Walt explains his silence, reflects on this week's political events

Ed. has been giving me excrement for not posting anything since the post-Easter flurry at the beginning of the week. After three days with no new articles, he was forced (he says) to run the stupid cat story yesterday. It's not even a real phenomenon, like the gold/blue dress. It's just an optical illusion, something M.C. Esher
might have drawn, like this one.

The stupid cat is all over the Internet, and on TV too, so (Ed. sez), we might as well have it too.

Then, with still nothing from Walt left on  his escritoire in the corner, Ed. got on the horn to Poor Len Canayen and prevailed on  him to write the piece  on the Montréal Canadiens salute to Dollard St. Laurent and (especially) Elmer Lach. Very nice if you're a fan of Canada's team, but we know not all our readers are such. One or two are even fans of the Toronto team. To them, Walt can only say that we know it's spring, because the Leafs are out!

But OK, I get the message. I shouldn't let an entire week go by without some trenchant observations on matters of greater importance than cats and hockey. [What could be of more importance than hockey? Poor Len]  Herewith, then, three capsule comments.

The Obama-Kerry deal with Iran looks increasingly unlikely of being ratified by the US Congress. Good. Even if you're not paranoid about Iran (and all the other craziness of the Muslim world) you have to admit that any agreement which is time limited can only be described as a temporary cessation of hostilities. The Prez admitted as much when he said that after 12 years -- assuming the mad mullahs keep their word for even that long -- a nuclear-armed Iran will be some other president's problem. Indeed.

The only reason Walt can think of for Obarmy's relentless pursuit of the Iran deal was his felt need to do something, before leaving office, to earn the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in advance. Bah.

It is understood that the starting gun will be fired today for Hellery Clinton's run for the White House. More bah! [Maybe "meh" would be better? Ed.] If La Clinton had tried harder to wrest the nomination from Obama eight years ago... or if she had refused to accept the poisoned chalice he handed her (appointment as Secretary of State)... she'd have had a better shot.  As it is, she has to run not on but against her record of incompetence and arrogance in that office, not to mention the legacy of the failed Obama presidensity.

The only reason no-one's going to challenge Hellery for the nomination is that no other serious candidate wants it.

The one item that has really captured Walt's interest this week is the long-awaited trial of Canadian Senator Mike Puffy ["Duffy", shurely! Ed.] on over thirty (30) charges of bribery, fraud, corruption, premeditated flatulence and mopery in the first degree. Since Canadian courts don't allow video or audio feeds, Walt has been relying on press reports and tweets from Agent 3, who is running a book on the outcome.

The trial began with opening statements by the Crown and defence on Tuesday, and adjourned Friday afternoon, having heard from just one (1) witness, the former law clerk to the Senate, who agreed with defence counsel  that the Senate's rules are fuzzy and hard to understand, on a par with Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

The best line of the week was uttered yesterday by the Crown attorney, responding to the suggestion by the defence that because Steve Harper appoint the Duffster as a senator from Prince Edward Island, he effectively became a resident of that province, even though he really isn't. (With us so far?) The Crown asked whether, if Mr. Harpoon appointed Justin Bieber (aged 21) to the Senate, that would make Mr. Bieber effectively 30 (the minimum age requirement). Good one!

For more on the Duffy trial and its ramifications, Walt suggests "Mike Duffy's the one on trial, but blame and shame abound", by the CBC's National Affairs Editor, Chris Hall.

For a really scathing review of the political career of the hypocritical, fat-faced liar, who Steve Harper called "one of my best appointments", check out "Mike Duffy's finest hour", by Rick Salutin in today's Toronto Star. Wish I'd written that!

A couple of thoughts about war from Gwynne Dyer

Gwynne Dyer know something about war. Born in Newfoundland almost six years before it became part of Canada, he joined the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve at the age of 16. While still in the reserve, he obtained a BA in history from Memorial University in 1963. Later he earned an MA in military history from Rice University (1966) and a PhD in military and Middle Eastern history at King's College London (1973).

Mr. Dyer served in the Canadian, American and British naval reserves. He was employed as a senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy (Sandhurst) from 1973 through 1977. In 1973 he began writing articles for leading London newspapers on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and soon decided to abandon academic life for a full-time career in journalism.

In the mid-1980s, Mr. Dyer created and hosted War, an outstanding documentary mini-series that aired on BBC and PBS. As so often happens, the series begat a companion book (Crown Publishers, New York, 1985).

In the latter part of the book, the author discusses the future of war and the role of the military in today's society. More specifically, he considers the likelihood of an all-out nuclear war which would lead to the annihilation of mankind. Here are a couple of quotes which I think worth passing along.

Since it is the professional duty of military officers to identify threats to the security of the state, they are constantly searching for potential dangers abroad -- and virtually every other state within military reach constitutes such a threat simply by virtue of having armed forces of its own. The planning reflex of general staffs provides governments with detailed and regularly updated scenarios for conflicts in unlikely places with improbably enemies (as late as the 1920s military planners in the United States and Canada were maintaining carefully worked out plans to invade each other), which on occasion can lend undue military importance to minor incidents and alarms.


There is a new common factor discernible in all the armed conflicts that ravage the contemporary world, and especially in the majority of those conflicts that are irregular in nature. Military power is becoming less effective in achieving decisive, politically satisfactory results at every level of conflict. This is as true for enemies fighting with conventional weapons as for the nuclear-armed great powers, and it is equally true for governments and for insurgents in the lower intensity irregular wars that now account for most of the world's actual killing.

Gwynne Dyer wrote those words in the 1980s -- before 9/11, before the Gulf Wars, before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before Libya and before whatever is coming tomorrow. He has been criticized for his "anti-militarism" and "pacifist tendencies" by many warhawks, including Conrad Black who discontinued publishing Dyer's columns in his newspapers. But Walt thinks War makes some good points. I suspect Ron Paul agrees. 

You can find the War mini-series on YouTube. Here's the link to Part I (of 6), and a search for "War with Gwynne Dyer" will call up the rest. Each part runs about 55 minutes.

Also on YouTube is a more recent (and shorter) commentary by Mr. Dyer on the wars in the Middle East. It's called "The Mess They Made" (2007). Here it is.



Conrad Black no longer owns any newspapers. Gwynne Dyer's insightful columns continue to appear in the Fort Mudge Weakly and other fine newspapers.