Rant VI: Sundin

Wooops, I guess technically it's actually Sunday now, but I'll pretend it's still Saturday, and if I'm "lucky" it'll be screwed up and say i posted this yesterday. So really really short and sweet: I don't care if both two goals tonight came from Sundin- look who was in the box when we got two of the three goals against us. He needs to retire.
And on a side note, Wellwood and Pohl take all!

Rant V: Hockey and Money

Why is it that Canada only has 6 of the 30 Hockey teams in the NHL? Apparently it has to do with where the money is, USA has more money, and it's worth more, so they get them. It's completely unfair, the NHL can pose any amount of restrictions it wants on the game and where teams hail from, so how about a restriction on how many teams can come from a certain place. If they are out there for money, it actually makes a LOT more sense to have Canadian teams than American ones, I mean seriously people, WHO goes to see Tampa Bay and Florida games!? Most likely Canadians on vacation in Florida. I remember in a This Hour Has 22 Minutes episode, at the end one of their reporters was going around Tampa Bay, wearing a TB Lightning jersey, and asking people if they knew what the name of their team was. Out of the 10 or so people that they showed, only about 1 of them actually knew the answer, and about the same number said that they would go to a game if they were given a free ticket (a few more agreed under the condition that they got free beer). If you look at the rates for games down south, they're WAY cheaper than the games up here. They need fans, yet we have LOADS of fans, who are willing to pay a LOT for tickets to a game. And about fans, a lot of these American teams have no fans unless they are doing good. Pittsburgh is a perfect example of pathetic fans, the Penguins nearly went bankrupt until they got Lemieux, no one was coming to the games until they got someone good. Once he left, they went into a slump again, until now they have Crosby. Now notice something about those two names? They're both CANADIAN players, on average, American teams only have about three American players and the rest are all Canadian and European. In fact neither of the Florida teams have ANY American players. If you could only play for your home country, they'd have what? 6 teams maybe? Something seriously needs to change here.

Rant IV: The Quebecers

Alright, it's been like 200 years or something now that the French have been subject to British/Canadian authority, and they still won't shut up. I don't have anything wrong with the language or the culture, in fact I think it's actually pretty cool having a huge province that is all a different language from the rest of the country- it's something the USA doesnt have. But the thing that really bugs me is how the Quebecers HATE being Canadian. I'm gonna focus on one case here. A few days ago, there was an incident with a hockey team from New Brunswick I think it was. The team had visited the Canadian Armed Forces Base in Gagetown, and the commanders had given the coach of the team a flag for the players to sign so that they could send it off to Afghanistan. When asked to sign it, one of their star players was heard saying that he would never sign a Canadian flag- only a Quebec one. He was thrown off the team because they said that even for a star hockey player, this wouldn't be tolerated. Now of course the guy makes up some story about how he actually thought someone else had already signed it for him. The coach of the team has been suspended, and the team has been charged $1,000 for asking the team to sign a flag. Now... we live in a perfectly free country- doesnt something seem a bit wrong here!?

Rant III: Let Go

Alright, pretty short and sweet (I hope), cause I ain't really that wound up right now, but I have to post one rant a day, so yep. Well, as you may have heard, or judging by the small amount of gobal news that actually reaches most of you people, you probably havent heard...that the United States has pretty much admitted defeat in Iraq. Now, I'll give you some background on the US invasion of Iraq since some of you (*cough*Jackie*cough*) don't know the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan, a President and Prime Minister, and a Canadian and an American soldier. Well, shortly after 9/11, the President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, met with his staff and decided what to do to retaliate for this, their first attack on home soil since the War of 1812. They didn't even want to discuss Afghanistan where Osama Bin Laden was supposed to be, they right away wanted to invade Iraq. They'd been waiting a long time to invade Iraq, and this was the time. But they came to realize that the world wasn't going to approve of an invasion of a country not even responsible for 9/11, so instead they decided to invade Afghanistan first, and then move onto Iraq, war by association I suppose. They decided to associate Iraq with terrorists, and since they were on a War Against Terror, then they could invade Iraq. Well the obvious real reason behind Iraq is the oil, PERIOD. So in 2003, while the world was busy with otherstuff, the American Navy opened fire on the Sovereign Nation of Iraq. One day people roamed the streets enjoying life, not even knowing that that very night, their entire world would explode all around them. By morning bodies lined the streets. Soon afterwards the land invasion began. Several months, and approximately 100 dead American soldiers later, Bush declared on the deck of a US Naval Aircraft Carrier that the war was done, "mission accomplished." Well, it's close to 4 years later, and the American soldiers killed in Iraq has reached approx. 2, 900, more than the amount of people killed on 9/11. Well, about a month ago, with the recent American Mid-term election, Americans responded, and his party lost. Americans, and the rest of the world with them, is fed up with George Bush's war for oil. It was pretty much the gerneral consensus recently that the war couldn't be won, that it was Vietname II. But then all of a sudden today, with the introduction of a new Secretary of Defence (he fired the last one after the election) he decided that the war can now be won, they just need to put more men into Iraq. Well, he has two more years in office, I'm estimating a death toll of 5,000 American soldiers, he's gonna have to start drafting people too, where's he gonna find all his pigs to get slaughtered otherwise? And what i want to know, is how can he be so eager to let other parents children be killed, but he has two 20ish year old daughters sitting at home!? It's not like the military doesn't take women! So, yep, we can all look forwards to a lot more deaths... and Americans are angry at us for never coming to their aid in Iraq? our army isn't big enough to be able to afford to lose 5,000 troops. Heck, that's more troops dead than what we have in Afghanistan.
Well that obviously wasn't as short as I'd expected :)

Rant II: NATO in Afghanistan

Well, we're at war, the same war that's been going on for the last 4 years. But now our troops are being left behind, in Afghanistan. First off, a bit of background info. Canada has approximately 2,300 troops serving in Afghanistan, less than the amount of American troops that have died so far in Iraq, thanks to Bush, but I'm sure I'll get around to ranting about him at another time. The Canadian Forces have suffered 43 casualties I do believe, and the most of them coming in the last year. The reason for this is simple. Canadian forces, helped by American forces, are covering the most violent section of Afghanistan, the Panjwaii district. The other countries involved are mostly just sitting around in their peaceful little sections doing nothing to help our troops. We have asked for help but it isnt being offered, in fact just today France declared that it is pulling 400 troops out of A-Stan. It is possible to win the war in A-Stan, but not with the number of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) troops presently serving there. It doesn't help at all if you say that all is lost, not enough men, so let's pull some out. How about GIVING 400 more troops!?

Rant I: the Weather

Apparently the weather is one of the things that Canadians will talk about to anyone, strangers or the best of friends. And I always look at the forecast, and one thing that is really really really annoying me, is the lack of snow on or before Christmas Day for the last few years or so. Now I really hate this, but the thing that makes it all the worse, is the fact that the weather meterologists never seem to care. They always say "some beautiful warm temperatures coming up" or "I'm glad to see that we'll be able to get past Christmas without any snow storms." You know, they might as say "God Bless Global Warming!!!!" It would be really nice if they would think about what they are saying, about how they are approving of Global Warming and about all of those people that want to go skiing, snowboarding, snowblading, skating, sledding, and everything else out in the snow and ice. If they don't want cold weather, they should have thought about this equation: cold+winter=Canada. If they dont want it, then they can go forfeit their Canadian Citizenship and leave me in PEACE!