'Hillier'iously Ridiculous

I was just watching an interview with Gen. Rick Hillier on The National, and a clip from an interview he did three years ago was played. In it he said "we are here at the invitation of the Afghan people" and (paraphrasing) "every Afghan person we talk to in the streets says they are happy we are here and they want us to stay for a long time."
Hillier, with the publication of his new book, has certainly changed his tune on the mission recently. But it seems he is still strongly in favour of the mission. That's fine. I don't discredit him for believing in the mission. But the two above quotes from his previous interview strike me as intensely ridiculous.
I'm sure many Afghan people are happy troops came in to the country to free them from the rule of the Taliban. But, as I remember it, we didn't go there because the Afghans sent us a nice card in the mail 'inviting' us to come over and blow stuff up in their country.
And certainly many Afghan people do personally thank the troops roaming the streets of their cities and towns. I might too if I were one of them. But let's not forget that there are those who have lost loved ones when NATO offenses have resulted in civilian deaths. I'm willing to say that they likely aren't thankful thousands of troops have come in to fight throughout their country. And then there are those who have killed Allied troops through suicide bombings and whatnot.
I'm not saying the war is good or bad. I am saying, though, that let's not be duped by statements by our top military officials.
And let's just hope all the rest of our men and women over there make it home safe.

The First Canadian Pirates

Jack Sparrow: Your next MP?

OK, they're not real pirates. They're not going to plunder your speedboat in search of booty. They haven't adopted 'The Last Saskatchewan Pirate' as their theme song.
But the Pirate Party of Canada has started up, and if everything goes as planned for them they'll be plundering ... I mean pandering for your votes in the next election.
They're a serious party talking about serious issues, namely file sharing and copyright laws. You can find my story as it appeared in INK here. Tell your friends!

Putting our political parties on a leash

So, as I mentioned before, our federal politicians are in need of a good talking to regarding elections. And since Michaelle Jean hasn't yet whipped them into shape, I've taken it upon myself to play the scolding mother. Below you'll find my ideas for how we can fix our electoral system and ensure that we poor souls needn't mark 'X's more than necessary.

On the Rick Mercer Report a few weeks ago there was a great sketch on makers of small pencils used for marking ballots losing their jobs because Jack Layton stopped an election from happening. So I guess those chaps get the short end of the stick again with my proposal, but hey, they could probably all get jobs making huge prop cheques for the Conservative Party.

And yes, I intended to look scary in the adjacent photo. That was my 'I'm a serious journalist' face.


Read my piece here. (It includes the Rhinoceros Party ... it's bound to be good.)