DonAndersen

Sunday Telegraph Article: Salute to a brave and modest nation By Kevin Myers, The Sunday Telegraph, London Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region. As always, Canada will bury its dead and the rest of the world, as always, will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does. It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid of both its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions ... it seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved. Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle. Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, its unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular memory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.' The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attacks. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the third largest navy and the fourth largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not even participated ... a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has long since abandoned, as it has no notion of a separate Canadian identity. So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality ... unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter, and Dan Aykroyd have, in the popular perception, become American, and Christopher Plummer, British. It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers. Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves (but are unheard by anyone else) that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half-century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth ... in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties ... from Vietnam to East Timor, from the Sinai to Bosnia. [And the writer doesn't even mention Lester B. Pearson and his role in defusing the Suez Crisis in 1957. Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the selection committee claiming that Pearson had ‘saved the world.' The United Nations Emergency Force was Pearson's creation, and he is considered the father of the modern concept of peacekeeping.] So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbor has given it in Afghanistan? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honorable things for honorable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honor comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too well.

H2O, You point illustrates exactly what does happen. Gasoline prices are holding due to the fact that oil is sold in US $'s. If the CDN $ went to $065 vs 1 again, expect a 40% increase in gas. Don

You guys ever thought of what a Stonefly is: 1] lives under a rock 2] most eat their young 3] shows up only when it's raining & the the river is high 4] Lasts for a day or 2 as an adult 5] generally is black, olive or brown 6] is the biggest but slowest moving of all stream born bugs 7] has the grace of a bowling ball in flight 8] generally clumsy 9] only lives in high concentrations in polluted waters + it's ugly. And you want to display it? Don

Writer1, As far as the US, items bought months ago @ a higher US buck will see huge price increases as the present inventory works it's way through the system. For example a Korean made car bought into the US $'s months ago @ higher US $'s and now sold into Canada benefits cross-border shoppers 2 ways. First the US dollar was higher when bought and they got more bang for the buck. Now with the situation revered big time, the same car sold into Canada is again discounted. Probably as much as 30>40%. But when the US inventory of the product is gone, the excrement will hit the fan. Not so much in Canada, but God help the US consumer. Similarly in Canada, prices are changing daily on a host of things as inventory or public pressure is exerted. Some of our suppliers are changing the prices daily, others as yet have not. Makes life real interesting. What scares the crap outta me is this becomes a run on US currency. EURO's maybe the only "safe" currency. The only thing that might hold that off is military and oil sales/purchases. The US does a lot of business in these areas. Plus the US have few friends out there. Don't think that a lot of the world would cry big tears to see them get theirs. Seems like most folks do like to take a poke now and then @ the BIG GUYS. Of course, you gotta do it under cover of darkness. Not fair - but that is the way it is. catch ya' Don

Guys/Gals, While we get all excited about how much the CDN buck will buy from the US, did you ever consider that fall of the US buck against other currencies. The US buck is down anywhere from 0>30%. That means that the US consumer is now paying a lot more for everything. Real wages have tumbled, imports are more expensive, basically everything the US buys is now more expensive. The average citizen is going to get a real kick in the butt. But not only that, the US economy is in for a adjustment. The quote below illustrates how the US consumer effects things. Further, the high cost of energy [ which cuts across all the markets & population] is adding to the grief. According to CNNMoney, consumer spending accounts for some 70 percent of the US gross domestic product. “So the world economy is leveraged to the US consumer. And the US consumer is leveraged to the hilt,” states the web site. The US economy has switched over the past number of years from a manufacturing nation to one based on information and services. Outsourcing of nearly everything means that US cannot recover quickly as they have less to sell. Raw materials such as steel, oil, and on and on are mostly gone in the US. This will mean the reversal of outsourcing will still make the US made products more expensive than in the past. The increase in the CDN $ is not so much a love of the our currency but a stampede from the US $. Holders of US debt [ primarily Chinese] are looking for somewhere to hide. The US national debt is at an all time high as is consumer debt. The US cannot spend it way out. Further, you can't run a war without going to a war footing. All you do is mortgage the war leaving the National Debt ever higher. And lastly, companies that do manufacture in Canada and sell into the US are now making 30% less in the last 6 months. There will be some effect up here - Na - a BIG effect. Enjoy the brief ride - it's gonna get ugly out there. catch ya' Don

