November 27, 2004

The O'Canada Factor Since today Canadians can watch Fox News too. Bill O'Reilly of The O'Reilly Factor, as a special treat to his newly found Canadian audience, devotes his entire show to Canada and even interviews himself. "Here at The Factor, we've talked about boycotting Canada in the past. Think this is an empty threat? Ask France. Face it; Canada is utterly dependent on America for its economic well being. Last time I checked, Americans make 40 million visits to Canada a year. We spend upwards of $10 billion and this doesn't even include all the hidden taxes those communists levy on us as we're leaving their land of igloos and left-wing defeatism." Read the transcript. [registration required. use regfree@fastchevy.com/regfree]
posted by mare 19 years ago
  • Funny stuff. Almost had me going there for a minute.
  • I just hope it wasn't a phone interview.
  • Regfree already gone... Who really needs to read this anyway? You know what this blowhard would say......
  • All I have to say about this is - there's already two Canada-centric posts further down the page, and MeFi in the last few days has had a ton of 'em too. Clearly O'Reilly doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about - we're here, we're cold, and we're taking over!
  • psst...it's a joke
  • If you were referring to me...yes, mine was a joke too.
  • Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting Canada.
  • It's funny, though, what got the gobshite ticked off at canada was that the Globe columnist who first talked about it simply said how amusing watching Fox is. Not how dangerous or scary, O'Reilly would have loved that, but when she took the piss out of him completely by pointing out the obvious, that it's ridiculously stupid, he nearly had a fit.
  • Actually, Canada doesn't do "a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to international peacekeeping" anymore - if we ever did. It's something we like to tell ourselves, as part of our national image. But we need to catch up with many other countries to pull our fair share.
  • Bullies love the Fear they instill in others. They can't abide Ridicule, whether at Fox, the White House, or the schoolyard.
  • Falafel.
  • Yeah, this transcript is a joke. It must be a joke.
  • jb check your history... as for your claim Actually, Canada doesn't do "a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to international peacekeeping" anymore - if we ever did. From theCBC Greatest Canadian website "In October 1956 an Egyptian blockade of the Suez Canal threatened to boil over into a world war. When Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt in an effort to take control of the canal, the war threatened to spread. (Canada's Prime Minister Lester B.)Pearson solved the crisis by getting all sides to agree to the creation of a neutral United Nations force to maintain peace in the region. Pearson’s new peacekeeping force would continue to keep the peace in future decades in many parts of the world." "Pearson’s achievement earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957. He is the only Canadian to ever win that honour. In naming him, the Nobel committee said he had “saved the world”." Looks like we invented peacekeeping. Sounds like heavy lifting to me....unless your definition includes peacekeeping Hiroshoma style, the I guess you might be right, we don't do that kind of "heavy lifting". Peacekeeping isn't for ass kicking, it's for preventing sides from kicking each other's asses. As for today, Canada has 17 peacekeeping missions ongoing, see here
  • As of October, Canada was the 33rd largest contributer to peace keeping operations. The top contributers are (in order) Bangladesh Pakistan Nigeria Ethiopia Ghana India Nepal Uraguay South Africa Jordan (source) It's a sad fact that the poorest nations on Earth often shoulder the brunt of peacekeeping operations. And yes, Canada has a lot of heavy lifting to catch up with. Plus, while Pearson proposed peacekeeping in its modern form (blue helmets), the UN had previously engaged in similar armed peacekeeping operations on the India-Pakistan boarder. Furthermore, much modern peacekeeping takes place as UN military missions, as opposed to blue-helmets. This has been going on for quite some time. For example, the Korean war (1950-53) was a UN military 'police action' very similar to the Somalia mission.
  • Actually, what I meant was that, regardless of Pearson's role, we aren't as important in today's peacekeeping as we like to think we are - we contribute less than many very poor countries. As Dreadnought just pointed out, which makes sense - he's a military historian and he's the one who told me so in the first place.
  • It's a sad fact that the poorest nations on Earth often shoulder the brunt of peacekeeping operations. It's not sad at all. These countries use peacekeeping missions as an opportunity to give troops field experience, and exchange tctics with the forces of more developed nations. It's a chance to get the UN to pick up the salaries of a few thousand soldiers, that, should they be needed, can be recalled to the motherland. It keeps 'em sharp and they get paid while they're at it. I don't see a sad thing about it.
  • Aside from, of course, the fact that peacekeepers are neccesary at all that is.
  • On the other hand, Canada's heavy lifting in the right-wing bullshit industry is definitely in dire straights. We even chased off Conrad Black, our one glimmer of hope.
  • Captain Psyko: Peackeepers are paid by their own governments. Contributing courntries get just over 1000 US per month, per head from the UN. However, these payments are often differed because the UN runs out of money. Peacekeeping remians a major financial burden for contributing countries, many of whom are the poorest countries in the world.