Toronto cops in action - pix from the G20 riot

Agent 3 was in Toronto this past weekend, just in time for the G20 Summit, also known as the Fake Lake Fiasco. He managed to snap a couple of pix of the "integrated security unit" in action. Here's what a billion dollars worth of "security" looks like!

The wacky world of HST

No, HST does not stand for Gonzo Doctor Hunter S. Thompson, of late lament. It stands for Harmonized Sales Tax -- the confiscatory tax known in Europe as Value Added Tax (VAT) -- and readers in Ontario and British Columbia are in for it, come July 1st. That's what comes of being part of Canada, eh!

Dirk Meissner of Canadian Press has written a good piece called "Let them eat cake: The wacky world of the Harmonized Sales Tax". Read it to find out why the wine at the wedding reception may taste a bit salty, and why you have to pay HST on one donut but not six.

Happy Canada Day, everybody! And don't forget to vote the bastards out, next chance you get!

"No speak English"

Agent 46 sends us a morning smile...

A Russian woman married a Canadian gentleman and they lived happily ever after in Toronto. The poor lady was not very proficient in English, but did manage to communicate with her husband.

The real problem arose whenever she had to shop for groceries. One day, she went to the butcher and wanted to buy chicken legs. She didn't know how to put forward her request, so, in desperation, clucked like a chicken and lifted up her skirt to show her thighs. Her butcher got the message and gave her the chicken legs.

Next day she needed to get chicken breasts. Again she didn't know how to say it, so she clucked like a chicken and unbuttoned her blouse to show the butcher her breasts. The butcher understood again and gave her some chicken breasts.

On the 3rd day, the poor lady needed to buy sausages. Unable to find a way to communicate this, she brought her husband to the store...

Why? Because her husband speaks English! What were you thinking?

Ex-shoes me?

Please enjoy this video, an ad for the “ShoeDini” shoe-horn, with voice-over by Gilbert Gottfried. Matt Taibbi calls it "the best film I’ve seen this year."

Yes, me too...infinitely funnier than Grown Ups, which you should avoid like the plague. Seen the trailer on TV? Like the scene where the fat guy swings out over the ole swimming hole and crashes into a tree? Just like in America's Funniest Home Videos? Well, dear reader, that is the only ONLY funny scene in the whole damn movie. Forget it! But I digress...

Much in all as I enjoyed this commercial, something bothered me about it. Something besides a suspicion that this has to be a spoof. How could there be such a product, for real? But then it dawned on me...

There IS a real ShoeDini. Trust me, I checked. But the target audience is not the actors you see in the commercial. Those feebs and geezers look pretty slim and fit to me. I'm sure the target audience is the millions of American (and Canadian and British) men and women who are too fat to see their feet...never mind putting shoes on them!

Walt predicts the ShoeDini will be an even greater marketing success than the Slap Chop!

Reality check on Afghanistan: We're LOSING

The Economist's cover this week (26/6-2/7/10) bears the headline "Losing Afghanistan". Inside is a leading article [editorial, to us North Americans - ed.] on what may or may not happen now that Gen. "Billy" McChrystal has been replaced by Gen. Petraeus, the hero of Iraq. (The Economist calls him that.)

There is also a "briefing" -- a lengthy analysis -- on Afghanistan, headed "More than a one-man problem". The sub-headline reads "The gaffes that cost General Stanley McChrystal his job are symptoms of far deeper trouble -- a war that is being lost." Critics and war hawks please note: those are the Economist's words, not mine. It's my emphasis though.

After going through a long list of failures and a somewhat shorter list of successes in Armpitistan, the Economist concludes the three-page opus thus: "Perhaps the best that can be hoped for NATO's current operations is to weaken the militants sufficiently to bring them to the table."

It seems to me that's a pretty faint hope. And one that is not worth the spilling of another drop of blood. Instead of planning strategies for counter-insurgency, Obama and whoever his advisors are today should, in my view, be looking for the door marked "EXIT".

There is nothing ... repeat, NOTHING ... to be gained by staying in Afghanistan, not "peace with honour", not even peace WITHOUT honour. The USA and its allies are in the wrong war, in the wrong place, for the wrong reasons. It's time to quit while we're behind!

149 & 150

Master Cpl. Kristal Giesebrecht

and Private Andrew Miller, RIP

While the leaders of the most powerful nations in the world (it says here) had a group dither, Saturday, on the subject of Afghanistan, among others, two more Canadian soldiers were killed there.

They were were both medical technicians attached to the 1st Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment Battle Group. Private Miller was only 21. Master Corporal Giesebrecht was the third Canadian woman to be killed in a combat situation.

The world leaders did not immediately offer any new ideas for stopping the waste of lives.

Are you living in a failed state?

Earlier this week, the Fund for Peace -- a U.S. NGO whose mission is to promote sustainable security -- released its annual list of the world’s failed states.

177 countries are ranked on a matrix including security threats, economic implosion, human rights violations and refugee flows. Since the index was published for the first time in 2005, the top 10 slots have rotated among 15 countries. Foreign Policy (the Fund's publication) said it seems that state failure “is a chronic condition”.

And now for the organization’s list of the world’s 10 most vulnerable nations ... or, if you want to look at it this way, the 10 worst places to live ... with Walt's comments.

10. Pakistan - Christians persecuted for blaspheming against Islam. Taliban hiding out in the Khyber Pass. Capital is Islamabad -- no pun intended.

9. Guinea - Not to be confused with Guyana which has improved to 104th. And it borders on India. Just one of a rotten bunch of banana republics in central and west Africa. See map above.

8. Central African Republic - Ditto. Used to be the Central African Empire, whose emperor was rumoured, only a couple of decades ago, to eat his enemies. Hasn't improved much since.

7. Iraq - Site of the Bush war. Hazardous place to live due to frequent and unpredictable explosions. Sunni Muslims fighting with Shia Muslims (dontcha love the name "Shiite"?) fighting with Ismaili Muslims fighting with Kurds, and so on.

6. Afghanistan - Site of the Obama war. Otherwise see 7.

5. Democratic Republic of Congo - Next door to the Republic of Congo, which ranks only 30th. Anarchy in the eastern part, except for the foreign-run mines -- blood diamonds. No roads. No nothing. Heart of Darkness country.

4. Chad - Sits next to Canada at the U.N. Has Libya for a northern neighbour, Sudan on the east. Nice.

3. Sudan - See my recent post on South Sudan. The Muslim-ruled north is only marginally better. Dustiest capital city in the world.

2. Zimbabwe - Uses its worthless dollars for toilet paper. Generates more refugees than any other country on earth. Ruled by Comrade Robert Mugabe (Bob's your uncle!) the 2nd-worst dictator on earth.*

And the winner (?) is...

1. Somalia - Failed to cash in on worldwide interest in pirates. Two or three "governments" claim overlapping territories. Warlords in charge. Anarchy rules.

* Source: Fund for Peace. Who's No. 1? Step forward, Kim Jong-il, Dear Leader and President for Life of the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea.

Footnote: Read the article to discover why Canada and Eire are coloured green on the map, but the U.S.A. and Britain are only yellow.