The Beer: Say hello to an IPA from Marston's somewhere in the United Queendom. I had read somewhere that the particular beer was a revival of a nineteenth century English IPA and so we are with a history project having a beer like they did way back then except mine is icy cold. She pours an orangy field of gold with a mild tan head which slinks down to cover that glass with some decent retention. Smells hoppy and spicy with a slight metallic edge to it. Whenever I smell metal in beer my stomach has over time learned to contract and stiffen and I get ready to spew but it is not the case here. Going down the flavour is a wonderful balance of hops and malts with a lemony zing and mild fruitiness. She is awesomely crisp and clean and amazingly refreshing like most beer I've gotten to know. Did I mention all the incredible bubbles? Contains 5.7% alcohol. Two bastardly thumbs up but as always get a second opinion.
The Blues: Beating back the day and cleaning off the plate for a wonderful well earned weekend off - Let's get it on:
THERE are two very good reasons why military planners cannot afford to make mistakes when purchasing ships for Canada’s navy.
First, new ships are going to be at the heart of the kind of navy Canadians are going to need to negotiate the turbulent waters of international politics in the coming decade. Anyone who doesn’t think a robust navy is important to a nation’s political and economic influence is not paying attention to the way the world works.
Second, vessels are extremely expensive, and one or two procurement blunders could bankrupt plans to rehabilitate our navy, which is currently in danger of sailing toward irrelevance.
For those reasons, the strange goings-on at the Department of National Defence these days regarding two vital purchases has some close observers feeling a bit seasick.
The most obvious problem is with the announced purchase of three joint supply ships ["Joint Support Ships", actually]. That purchase has been on hold since bids came in that would have put the cost of the ships well beyond what the current government seems willing to pay for them.
These were supposed to be huge vessels that would play dual roles, replacing 40-year-old supply ships that provide ammunition and fuel for Canadian task force operations at sea as well as hauling vehicles and other equipment for Canadian land forces operating abroad. The standstill on this purchase threatens naval renewal.
But there is another dual-purpose vessel on the drawing board that is cause for concern — the planned purchase of six to eight naval patrol vessels to be used in the Arctic in the summer and fall and off Canada’s East and West coasts the rest of the year.
The Senate Committee on National Security and Defence has maintained for the past two years that the government’s plan to purchase these ships is wrong-headed for a number of reasons.
Now the Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans — in its new report Rising to the Arctic Challenge: Report on the Canadian Coast Guard — is also pointing to a better strategy for controlling Northern waters.
The Harper government, rightly seized with the issue of promoting Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic, has decided that the best way to do this would be to put these new patrol vessels under the control of the navy. They would also take on some Arctic responsibilities traditionally handled by the Canadian Coast Guard [icebreaking here].
The Fisheries and Oceans report points out, "The coast guard has far more experience and expertise in the North than the navy." It says that the coast guard should be outfitted with new icebreakers that might not be in the same league as the powerful Russian icebreaking fleet, but which would at least be more respectable than the ones we have now.
Canada’s current icebreaking fleet, the report points out, is long in the tooth and was designed to be used in the St. Lawrence River, not the Arctic Ocean. "Canada’s icebreaking fleet will not be adequate once shipping increases" (due to warming in Northern waters). Unfortunately, only one new icebreaker is being ordered ["The "Diefenbreaker"--in 2017!?!"], as the government focuses instead on the patrol vessels. Those patrol vessels, the Fisheries and Oceans report observes, will only be capable of breaking newly formed ice. Serious Arctic vessels must be capable of handling the harder, thicker multi-year ice that will continue to clog Arctic waters.
Furthermore, the report quotes Michael Turner, former acting commissioner of the coast guard, as saying that since the new ships would be of hybrid design, they would have "limited capability in open water." This obviously applies to both the Arctic and along Canada’s East and West coasts. Slow and lightly armed, the new ships are meant for "low threat" environments. They would be too weak for Northern work.
The Committee on National Security and Defence has argued in two reports that moving the navy into the Arctic will drain its effectiveness elsewhere, and that the navy does not have the competence that the coast guard possesses in the Arctic [see here and here].
It has further argued that the coast guard should be armed like the U.S. coast guard is armed. If the government wants guns on boats to make a point about sovereignty — which it obviously does — then arm the coast guard. The union representing coast guard employees is not against this, as long as officers and crews are properly trained and compensated.
Again, the Defence committee reports dovetail with the Fisheries and Oceans report, which recommends deploying multi-mission coast guard icebreakers "as a cost-effective alternative to Canada’s surveillance and sovereignty patrol needs in the Arctic."
In short, both the manning of these patrol vessels by navy officers and the purchase of the ships themselves would be a huge mistake — the kind of mistake a country with a limited military budget can’t afford to make. These patrol vessels wouldn’t even be fast enough to outrun speedy fishing vessels, which makes them of dubious use on the East and West coasts.
When two committees tell the government it needs to rethink its course in the Arctic, perhaps the government should show some signs that it is listening.
I agree with most of the above. However I do not think the Canadian Coast Guard itself needs to be armed. Armed RCMP or Fishery officers are now carried as necessary (as can be Navy personnel), and weapons such as machine guns can be temporarily mounted if needed. Heavier calibre weapons are not necessary. Canada is not going to assert its (dubious) sovereignty over the Northwest Passage by shooting explosive shells at foreign vessels but by maintaining a presence of government vessels, for which the Coast Guard is just fine.
