Party, Party!

Comedian Craig Ferguson has come up with a new way of describing the Canada-U.S. relationship. The United States is the party, apparently, and Canada's the apartment above trying to quell all the mayhem.

Ferguson, who hosted the White House Correspondents Association annual dinner on Saturday, told the crowd of Washington and Hollywood luminaries that relatives suggested he move to Canada when he left his native Scotland.

But Ferguson, who recently became a U.S. citizen, said the United States looked like a lot more fun. "We're down here all dancing and they're up there saying: 'Can't you keep the noise down?"'

We're like: 'Come to the party, Canada, Mexico wasn't invited but they're coming anyways, so why don't you?'

Yea right! With our water and oil, having Canada at the party would be like having an open bar!

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://Allans-Perspective.blogspot.com

Bush will leave his legacy.

Bend over everyone, Georgie W wants to give us a parting gift.

From its inception the Bush administration has been driven by one goal -- to secure U.S. access to foreign oil. That was laid out plainly in 2001, in a document called Strategic Energy Policy: Challenges for the 21st Century.

U.S. conservatives believe the United States not only has a right but a duty to use its military might to secure its conventional energy supply.

Also, there's a line of thinking in Washington that says you can't pacify Iraq or Afghanistan without tackling Iran, because Iran covertly supports insurgencies in both countries.

Neither Bush nor Vice-President Dick Cheney is running again. They may feel they have little to lose in launching a conflict that fulfils their ideological mission and, once begun, will be very difficult for the next president to stop.

This dangerous situation should come as no surprise to anyone since Georgie has made his intentions clear right from the get-go. As a matter of fact, that's one of the few positive things that can be said about this administration, they have been outright honest in what they want.

To put a little "Perspective" on the situation I would like to quote from an editorial in the local paper by Michael Den Tandt:

Then there was the bombshell dropped last November by the U.S. intelligence community.

In a paper entitled Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities (you can find it with Google), the agency that oversees all U.S. intelligence gathering said: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program."

You might have assumed that would be the end of that. Given the unfolding disaster in Iraq, not even Bush could excuse or rationalize war with Iran. The Iraq war has already cost $500 billion US.

The U.S. economy is in recession. And the price of crude oil has shot to a staggering $110 a barrel. Iran produces an estimated 3.8 million barrels of oil a day, accounting for 5% of global supply.

No one denies that a military attack on Iran would push crude far higher, with disastrous impact on global growth. And the economic consequences are the least of it. A U.S. attack on Iran easily could lead to a corresponding attack by Iran on Israel, which then could ignite the wider Middle Eastern war that so many have feared since 9/11.

Here's what makes this a real concern. Bush and many of the people around him believe that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear capacity at all costs.

Their stated reason is that the Shia mullahs who control Iran are insane Islamofascists, and therefore cannot be trusted to withhold use of the bomb out of a desire for self-preservation, as the Soviet Union did during the Cold War.

Subjected to even a little scrutiny, this rationale doesn't hold up.

Saddam Hussein truly was insane, and even he didn't dare use chemical weapons of mass destruction against the Americans, when he had them, back in 1991.

The deeper motivation likely is far colder. Iran is acknowledged as the rising power in the Middle East and it sits on one of the world's last remaining large pools of cheaply accessible crude.

And that's the name of that tune Bunky!

(On a side note here, Canada has nearly as much oil in the Alberta Tar Sands as Saudi Arabia has so maybe that fence they wanted to put up between Canada and the States isn't such a bad idea after all!")

Your "News from the Front" scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available at the web site www.God-101.com

Visit the blog "Perspective" at http://God-101.blogspot.com

Fools "Rush" In

I was driving from London to Sarnia this afternoon and I tuned in to Rush Limburger on WJR Detroit.(The Great Voice of the Great Lakes)

Now I don't necessarily agree or disagree with Rush but I do find him entertaining and today, as usual, he didn't disappoint!

As I said before, I am neither a Liberal nor Conservative since my views seem to be all over the map. (That means I go with what makes SENSE!) I did however, get a chuckle from Rush today because he was commenting on Bush's "Surge" program to put more troops into Iraq.

I knew something was up when he sent that second Aircraft Carrier Battle Group into the Middle-East, (See "Bush is up to something!") and Rush had his usual pontifications on why that happened.

His explanation was that "Bush wanted the extra troops to achieve a decisive victory over the terrorists" at which point I almost choked and drove off the road.

Talk about beating a dead horse! How can the Re publican's even think of trying to bring up terrorists when everyone in the world knows that the situation in Iraq is a civil war being fought on religious and political lines and really doesn't have much to do with the United States or terrorism!

We all know what it's about. We know why the U. S. is still in Iraq;
IT'S ABOUT THE OIL, STUPID!
(See "Now you know the "real" rest of the story!")

If it wasn't for the oil, America would have bailed a long time ago and let those crazy Arabs sort it out themselves!

I know Rush is a pretty smart guy but why does he always take us for idiots???

Your "Capitol" Scribe;
Allan W Janssen

Now You Know the "Real" Rest of the Story!

Want to know what the war in Iraq was really about?

CBC News - Iraq to give Western companies control of oil, says report: The Iraqi government plans to introduce a law that will give control of the country's huge oil reserves to Western oil companies, a British newspaper says.

The government is drafting a law based on "production-sharing agreements (PSAs)," which will give major companies rights on Iraq's oil for up to 30 years, the Independent on Sunday reported.

Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, the U.S. government says and Nabil al-Jurani/Associated Press said it had been given a copy of the draft law from last July, and the draft has not been changed significantly since then.



Critics say the agreements will be bad news for Iraq because they guarantee profits to the companies while giving little to the country. With 112 billion barrels, Iraq has the second largest reserves in the world, the U.S. government says.




Platform, a London-based pressure group that seeks to minimize the impact of oil companies, says on its website that Iraq endorsed production-sharing agreements last fall, just as Russia sought to undo a similar deal it signed in the period of turmoil after the Communist regime collapsed.

Russia has realized it signed a bad deal to develop a gas project, which allocated the risk to the government and the profit to the private sector, Platform said, citing published Russian reports.

"Russia realized the mistakes it made by signing PSA contracts only when it was too late. It remains to be seen whether Iraq follows the same course," the group said in October.

Platform's Greg Muttitt said the U.S. government, international oil companies and the International Monetary Fund had been asked to comment on the draft Iraqi legislation, but many members of the Iraqi parliament have not seen it.

The Independent said Iraq may adopt PSA contracts because it is in a weak bargaining position.

The legislation, if passed as in the draft the Independent was given, would stoke claims that the U.S.-led attack on Iraq was motivated by oil. The U.S. has denied that.

For example, in 2003, then Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld called the idea "utter nonsense."

Speaking to the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera, he said: "We don't take our forces, and go around the world and try to take other people's real estate or other people's resources, their oil. That's just not what the United States does." (I have to puke! Allan)

The Independent said signing PSA deals would be a first for a major oil-exporting country. Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two leading exporters, both control their oil industries tightly through state-owned companies.

What really troubles me is that Canada has one of the largest "oil reserves" in the world in the 'Alberta tar sands' and the most fresh water in the world in our lakes.

Please, whatever you do, don't let the U.S. know about this!

Your 'roustabout" scribe;
Allan W Janssen