Glenbow, Plunk your money down @ http://www.tucanada.org/TUC_chapter_CentralAlta.php We'll look after it. catch ya' Don

Birchy, Barry and I fish together some. Hence the stuff. And the name is Andersen. Best be careful or I'll make you fish with a decent rod. Enjoy the book. The sections on the biology of trout distills about 4 years of a degree in a chapter. And for those that don't know, the book is about sold out. If you find a copy, grab it. There may not be another. catch ya' Don

The point is - - watch what you are doing. There are some real hidden costs of cross border shopping. Do recall a guy telling me that he bought a travel trailer out of the states directly from the factory. Saved big bucks. And then he went along to tell me that warranty wouldn't be an issue as there was a dealer within 50 miles. You have to wonder how long the dealer will last if he can't sell his inventory. Cutting off the dealer will cause him to fail. Sure he'd like to reduce prices but the currency thing has been going on for only a month or so & his inventory was purchased over the last year. He's loosing money hand over fist on each sale where he attempts to keep the differential between him and the factory low. Further, the factory will probably fail as well as their dealers disappear. Hopefully he makes it. Wouldn't want to see another business fail. catch ya' Don

Guys/Gals, 1] A $ 1,000 US check got me $ 949.10 CDN when US vs CDN was 1.04 2] A $ 20.00 US money order cost me $ 24.98 CDN 2 days ago 3] A Pentax W 30 on Ebay is $ 280.00 + 15 shipping for $ 295.00 Same camera @ Blacks in Calgary is $ 299.99 - about 10 locations to serve you. catch ya' Don

JayVee, Retailers "book" the product as much as 6>8 months in advance. They try to guess what the market will be. Booking in advance gives a high discount. Failure to pre-book will result in reliance on wholesalers to keep the inventory high. But wholesalers also book in advance. They try to guess the market 6>8 months out. Retailers only want to order in the summer when they get enough orders from a single applier to justify the cost. No retailer is going to order 1 package of dubbing, get charged $1.00 for it + $15.00 for freight and expect to sell it to you @ $16.00. The joys of retail. catch ya' Don

Hawgstoppah, How many years ago did that happen? I had much the same experience about 6>7 years ago after 2 years of winterkill followed by several years of no winter kill. The fish were large!!! And lots of them. Landed over 50 one afternoon in September. Was about 1/2 over 2 lbs. Several over 5 lbs. Police gets about 130000 fish/yr. You have to remove 360 fish/day 365 days per year to break even. That's about 70 limits of 5/day. If you don't remove the the same # you stock every year, the bug life goes into the crapper with a result of smaller fish sizes. Any fish "held" over increases the demand on the food resources. catch ya' Don

Hawgstoppah, I would wonder if that was one of the occasional trout that don't spawn and live 8>10 years. Sterile fish do happen. Or it could have been related to Herman Munster. A one-off fish doesn't really tell us a lot. Even @ 10 lbs. it is still only a 50% fish. Sundancefisher, I really don't know when Lees & Beavius were stocked. I know that the fish were that size when I fished it 48 years ago and later only 40 years ago. From that, I'd expect that it wasn't the initial stocking that raised them to that size. regards, Don

Sundancefisher, Lakes like Beavius, Lees, Crawling Valley, Cow, Struble, Swan, Carson all had fish in them exceeding 10 lbs. Only Crawling Valley & Cow do not contain trout now. Cow, Struble, Swan, Carson all had fish in them that exceeded 15 lbs. Not now!!! Weather is not the issue. Best lake in BC with rainbows exceeding 25 lbs. is in northern BC. catch ya' Don

