influence, Brits. http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/video?id=7447432 There are a lot of "democratically" elected officials who are still monarchists at heart. Heck - you can say that there are quite a few Bloq Quebecois that are sympathetic to the motherland. Its just thats a little more acceptable as a Euro nation I guess. Its considered taboo in British culture to sell influence. China - its pretty much like selling a pound of rice. Its a sad mofo day though - when the Duchess of York has to sell influence to maintain her lifestyle. Canada seems to have adopted Britains stance on influence peddling, as specifically noted by Jaffer. Jaffer in China - would just be considered to be a good businessman.

Nah. Its all about the gold.

Thats what I heard too, $9 billion for the planes upfront $7 billion for the maintenance contract, $16 Billion total. Relatively speaking, thats a pretty good price for maintenance. Some fighter planes are double the cost of the actual hardware. Canada does not have the expertise or the blueprints to the F-35, so that $7 billion definitely all goes to the US. Helicopters are triple cost in maintenance. In China though - They would never build it to start with if the maintenance was more than 15% of the initial cost. They would just build a new one (IE: By the time you need to repair your Iphone 3G, you wouldn't want to because you would be able to get the Iphone4 for less)

British North America Act, which means Canada did not gain control of lawmaking until 1975, some say 1982. Yet others say we never did. Keep in mind, Canada is not classified as a democracy even today 2010. Which kind of makes me wonder why I complain about MP Rob Anders, when they are all pretty much self imposed as impotent. Can't really blame them for snorting coke either - there is nothing else to do. Parliaments primary duty - Legislation Crowns primary duty - Executive Debatable (but probably should not be either Parliament or Crown) - Judicial

Hardly pointless. Canada only got Lawmaking ability since 1975. Now thats fine if you happen to be a British Canadian, but its creating a rift a near absolute tear with the French seperatists. Canada nearly tore apart in the 90's. The rest of us still have to play by the old BNA - because the Canadian government can't get around to making any laws. It does have a few ups, for example: Canada not having any real copyright laws (so pirate as many movies as you want - because they just don't care as long as you pay the govt "pirate" levy on recordable media.) Arrgh! Somali pirates be nothing compared to Canadians, lol! Anarchy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Quebec_referendum 93.52% voter turnout to determine if Quebec should seperate (claim independance) from Canada. No: 2,362,648 Yes: 2,308,360 This is primarily due to governance issues and conflicts (and impotent law making practices, that leave the French Canadians with mostly British Law) No wonder M51's are flying off Newfoundland. US style independance from Britain was ugly. http://davidjwong.shawwebspace.ca/asset/view/22527/stpierreetmiquelon.jpg No that is not a WWII map, that is one of the rare few disputes that was forced (arbitration) law.

Fighter planes being more capable of? Shooting down other fighter planes? Yes. But its hard not to see the redundancy in that. Especially now that planes carry nothing of military value anymore. Now you can argue that if you want to enter the knight joust competition, you have to have and spend money on a full suit of armor and a really long lance. And if thats the case - then the airplanes are important for symbolic superiority. But one can just as easily put the money toward a symbolic sports team, like a soccer team and have them fight for symbolic superiority on the sports field. Even Hitler put money into sports as much as military. And this govt seems to be all about "superiority". Owning the podium was enough already - buying some symbolic fighters to use in the last war where they are probably valid (Afghanistan) as slightly useable weapons seems a little misguided.