The Harper government's insistence on using the military to assert sovereignty in the North is wrongheaded, especially as no country has any claim to our land there (Hans Island aside). Some earlier posts at The Torch:
In 1963 Penn Station, in New York City, was demolished. Based on the baths of Caracalla, and designed by the legendary firm of McKim, Mead and White, it was one of the finest examples of Beaux Art architecture in America. Its replacement was a mediocre piece of design described, rightly, by theNew York Times as a tin can. The destruction of Penn Station galvanized a movement to preserve old and artistically significant buildings. This was fine, as far as it goes. The 1960s, however, were in many ways the high watermark of twentieth century statism. If there's a problem, went the attitude, there ought to be a law. Elaborate systems of historical classification were in tme set up, curbing the rights of property owners, should the state deem their building historically significant. Since one man's historically significant is another man's eyesore, this has naturally lead to some bizarre bits of paternalism:
The building is in fact the Third Church of Christ, Scientist. Built in 1971, it exemplifies a form of modernist architecture with a well-picked name: “brutalism.” The poured-concrete walls are high, and their starkness is emphasized on the east side by an extended slab from which several cold, metallic church bells hang. “There’s no great reaching to the heavens in the architecture,” said Chris Derosa from Oakhurst, N.J., a tourist who recently walked by the church. “There’s nothing emotional there.”
This type of modernist architecture has impoverished urban streetscapes across the country. Far from an aesthetic movement, brutalism conceives of itself as a cultural revolution, one that replaces bourgeois ornamentation — moldings, columns, entablatures, and steeples — with featureless concrete façades to provide the New Socialist Man with “machines for living” in the egalitarian and classless society that this architecture would supposedly help to create.
For a backward country, they're pretty far ahead of us:
While other states in the European Union have developed various forms of de facto decriminalization — whereby substances perceived to be less serious (such as cannabis) rarely lead to criminal prosecution — Portugal remains the only EU member state with a law explicitly declaring drugs to be "decriminalized." Because more than seven years have now elapsed since enactment of Portugal's decriminalization system, there are ample data enabling its effects to be assessed.
Notably, decriminalization has become increasingly popular in Portugal since 2001. Except for some far-right politicians, very few domestic political factions are agitating for a repeal of the 2001 law. And while there is a widespread perception that bureaucratic changes need to be made to Portugal's decriminalization framework to make it more efficient and effective, there is no real debate about whether drugs should once again be criminalized. More significantly, none of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents — from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for "drug tourists" — has occurred.
Of course the central problem for Canadian policy makers seeking to end the Drug War is the Americans. Unlike many Leftists I don't think the Americans are the main originators of harm and evil in the world (quite the opposite), except in this case. America's War on Drugs, along with its short-sighted monetary policy, have cause an enormous amount of easily avoidable harm in the world. While trafficking is still a serious offense in Portugal, the essential approach is correct: people addicted to hard drugs are sick and need help, not punishment.
Like Icarus really. A socialist, mustachioed Icarus:
By throwing in his lot with the Liberals, led then by Stéphane Dion, the NDP leader saw a chance for real power. However, his ambitions came crashing down when Governor General Michaëlle Jean agreed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's request to prorogue Parliament, sending MPs home.
Since his power play, Layton's party has lost the momentum it had during the 2008 election and his personal popularity has nosedived.
While part of the NDP's decline can be traced back to Layton's role in the failed coalition, it is the growing strength of the Liberals led by Michael Ignatieff that is really pushing the party to the margins.
When he was compared to the hapless Dion, Layton looked good but the changing Liberal dynamic has voters wondering what he stands for, other than opposing everything the Conservative government proposes.
Russia's Gazprom and Nigeria's state-run oil company NNPC on Wednesday agreed to invest at least $2.5 billion in a new joint venture to explore and develop Africa's biggest oil and gas sector.
The new company Nigaz, a 50/50 joint venture between the two energy companies, aims to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations throughout Nigeria. (Guardian)
It has been crazy busy and my dealers and I across central Alberta haven't been getting a lot of sleep as the former tire kickers come to life and want their dreams to be reality. Some of the highlights of my design world this past week:
A nice simple house for a change but I still hate those damn bay windows. Gull Lake, Alberta
A new facility for the German Canadian Club in Red Deer, Alberta. Piggybacked scissors.
I had a bastard of a time working this one out. The ceilings shoot up two damn feet in one area and four feet in another for the 'grand entry'. Gull Lake, Alberta
Almost every truss in this bugger is a different setup and my guys will hate me for a day or two. Airdrie, Alberta
You just have to love it when people want their coffered ceilings right close to a bearing wall and it sucks even more when they want a damn hip there. Red Deer, Alberta
This is a stick frame interpretation and I didn't have much to go on except for some grainy faxes. I think they decided to truss it as they probably couldn't find anyone who could stick frame this. All the good old guys are gone. Lacombe, Alberta
Same house as previous but you get a view of the dormers over the garage.
A multi-family in Sylvan Lake, Alberta. Now this is the stuff I like!
A simple little bungalow in Three Hills, Alberta
Low income multi-family housing for Didsbury, Alberta. Nice and simple and clean plus they are going to hammer up around of the bastards.
On the outside she is all western style and according to the plans the area under the scissors is the trophy area for all the wild animals the dude killed. Trochu, Alberta
A neat little place going into Sundre, Alberta. That orange stripe towards the back represents the stair headroom going into the bonus room.
These are my favourite kind of houses - friggin' easy and right here here in town. Olds, Alberta
