h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Back on the subject of positive Canadiana:

268 Americans applied for refugee status in Canada last year. The U. S. must be so much more free!

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/040219/w021922.html

The thing I find hardest to believe about the above story is his statement that he couldn't find a place to practice Buddhism in Toronto. Not that you actually need any place other than where you happen to be to practice Buddhism, but I could find tons of such extablishments in Edmonton, and Toronto is somewhat bigger.

I also enjoyed the statement by the spokeswoman for the 82nd Airborne: "We don't have time to go and track down people who go AWOL," she said. "We're fighting a war." Got that many going AWOL, do you?

There are plenty of placed in Toronto.... either temples with Tibetan monks or "meditation centres" of all stripes.

'he couldn't find a place to practice Buddhism'

Then again, he also 'had a romantic vision of what the army was.'

"You mean... I'm supposed to... *shoot* at people!!?"

See.... http://www.google.ca/search?q=toronto+buddhist&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=

It sounds to me that he was probably blaming adjustemtns to Canada more of a problem than his not vbeing able to "find" a Buddhist centre. I am sure that simply picking up the Toronto Yellow pages would have found him plenty of avaiable places for Buddhist worship.

This is not to belittle the adjustments that one has to make between the US and Canada.

When my ex and I live in New York, we found so many things that were nearly impossible to adjust to. We tend to assume that because we speak the same language and our societies and cultures look virtually identical, that we use a similar monetary unit, and watch many of the same television shows, it would be a snap to adjust to life in the US.

Not so. There were things we never did come to adjust to....

In fact, I think I have felt more comfortable in the UK than in the US. At least you expect that there with be differences and make allowances.

I found it hard to get to know people, too. Not that New Yorkers weren't friendly. They were. Very friendly. It was just that they seemed to have built up a barrier that we never did manage to get through. We had a number of friends in New York. All of them were from other parts of the US or from other countries.

I'm not saying it was the New Yorkers' fault. That was just how it was. Many times, they weren't interested in the fact that you were fro someplace else, and didn't want to know about your lives, and simply didn't let you into theirs. Even peope we considered good aquaintances never really "let us in" to their lives. Whereas, all the others did.

I've said it before: I've been lots of places but I've never felt more like I was in a foreign country than I have in the U. S. I don't speak Italian and I felt more at home in Italy than I have in Montana, for goodness sake.

http://www.tbc.on.ca/

http://buddhist.sa.utoronto.ca/

http://buddhismcanada.com/toronto-n.html

http://www.mtarch.com/tbcentre.html

Apparently they didn't have access to Google...

Anhaga, I have to agree although there are some places in the US where I feel at home. Parts of Oregon, Washington State, and New England. Not a lot, though.

I liekn it to having a dream where everything appears normal. Then you notice odd little things that make you uneasy. Sometimes you can't quite put your finger on it.

The first time I was out in Oregon, the Korean airplane was shot down. It was a perfect time to see some of the differences.

In Canada you would get the story from a number of perspectives.... from the Asian, the Canadian, the US, Britain.... etc., even the Chinese. In the US, all you got was the US perspective. According to the news it was an attack against the US, an attack against innocent Americans.... the usual. Forget the fact that the vast majority of the dead were Korean and Japanese. There were, if I remember more Canadians on board than American.

In fact, as it turned out, despite the Pentagon's denials, that the plane HAD veered into Russian airspace, as the USSR had claimed and that it so because it was carrying spy equipment, as the USSR also claimed.

At the time, the John Birch Society, rabid right-wing group in the US, claimed that it was an effort "by the Commies" to assasinate the president of the Society who happened to be on board. (As if the Russians 1) had an interest in bumping him off, and 2) couldn't have done so without also bumping off a planeload of other people.)

My Mom sent me a few articles from the Globe and Mail and the Ottawa Citizen, many of them coming from British and Asian sources. They listed the names of the dead, where they came from, even bios. The American papers only mentioned the American dead, and never once mentioned the dead from other countries, let alone the numbers of the other dead. I mentioned this to several people and it came as a surprise to them that anyone would be interested in anything but the impact it had on a few Americans. Even then, it was only of momentary significance to them.

It was a learning experience to me that there are people who simply don't know how to reason for themselves, and that the American media was so blinkered.

Slightly at a tangebt to the above:

I was watching "Law and Order" last night (episode called "Veteran's Day"). A young man who was an anti-war protester was killed by a former Vietnam vet who took exception to this young man's views on war. In the first few minutes, in response to the statement that the young man was saying that the war was a criminal act, Detective Briscoe makes the statement "Oh, and here was me thinging it was because on September 11, terrorists brought down the World Trade Centre, killing 3000 American citizens."

