Hamas in Gaza attacks Israel with missiles, motar rounds. People are killed.
Israel attacks Hamas in Gaza with bombs, missiles, gunfire. People are killed.
Hamas promises more suicide bombers.
Israel says it is not through with Hamas.
And so it goes.
Payback is a bitch, eh?
Okay, in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and other Commonwealth Nations Boxing Day is a pale remembrance of St. Stephen’s Days past in which gifts were distributed to those of the lesser classes. Boxing Day now is dedicated to lining up in the wee, dark hours to buy stuff from China at reduced prices before anyone else can get it.
Canada does the same but it’s National Cheap-Shopping Holiday is named after the founding of the first cardboard box manufacturing plant in Fort Meta-Wawa, Ontario.
Cardboard was invented in China in 1660, the first cardboard box was allegedly cobbled together in England in 1817.
However, long before the Chinese and the Brits were messing about glueing sheets of paper together, Native Canadians were fashioning boxes and other storage containers — including boats! — from pieces of birchbark stuck together with pitch.
The center of this industry was in the villages of Weewee-wawa and Woowho-wawa on the banks of the Mis’sip’pi River in what is now known as the Ottawa Valley.
When Whitey came, they built a fort between the two villages and called it Fort Meta-Wawa, consolidated the cardboard-box operations, and decreed the Day after Christmas a shopping holiday in what would become Upper Canada.
Canadians today enthusiastically carry on this tradition.
Our regular snowplow guy is a lady named Pat. Twenty-year veteran and all that. Does an excellent job, very careful not to plug your driveway with a wall of snow.
She attacks our side of the street with her blade angled out so she whips the all the snow - including your snow at the end of the driveway — towards the center of Bonnechere Street.
With subsequent passes, she pushes all the snow towards the lake, where there are no houses.
Neat, clean, no-hassle plowing.
Not the new guy’s style.
He gets up in the morning, pulls on his Cruel Winter Boots, takes a slug of old F-U Buddy from his pocket flask, and whips down Bonnechere with his blade angled towards our houses.
Take this afternoon, for instance.
We’ve been getting a white ass-kicking since morning — a good 6-8 inches out there. It’s light, it’s fluffy, but it’s getting deep.
My Man Rick shows up, clears our drive, and motors away to his next client.
Along comes New Plow Guy.
Swoosh! The end of the driveway is promptly plugged.
Through the window I call him names, I curse his bones, the bones of his mother and father, too. Kids, if he has them.
I dress, trudge down the driveway, and begin clearing his leavings. I get half of it removed. I hear a rumble on Muskrat.
Shite! He’s back. Swoosh! Gets me again…
I swear he’s smiling as he flashes past, lifting the flask to his lips, his boombox blaring I wish you a merry Christmas, I wish you…
Shortest day, longest night, pressure point of rebirth.
Sun, now rising to the right of the telephone pole seen from our living room window, will slowly and purposefully inch daily to the left of the pole, gaining strength.
Six months from now, when grass is green and rhubarb leaves large and nodding, the light at sunrise will come behind the far shore of Muskrat Lake and pierce our living room window, shoot through the living room, dining room, sunroom, and wake the shade garden.
Stand in light’s welcome way and risk your early morning heart ripped out by welcome warmth, life-affirming beauty.
Why is Bush wasting more taxpayer money flitting abroad?
What can President Clueless be thinking, zipping around Iraq, hugging and smiling and waving goodbye?
How much is this costing the American taxpayer?
Why can’t he just say: “Goodbye, World. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” and go to Dallas, never to be heard from again.
I was struggling with the Christmas tree on the sunporch, trying to fit it and stabilize it in a cheap-cheap Chinese-made tree stand.
It clearly came from the Communist part of China.
I was working in an enclosed space, bending over so my eye pressure was elevated, and my hands covered in pitch.
I had to keep going down to the garage for tools, drilling holes, pissing and moaning.
Jane was offering advice on how to do the job and divorce was near…
The forward-this e-mail arrived and I quickly sent off the messages in between trips up and down stairs.
It looked legit and I knew the friend who sent it believed it to be legit.
