A helicopter accident occurred on the Slave Lake forest fire. The pilot was killed during an ongoing water bucketing operation. Transport Canada, the federal agency responsible for doing the accident investigation, has been unable to acquire a helicopter to retrieve the wrecked aircraft. It sits, on its back, in shallow water about 10 metres (30 feet) from shore, where it appears day-after-day on television.

Apparently, all of the available helicopters capable of lifting the damaged machine out of the water are being used in the area by Alberta to fight forest fires. They can’t be made available.

That is unbelievable!–especially given that some of those helicopters remain near to the incident, and are still involved in fire fighting operations. Do you mean to tell me that for the couple of hours needed, an aircraft can’t be made available to retrieve an aircraft that was involved in fighting the Slave Lake fire? In which a pilot was killed?

You’ve got to be kidding me.

The pilot was retrieved by some quick-thinking fire fighters, who were unable to resuscitate him onshore.

Here’s Patrick Smith’s latest. It covers the recent TSA Code Bravo, freeze! bravado that turns adults into kindergarteners and tattle-tales. How marvelous that they all follow the pied pipers of doom–well, almost all.

… TSA doesn’t really have the authority to make anybody remain motionless. TSA guards do not have law enforcement power — much as the agency has done a good job at fooling people into believing otherwise. Screeners are now called “officers” and they wear blue shirts with badges. Not by accident, the badges look exactly like the kind worn by police. —Patrick Smith, salon.com

The theater of the absurd continues unabated.

Whilst perusing one of my favorite news and current events sites I came across this. I find 1.(a) particularly interesting. In future, will a presidential candidate be required to provide a viewing to prove that he is, indeed, circumcised? How presidential is that?

Given the reluctance of a large proportion of the population to accept a paper certificate as proof of being born in der Homeland, I’m thinking that it won’t be long before a Penis Eligibility Committee™ will be required under law to view the dubious member’s candidate candidate’s member.

I could go on and on, but what’s the point?

Thus sayeth the grand poobah dictator chief of Kahnawake, Quebec in a televised interview on why how the Kahnawake casino slum indian reservation wants everyone with bad the wrong non-native blood off of their rez in ten days. Getting a tad racist are ya, boys?

Link to article here.

Here’s another news flash, chiefey:

If you don’t consider yourself Canadian, how about paying back the hundreds of millions of dollars you’ve accepted from actual tax-paying Canadians over the generations? To be just a little blunt, if you don’t like it where you are, then go somewhere else.

Hmm?

< sound of cricket chirping >

Yeah, I thought so.

Perhaps you might want to

• talk to the province of Quebec (which, so far, is still in Canada the last time I checked) about that Kahnawake, Quebec designator in your postal code.
• form your own little third-world country within the borders of Quebec and find out how that will fly with those friendly, neighboring separatistes;
• join Haiti in a “commonwealth of first nations poverty;”
• join the United Nations and apply for even more money to waste on your brand, spanking new “nation.”  The rest of the world’s oppressed peoples will be happy to fund your rez-olution.

Because, you know, when you get to be your own country, you can do whatever the hell you want, to anyone you want, any time you want, as long as they’re in your own brand new dictatorship country:

• pound on your desk while making proclamations;
• “allow” citizens to wear triangles squares doo-rags of varying color to denote their level of purity;
• ship your citizens off to gulags;
• build ovens;
• burn, bay-bee, burn.

And chief, thank you for demonstrating once again that stupidity isn’t limited to white people.

Oops, did I just say white people?

If we choose to endure the childish indignity* of an airplane ride, CATSA and the TSA forces each of us to pass successfully through airport security by

• dumping our lives into a plastic bin;
• enduring the indignity of being seen as a hijack-crazy, bomb-wearing, foaming-at-the-mouth terrorist, whether we are white, non-Muslim, an 80-year-old grandmother with a cane, or even eight years old.

Just try and complain about all of that silliness and stupidity, and you’ll end up being subjected to further indignities, none of which will prove anything.

Then, when it’s all said and done, and you get on board the aircraft after being subjected to the ridiculousness of it in its entirety,

• you’re expected to subdue anyone who remotely resembles a Muslim terrorist attempting to set off a bomb on board your aircraft.

Can we sue someone for incompetence here?

Fire. Them. All.

*     *     *

Something else I’ve wondered, and perhaps you have, too: Other than Timothy McVeigh, an Irish Catholic who wasn’t on an airplane and obviously wasn’t a Muslim,

• since 9/11 has there been a non-Muslim  who has been trying to blow my ass up?

< sound of cricket chirping >

I thought not.

Now certainly, if I can pick up on that teeny tiny bit of intelligence, I’m wondering why the experts aren’t able to grasp it, run with it, and solve the problem – each and every time.

Please consider the foregoing public service announcement a clue for the following:

• CATSA;
• Transport Canada;
• RCMP;
• TSA;
• Homeland Security;
• FBI.

Macleans magazine has a pretty good and lengthy article on airport stupidity. Oops, did I say airport stupidity? I should be getting a visit from the stupidity merchants any day now.

*Yes, it’s an indignity to be subjected to being refused permission to use a lavatory; refused permission to stand up; refused permission to get out of the seat; refused permission to have a blanket or a pillow; refused permission to have access to your possessions in the overhead bin.

If I was back in kindergarten I wouldn’t be subject to such abuses. Why do I have to pay the airlines to do it to me? Note to chickenshit airlines: Start talking to CATSA and the TSA about these and other stupidities that are so affecting your financial bottom lines.

That’ll make ’em think they’re safe.

• No standing up during the last hour of the flight.
• No en-route access to flight information .
• No access to overhead bins.
• No blankies.
• No pillows.
• No going to the bathroom.
• No getting out of your seat.
• Keep your hands in plain sight, and for goodness’ sake, don’t raise one to ask to go to the bathroom, or you’ll be put on a no-fly list (which is probably a blessing in disguise these days). Or worse, you’ll be manhandled, shackled and treated like a common criminal, even if you are an 80-year-old grandmother who doesn’t wear a diaper.

And finally,

• do not under any circumstance, reach into or scratch your crotch!

What the hell!? Are we all back in grade skool, where we need permission to pick our noses and scratch our asses?

Oh, and unnamed (because they’re afraid they’ll be lynched) “government officials” aren’t talking about the restrictions, in case, you know, some incontinent grandmother from Temecula might want to disrupt a flight by using a washroom. The temerity!

Did anyone think to tell the guilty schoolchildren getting off of the flights that they’re not supposed to talk about such childish things to the ever-vigilant media asshats? Round those dogggies bastards passengers  up, chain them together, put their names on all of the no-fly lists that can be found, and pack them off to Guantanamo – or to some prison in Illinois where citizens need the work.

Joe Sharkey puts it all in perspective.