All the way through the program, there was a current of "he shouldn't have killed him, but the kid kind of deserved it...."

Ooops! Sorry Mudhooks, that's what I get for skimming the backlog.

http://www.abc.net.au/correspondents/content/2003/s950105.htm

Sunday, 21 September , 2003 "DAVID HARDAKER: Twenty years ago this month, a South Korean jumbo jet flying from New York to the South Korean capital Seoul via Anchorage in Alaska, was shot down by a Soviet interceptor aircraft. Two hundred and sixty-nine people were killed, including four Australians, and 61 Americans, among them the extreme right wing, anti-communist congressman from Georgia, Laurence McDonald."

S'ok, zoomer... Great minds think alike...

Fascinating link, Mudhooks. I wonder if the papers of the government in Moscow were ever searched for evidence of the translation of the radio bursts. I know lots of other things were discovered there, including some very interesting data about Hitler's remains, the space agency explosion, etc.

I remember newspapers printing silouettes of the two planes in question, the airliner and the reconaissance plane it was mistaken for and I thought, you know, they do look a lot alike. Taken with the fact that there were passenger reports of being ordered to shut their blinds at certain points on flights on the same route in the past it seems that there is a distinct possibility of something fishy with the flight. And, of course, for the Americans to argue that it should be easy to distinguish an airliner from what ever else is ridiculous since they gave Capt. Will Rogers (yes, that's really his name) of the USS Vincennes a medal for shooting down an Iranian airliner at a rare time when the US was not at war with anyone. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/vince.html

I guess we should feel lucky that they admitted so quickly that they had killed Canadians in Afghanistan. Do a Google search on the USS Liberty and see what their historical attitude to military cockups has been.

Anhaga, just finished reading that site. Very good! Thank you for posting the addy.

Only slightly on the subject:

http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/apr02/02_10_004.htm

More about the KAL-007 shoot-down:

Here is a PDF of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act: http://foia.fbi.gov/flight/flight1.pdf

http://avia.russian.ee/air/747/kale_21.html

http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Who%20Killed%20Larry%20McDonald.html

http://www.rescue007.org/docs/AMBUSHOVERMONERON.pdf

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Terrorism/Politicization_Terror.html

On a slightly different topic: I watched part of the jon Stewart Show last night and he did a bit about the "interview" with Bush. Check out Jon Stweart's page below, and click on the "Meet the Prez" link.
http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/

And, on the subject of exporting terror: http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/02/19/carjack040219

I say the world should require that the U. S. build a civil society that looks after the disadvantaged rather than putting them in prison. Otherwise that country is just going to continue to be a safe haven for terrorists and criminals.

"Cornelieus Croft is charged with impaired driving causing death, attempted murder and several firearms offences."

Was he not charged with Illegal Entry into Canada?

I have to go out for a bit, but wanted to share these with you.

http://www.notinourname.net/troops/canada-refuge-7feb04.htm
http://indyweek.com/durham/current/news.html

This is a really good site. Check it out: http://www.notinourname.net/troops/

He probably yelled something about being a Buddhist/Quaker refugee from the socialist American military.


This one is for the P.E.I. potato farmers:

"Dr Atkins 'died overweight'"

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8650511%255E13780,00.html

And, this one is for Mr. Bush and his "free nations don't attack their nieghbors" crap:


"Newly released records confirm that at least 28 additional tests were conducted on Americans, using both chemical and biological toxins, seven at sea and 21 on land. The tests were carried out in six states-Maryland, Florida, Utah, California, Hawaii and Alaska-and in Canada and Great Britain. Among the substances sprayed on unwitting subjects were e-coli bacteria and nerve gases such as sarin (used in the Tokyo subway terrorist attack), tabun and VX."

http://www.rense.com/general31/prenta.htm

"* Rapid Tan I, II, and III, a series of tests in 1967 and 1968 in England and Canada, using sarin, VX, tabun and soman. The British test location was the chemical weapons facility at Porton Down. The Canadian test was at Suffield Defence Research Establishment in Ralson."

And so, of course, the Canadian government is compensating the victims:

'Some 3,500 soldiers were subjected to the tests. Of these, 2,000 are still alive.

McCallum said the tests were "appalling and unacceptable," adding that the federal government is "responding to a moral imperative."'

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/02/19/compensation_vets040219