Exit, Pursued by a Bear

Bruce, Bruce, Bruce

BruceR, who among other things kindly installed the MT software this blog runs, on, is back from a summer spent with the army and blogging again:

I'll try and write more, but work and home are still busy, and as I get more and more interesting DND jobs to do, there's frankly an increasing concern about maintaining my security clearance. What I can say is this: the Canadian military, despite all I've ever said here previously, still has some incredibly dedicated, intelligent and visionary people working in the areas I've some experience with. Enemies underestimate us at their peril. We're still better than you might think.

We're still better than you might think is, in this context, beyond any doubt the most Canadian thing I have ever read in my life. I mean that in the best possible way.

Not a canoe trip, but

I'm from Ontario, and 'kayak trip' just sounds all wrong. 'Canoe trip with kayaks' sounds silly. In any case, pix here. Massasauga again.

The Cat in the Hat

Once again, a find from Clive Thompson’s blog. If I tried this with my cat, I’d be hearing about it for years. Years and years and years. The sales pitch follows:

A very amusing Chick transformation package. Made of two-tone(yellow/orange) felt material , presenting a pop impression. The feathers attached to both sides of the hat are remarkable. Look at her profile! It's sort of blockhead but so cute! The hat and the neck ornament are velcrod and can be attached or detached easily.

Yours for only 3,800 yen. Full site, a must-see, here

Sounds to me like –

... some American MPs have caught up to the soldier author of My War, one of the better Iraq blogs, now mostly deleted. You can still read it, though, at Google’s cache.
Update: Some commenters at DaggerJAG’s blog (see comments at bottom of post) are blaming an NPR story on military bloggers for the shutdown of My War.

Finally –

The Waterpillar, a truly portage-friendly watercraft. They're amphibious, at least in theory.

(“All three Waterpillar styles can be ordered with water cannon attached or paint ball gun attached for maximum water fun.”)

With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go

Since sometime early last year, Geist magazine has been lobbying to get Stan Rogers inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, which strikes me as the most complete no-brainer imaginable. (For 2004, despite an 11,000-signature petition, 4,000 letters of support and a resolution in the Nova Scotia legislature backing Stan, they picked some guy who's lived in LA since 1985.)

La luta continua. You can sign the petition here.

In the meantime, Geist got some wonderful reponses to a call for memories of Stan Rogers:

Both Me Legs
I first met Stan in Fredericton, in about 1976, between sets. I asked him what he meant by "the main truck carried off both me legs," and he said, "The main truck is a gun carriage." I said that I thought it was the top of the main mast. Several years later I met him again in Yarmouth. I asked the same question, and Stan replied, "the truck is the top of the main mast."
—Eric Ruff, cyberspace

Ashore
While on board the USS Nashville during a NATO combined arms manouevre, my battalion, 2RCR, was sitting within the Amtrack assault vehicles waiting to go ashore, and someone started up "Barrett's Privateers." Soon 150 Canadian soldiers' voices were belting out the song. It spooked the U.S. Marines like nothing I've ever seen before.
—Ronald Parker, Fredericton

Horse Shit
Back in the early 1970s my sister sent me to a small folk music store in Toronto to pick up a copy of Fogarty's Cove. I'd never heard of Stan Rogers; I timidly asked the store clerk to help me find it, and when I brought it to the counter this burly, surly looking guy hanging around there bellows, "You're not buying that, are you? That stuff is horse shit!" I stood there stunned, then he takes the album and says politely, "Would you like me to sign it for you?" To this day I am jealous of my sister for owning an autographed Stan Rogers album.
—H. Mowat, Winnipeg

Click here for all of them.

from Clive Thompson's blog

Subway systems of the world, presented on the same page at the same scale. (Toronto's toward the bottom.)

Beautiful aerial pix

here.

New Toronto urban-affairs blog

Avenues, updated much more often than yours truly’s blog. The author’s focus is on Toronto-area transit and planning issues, and his viewpoint – sprawl bad, mouth-breathing opponents of the St. Clair LRT proposal bad, and so on – mirrors my own.

New canoe trip pix

New canoe trip pix, from