Meanwhile, it was snowing. Lots of snow. Maybe 300 feet of it. Anyway, it was deep out there. Had to get to the PO. Fortunately, Rick came and shoveled me out.
By the time I got back the snow was mounting again. You should see it this morning. Sheesh!
Going to be an expensive week here on Muskrat Lake.
Then I got the e-mail that the message I sent out was a ho-ax.
Eff it!
Had to make that right.
Jane said why did you do that…you never do that.
Linda and Charlie said not to worry, they still loved me.
Then, the kitchen sink started leaking. Badly.
Jane began freaking.
There was some history to that leak.
A leak denied will come back to bite you in the ass in a storm — that’s an old Chinese proverb, I believe.
There was velocity language.
Divorce didn’t seem so bad.
Or death.
The good thing was I had scrubbed most of the Christmas tree pitch from my hands.
David the Plumber showed up. It was getting dark. We were still in snowstorm mode.
He left an hour later.
I was glad to hand over $70 as he had to run uptown, just before the hardware store closed, for parts.
Merry Christmas, David. All good things to you and yours.
Oh, yes, I made a tree stand from a couple of plywood pieces in the garage.
A bit of an Ugly Betty but, hey, I think the tree is still upright.
Maybe we’ll get the blue lights on it today.
Maybe I’ll post this.
Pop. of Afghanistan: 32 million
Pop. of United States: 305 million
31,000 troops in Afghanistan
405 combat deaths
Pop. Of Canada: 33 million
2500 troops in Afghanistan
100 combat deaths
26 of those 100 killed were members of the Royal Canadian Regiment, stationed at CFB Petawawa, about 35 minutes from where I’m writing this.
You see them in their berets and fatigue uniforms, boots bloused, every day: Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, Staples, eating at East Side Mario’s…
You see them every day — driving their trucks, training in their combat vehicles, in helicopters over Muskrat Lake…
These young men and women are a constant presence in our lives here in the Ottawa Valley. Some of those have been killed were patients of my son, Dr. Denis Mahoney, whose chiropractic clinic is located on the public section of CFB Petawa.
It will be a miserable Christmas for the families and friends of those young soldiers who have been killed in a hostile land far from here. There will be no Happy New Year.
There is no end in sight.
Is anyone out there counting the deaths of Afghanis?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets to suspend Parliament, avoiding a non-confidence showdown next week with the Liberals, NDP, and Block Quebecois opposition. (See below.)
Parliament gets to go home for a long Christmas holiday, returning only in late January.
Lots of time for the Conservatives to wage a war of words against the “coalition” (and visa versa).
Then bring in a budget that, supposedly, will contain economy-building measures and enough sugar to keep the opposition from toppling the government.
Perhaps a cooling-off period will defuse the red hot political situation in Ottawa, but don’t count on it.
Who said Canada is boring…
So, Canada, are we going to have a bloodless coup, another election, or more of the same old crap?
In a peanutshell, the Libs, the Social Democrats, and the Quebec Secessionists are really fed up with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s minority government of Republican-wannabe rightists.
(Actually, the Bloc Quebecois is fed up with Canada and will do about anything to stick it to the country that feeds and clothes it’s MPs, including supporting a coalition created to bring down the Tory government.)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected this morning to ask Governor General Michaëlle Jean to suspend — “prorogue,” which is different from a perogie – parliament to stave off a non-confidence vote that would be a death blow to the Conservative government elected this fall.
(Canadian elections currently cost about $300,000,000 each.)
Harper wants time to bring in a budget in late January that will “deal with” the current economic crisis, and save his Tory arse. Or not.
GG Jean, as head of state (Harper is head of government), can go along with the Conservatives. Or not.
Harper would then face a no-confidence vote next Monday. The coalition could bring the government down. Or not.
Then, Harper could ask GG Jean to dissolve Parliament which, if she does, would mean another $300 million election.
Or, the GG could allow the opposition coalition, led by the Libs and supported by the NDP and Bloc, to have a go at forming a government.
Or not.
Stay connected to see how this plays out.
O Canada!
This, from President George W. Numbnuts:
“I think I was unprepared for war…”