PM lends a helping Plane, The Uknown artist with a huge following & Session moved so Klein can-FISH?!

PM to use Jet to evacuate Canadians from Lebanon
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that we would use his own personal jet to evacuate Canadian nationals arriving on Cyprus from Lebanon. Harper has directed that the jet's staff being stripped down to those who are absolutely required (Pilot, Copilot and Security) Harper has directed that Foreign Affairs to charter planes to take the remainder of Canadians back home to Canada. Harper made the announcement at press conference in Paris today after meeting with French President Jacques Chirac. In a statement after the meeting Harper said that "due to the seriousness of the situation" he was taking his personal jet, along with a skeleton staff, to Cyprus to evacuate Canadian citizens.
In my opinion this is both a legitimate action and a cover-up for the government that has sat on it's butt with no plan, and done nothing for the citizens in the countries. It failed to react, simply doing nothing for days. It was only over the weekend that the the six vessels where chartered to take Canadians to Cyprus. Many Canadians with dual citizenship to other countries have left the country to seek alternate transportation home. For example a family from Montreal with dual Canadian-Italian citizenship departed on an Italian warship out of Lebanon. Others have risked the road to Damascus and flown home from Syria. Harper using his personal jet is both a gesture of good faith as I leader and a blunder for his government. I blame this on the fact that no back-up plan was put in place for this particular type of emergency and the fact that Canada has no forward deployed Air or Naval presence in the region. If we wanted the military to transport civilians out of Lebanon they would have to call Aircraft from Trenton (8 Squadron) Even then they would have to find a remote airstrip to airlift the evacuee's. Lebanon's only International Airport (Rafik Hariri International ) has been shut down for the past week since Israel bombed one of the main runways and the terminal. The other option is to evacuate by sea which is what many nations are choosing to do. Greece has sent a ship into the region to evacuate it's citizens and has three on standby. The United States has sent 9 ships to Lebanon to assist with evacuation. The U.K. has even sent it's flagship, the H.M.S Illustrious to help evacuate British nationals from Lebanon. Even if we just deployed a frigate or two to the Dubai in the U.A.E that would allow for most versatile transport and logistics operations. The shipload of Canadians is due to land in Cyprus on Thursday.
The Uknown Artist with a huge following
Millions of people see his work everyday-and we don't even know it. More than likely you've seen Dennis Wang's artwork before, and you probably don't even realize it. Dennis Wang is the designer of the Logo's that decorate Google's otherwise simple homepage sports or special occasions. You've seen them, the one on New Year's Day, Christmas, Halloween, Canada Day, 4th of July and other notable days of the year. People don't realize that there actually is an artist behind the colorful and complex six letter pieces of art. (Ironic, yes?) This includes myself. I thought that Google did it all by Photoshop. By it turns out that there is an artist behind the artwork. The height of the irony is people don't realize that there is someone behind the beautiful works of digital art and that that artist is never really acknowledged. Much like Vavaldi, who's works where never really recognized until after his death. Okay, so maybe that's not a horribly good example, but you get the idea. The fact is people like Dennis really aren't noticed. Webmasters, the people who write the code, test the layout- do all the behind the scenes work are rarely noticed or brought into the spotlight. Site's like Google, Slashdot, the CBC, CNN amoung other have dozens and sometimes hundred's of people working behind the scenes to make things work. Google, again is good example. It gets hundreds of millions of hits every day and if not everything is working properly, the site goes down and one of the most visited sites in the world is non functional. That's why Google has an army of engineers, webmasters, coders and other people who make the machinery at Google run smoothly. Although a minor role in the grand scheme of things, Dennis' job is one of the most noticable. When you go to Google and no logo is there on the Forth of July or Canada day, you kind of feel dissapointed. But Dennis take's the time to design each logo to reflect the fact that Google doesn't just run in one country. It runs in dozens and that Google Care's enough to recongnize Holidays and important people around the globe as well as events in history.
Session Opening Extended so the Priemer can-FISH?!
The outgoing Premier of Alberta, Ralph Klein has asked that the next session of the Alberta legislature be postponed so that he can go fishing. The session was scheduled to begin on Sept. 4th but was reschduled so that Klein can host a group from a fundraiser from the Alberta Northern Institute of Technology. The group of 12 members have paid a total of $50,000 for a week of fishing at Klein's lodge in British Columbia. Tony Defond who is one of the twelve people attending the trip said that it would be impossible to reschedule the trip so late in the season. Klein was given an emotional sendoff in May, as it was believed he would be replaced before the legislature reopened in the fall.
Now this is absolutely RIDICULOUS! Why should offical goverment bussiness so one man can take a bunch of people down to his fishing lodge? It's like holding up the plane/bus for one person that's late, it just doesn's happen. If your late, your late. So why should Klein be given that cortousy?It ticks me off sometimes, how politicans think they should be treated like VIP's and then think that everyone but themselves should be treated in an equal manner. Grrrr, it drives me NUTS! Take for example the Monika Lewinsky affair. Bill Clinton though that he could get away with having an affair in the White House because he was President of the United States (POTUS) However after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole he said "We will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to find those who killed our sailors and hold them accountable." So basically he's saying that he can commit an affair within the White House, without be prosecuted, but he can condemn terrroists for bombing a US warship. Politicans are held to a higher standard of morality than normal citizens. Obviosly Clinton did not adhear to those standards and therefore does not deserve to be a judge of character without examining his own. The same is true for Ralph Klein. He cannot expect that official goverment bussiness will be put on hold so that he can have lesiure time. Politicans should be held to higher standards than this. If anyone from Alberta reads this, please write your MLA and voice your displeasure of having goverment business put on hold for the sake of one person.
Come Back Tomorrow Night for More Commentary,
Nathaniel