Guys/Gals, The Provincial Fisheries Roundtable is has circulated a "draft" position paper on Quality fisheries that the participants attending the Roundtable were asked for their comments. I circulated the draft to about 40 others for their comments and I'm attempting to encapsulate their responses and get the comments "right". The question is: What is quality? What does it mean to you in terms of fish size. I realize that a lot of you fish waters where your day is enhanced by the lack of people you meet, wildlife seen, mountains viewed or other nebulous things. BUT - in terms of fish size, what is a quality fish. Do recall that the provincial record for rainbows is 20+ lbs. and browns 15+ lbs. So is a quality fish one that is a 5% or 1 lb rainbow, a 25% or 5 lb. rainbow a 50% or 10 lb. rainbow? How big is a quality fish to you and if given the choice what would you manage for in terms of size. For me - it is the maximum size that the fish can attain given the quality of the water it lives within. [assume adequate recruitment/stock rates, diligent enforcement etc.]. Need help here with a definition or better yet the WORD that describes what we all mean. catch ya' Don

Lady.. Poll results are neat. But, takes about a dozen of one size to get it about right and about 100 to get it close and about 1000 to get the proportions bang on. But you can hardly ask fishermen to do that. catch ya' Don

Rickr, If you think it's good now - you should have seen it before you could cut the air into chunks in the city of Calgary. As far as it could be worse - Beijing any one. Don

Cast.. Like what I heard. Told me what he's done and what he's planned. Good stuff. Don

Guys, I was employed by the oil/gas industry for 45 years. Been through ups/downs. This ain't nothing new. As far as fixing what isn't broke. In a survey down over 15 years ago, Alberta ranked 9th of 10 provinces in "standard of living" Things like beds/patient, teacher/pupil ratio, paved road/car etc. The only province lower was Newfoundland. Hate to think what a study might reveal today. Don

Guys, Bear in mind that when oil dropped from $35/bbl>$10.00/bbl. in the early 80's, Alberta did survive even though 80,000 people hit the bricks and most of them went "home". Peter Loughheed doubled royalties and he got hospitals named from him. I sympathize with Stelmack. He got a real ugly problem delivered to him by Klien. More the 80% of the population believes that they are getting screwed. Politically, he's got a big problem. And do you guys really believe that he can in a 20 minute address lay out the royalty regime for: 1] heavy oil - mineable 2] heavy oil - deep 3] conventional gas - shallow - mid depth - deep 4] conventinal oil - 5] CBM Give you head a shake. Therre are few people that really understand royalities and you want a 20 second sound bite. Give me a break. Don

WesG, In the Police Outpost Lake, Mitchell Lake & Alford Lake - installing aeration made an ugly problem of lousy fish growth even worse. Rather than a winterkill every now and then to reduce the fish numbers and let the bug numbers rebound, the fish always stay alive thereby reducing the bugs numbers even further and ultimately resulting in ever smaller fish. The winter kill did what the Govt guys seem incapable of doing, reducing the fish stockings to maintain growth rates. And I agree with Rusty, spending money creating another 5 fish/day any method aerated lakes is just plain stupid. regards, Don

Fishing licenses for non-resident/yr. Alberta - $69.50 includes Win card [ =$71.75USD] Montana - $70.00 Idaho - $82.00 Maine - $72.00 California - $100.00 Don

Kungfool, Lakes only need aeration when the levels fall >3ppm 02. Stocking rates, food availability/production, management and enforcement + genetics all add or subtract from the size of fish available. Aeration only keeps them alive in low 02 situations. There are 2 types of aeration - one style for winter and another for summer. It is possible to have kills both summer & winter. catch ya' Don

Guys/Gals, Below is a link to a proposal by the Alberta Conservation Association to increase the license cost. See: http://www.ab-conservation.com/ & http://www.ab-conservation.com/about_us/Fe...ctober%2007.pdf catch ya' Don

Guys/Gals, Been wondering why. When Lougheed & Getty retired, they got schools, hospitals, parks et al named after them. Well, Raphie got a swamp named for him. Been wondering why. Do the Conservatives believe that the swamp was appropriate? You'd think that they might have came up with: 1] the Raph Klien Memorial General Hospital 2] A chair in the U of C for cut and paste to high marks 3] Ralph Klien bottle recycling depot. 4] A school of economics - privatize electrical system and watch the prices fall 5] The Shot, shovel and Shut-up school of Public Health There obviously is a whole lot of things that should bear Ralphies name. How about adding to the list. catch ya' Don

Cast... Ain't going back for more money but for a share of the fish they catch. Yummy - - - fried trout. Don