Thursday, January 23, 2014

Grapes announces 2014 Cabinet - updated




 DON CHERRY (con't)

28. Trying to bury the Air India Inquiry Report
29. Helicopters
30. Destroying DFO research documents
31. Abolishing job of CSIS Inspector General to save money
32....

RON MACLEAN
Thanks Don. Let's welcome our viewers to the first 2014 episode of House of Commons Night in Canada.  I'm Ron Maclean here with Don Cherry.  Don, the Team Canada Olympic Men's team was announced very slowly and a cabinet minister was there.

DON CHERRY
Yeah, I saw that. Lisa Raitt was filling in for the Minister of Sport.

RON MACLEAN
We have trouble telling the difference between politics and hockey on this show, but if cabinet ministers can introduce Team Canada, I think we should have a hand in choosing a new Cabinet.

 DON CHERRY
Absolutely.  The important stuff is the same as we've discussed before, mainly respect: respect for the opponent, respect for the rules, and of course, respect for The Code.

RON MACLEAN
So list off the Hockey Cabinet if you would, starting with the PM.

DON CHERRY
Yzerman

RON MACLEAN
A no brainer. Minister of Justice and Attorney General?

DON CHERRY
Shanahan

RON MACLEAN
You've been trying to get him into Parliament since forever.

DON CHERRY
I know, and I hadn't thought of him as a cabinet minister.  I'm liking this.

RON MACLEAN
DFAIT?

DON CHERRY
Ken Dryden

RON MACLEAN
Can he be appointed to cabinet?  He's not in Parliament any more.

DON CHERRY
No, but he's a permanent member of the Queen's Privy Council.

RON MACLEAN
So's Conrad Black*.  National Defence?

DON CHERRY
Orr

RON MACLEAN
He's not a member of the Privy Council even.

DON CHERRY
That can be changed.  I heard there's three vacancies in the Senate.

RON MACLEAN
Finance?

DON CHERRY
Eagleson.

RON MACLEAN
You're sick and twisted.  C'mon, Finance?

DON CHERRY
Bobby Baun

RON MACLEAN
The Leafs get one!  Health?

DON CHERRY
Eric Lindros' mother

RON MACLEAN
Aieeee! Agriculture?

DON CHERRY
Any Sutter.

RON MACLEAN
Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development

DON CHERRY
Jordin Tootoo

RON MACLEAN
President of the Treasury Board?

DON CHERRY
Gretzky

RON MACLEAN
I wondered when we'd get to him.  Why the Treasury Board in particular?

DON CHERRY
He's good for business.

RON MACLEAN
Ministry of Money Laundering and Property Development?

DON CHERRY
You're not taking this seriously.  I think we're done here.

*Not as of Jan 31, 2014

Monday, January 20, 2014

Martin Luther King Jr. "A time to break the silence..."


By Rev. Martin Luther King
4 April 1967

Speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City
[Please put links to this speech on your respective web sites and if possible, place the text itself there. This is the least well known of Dr. King's speeches among the masses, and it needs to be read by all]
http://www.ssc.msu.edu/~sw/mlk/brkslnc.htm


I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join with you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statement of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Patrick Cockburn and an Arab Summer

Cockburn, P., 2014. Hazards of Revolution. London Review of Books [Online] vol. 36 no. 1 pp. 25-27. Available from http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n01/patrick-cockburn/hazards-of-revolution [Accessed 13 January 2014].

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Hayden is the traitor


 "...Flynn told me about a colonel in the Americal Divison (which Flynn always said was sponsored by General Foods) who believed that every man under his command needed combat experience; he made the cooks and the clerks and the supply men and the drivers all take M-16’s and go out on night patrol, and one time all of his cooks got wiped out in an ambush."
Michael Herr
page 191




Joseph Heller
Catch 22 



So a senior American military officer who committed a crime by breaking his oath to protect and defend the American Constitution (Hayden), is sponsored by a major international tech company complicit in that crime (Microsoft), to appear on a major American TV network eager to enable the crime (CBS), to attack the citizen who exposed the crime (Snowden).

The Founders would be thrilled.

On the basis of the following oath, Snowden passes and Hayden fails.  Only one of them should worry about "clemency" and it isn't Snowden.


Oath of Commissioned Officers

I, _____, having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.


US Constitution
Section III, Article 3

Section. 3.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.