The Next Step? No Hydrogen please!

atomic number 2, He, helium - a very light colorless element that is one of the six inert gasses; the most difficult gas to liquefy; occurs in economically extractable amounts in certain natural gases (as those found in Texas and Kansas) ************************************************************************************************* The First Fleet is the name given to the 11 ships which sailed from Great Britain on 13 May 1787 to establish the first European colony in New South Wales. It was a convict settlement, marking the beginnings of transportation to Australia. The fleet was led by Captain (later Admiral) Arthur Phillip.............................................................. Schooners of Yesteryear Some of my ancestors were transported in 1788 from Portsmouth, England to Port Jackson (now Sydney Harbour) by sailing ship, in confined and cramped conditions, amid sickness, with discomfort and short rations....................................................... The journey took six long months. That was in the era of my grandfather's great grandfather. Not really so long ago.

Those pioneers who came to America on the Mayflower did not have it easy either.(Ric)

Since air travel (responsible for 15% of CO2 emissions by some estimates) will soon become too expensive due to gasoline shortage and higher prices, super-dirigible transport seems a viable alternative. Forget hydrogen. There are vast quantities of helium gas going to waste in the United States mostly in Texas, much of it a result of radiation from the nuclear industry.

I have read that the U.S.A. was indirectly responsible for the Hindenberg airship disaster when the hydrogen was accidently set on fire, because the only other lighter- than air gas helium was not available to Nazi Germany by U.S. embargo.

Imagine dirigibles powered by electricity from batteries recharged at depots 1000 miles apart, where the 500 or so passengers could relax, even sleep in dormitories or hotels at ground level then resume their journey. Sure it might take three or four days to reach New York from San Francisco, but what a relaxing and memorable trip! If bad weather occurred the dirigible would descend to a ground station and passengers would alight for a few hours.

For intra continental travel, say from Vancouver to Alaska or from Chicago to Hudson's Bay, pollution would be negligible and costs minimal.

ARPA's Walrus program to develop and evaluate a very large airlift vehicle has moved forward; DARPA announced the contractors for the first phase of the program. Despite detailed early descriptions of "war-balloons" in late nineteenth century science fiction, this isn't your father's (not to mention great-grandfather's) dirigible airship. According to DARPA's press release, "the Walrus aircraft will be a heavier-than-air vehicle and will generate lift through a combination of aerodynamics, thrust vectoring and gas buoyancy generation and management."

(Aeros Walrus Early Concept Design) A key goal of the Walrus program is to establish clear and credible solutions that provide confidence that earlier airship-era limitations will be overcome. In particular, an early focus of the program will be the investigation of advanced breakthrough technologies that will support the development of innovative lift and buoyancy concepts that do not rely on off-board ballast.

The Walrus operational vehicle (OV) is envisioned to have the primary operational task of deploying composite loads of personnel and equipment (for example, the components of an Army Unit of Action) ready to fight within six hours after disembarking the aircraft. Walrus will operate without significant infrastructure and from unimproved landing sites, including rough ground having nominal five-foot-high obstacles. It is intended to carry a payload of more than 500 tons 12,000 nautical miles in less than seven days at a competitive cost. Additionally, Walrus will be capable of performing theater lift and supporting sea-basing and persistence missions to meet a range of multi-Service needs.

my will

I was told a few days ago that if I die without leaving a God is everywhere and HE is watching you constantly! (yes, and there are fairies at the bottom of my garden and monsters under the bed.) DO YOU BELIEVE THAT NONSENSE?

You couldn't swing a cat in the space they've allotted ! he!For non-believers, this way buddy! will, the.government (presumably of British Columbia) will take whatever money I have, also my possessions, to be auctioned. The money will go to their coffers. Through my own fault and by my own past actions, I am estranged from my blood relatives, with the possible exception of one son who is eighteen and still living with me, but who seems to spend money as fast as he makes it. I am unaware of the addresses of my family members in Australia. I have tried to find them without success. I should write a will soon as I am nearly 76 and not in perfect health. If there is anyone reading this blog related to me (the closer the better) who wishes to receive something at my death, email me c.wok66@hotmail.com The Scripture tells us that the greatest sin a man can commit is to not believe in the One who created him. (So, it's worse than murder, genocide, etc.) Being an atheist is well, the greatest mortal sin and like any other grave sins, it is punishable by the eternal torments in the fires of Hell. Well, since I doubt very much about this God nonsense, according to the scriptures I am on my way to HellFire. However I think that is nonsense, so I think I will just disintegrate in the ground or get incinerated. It doesn't matter much which as my consciousness will have stopped and I will feel absolutely NOTHING.( Ric.) nnnnnn

| Current Mood:

It's not too late to repent, sinner, though you'll probably end up with Attila, Hitler and George W. Bush down below

Look, Ric, I'll make you a deal. You come up to Heaven and behave yourself and I'll let you touch me up sometimes when GOD is not looking. ************************************** Make your Choice! Be a Christian and play the harp in Heaven. No drinking, no sex, just listen to the harps and God's pronouncements for ever and ever amen (how boring!) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> or be a Muslim and you can go to Paradise and have these Houri maidens (no limits) as your companions. You'll have a great time through eternity Houring and drinking. No comparison, right? Inshallah! ( Open only to the circumcised. Limited time offer) There's a third option, you know. It aint half so bad as they make it out to be.

***************************************************** The captain of the fleet is asleep in the deep. The crew is drunk and incapable. Will they arrive, if they survive? The answer is inescapable.

****************************************************

********************************************************* Cancer. It was sad to read in the Guardian Unlimited this morning 30/10/2007, that a popular Guardian writer Dina Rabinovich died yesterday from breast cancer. One wonders at the causes that can down a 44 year old women of great intellectual strength and popularity. It does not mention if she smoked. I have observed that there appears to be many cancers occurring in people, who have deadlines to meet and have many things to do. That is to say, they cannot just switch off and relax for a few days, when they want. Telephones and more particularly cell-phones and email, keep one constantly attached to the job. This can build up tension and affect sleep and your health. I read that everyone has cancer, (adults over a certain age anyway) and that almost all of these small cancers are killed by the body's defenses. Perhaps stress and lack of sleep are factors in cancers getting out of control. There are, of course, other factors such as too- tight bras, whether the breasts are used sufficiently for their natural function by babies, smoking, drinking alcohol and the environment lived in. Then again it might be genetic tendency or just plain bad luck, (the factor there is no pill for.) When I was seventeen and contemplating journalism as a career, I had to start at the bottom, employed on Consolidated press Sydney as a copy boy. My important duties was taking copy around the various departments and running other messages. I did this willingly, though the pay was minimal, as there was a probability of a cadetship coming up. What made me change my mind was the polluted air throughout the building, coming mostly from almost every worker from the editor down. Everyone seemed to smoke incessantly and I found I was allergic to tobacco smoke. I gave up my dream of being a journalist and as a result I am cancer-free (touch wood) at seventy five. Really i can't be sure of this but i am not going to a doctor to be examined. Surely he will find a lot of things wrong with me that I do not know I have....and don't want to know. (Ric)

Arms Industry, Canada's dirty secrets.

_____________________________________________ I had vaguely known about it, but the news this morning (29/10/07) that Canada is one of the top armament suppliers in the world was a depressing shock to me. On the one hand we have the media and politicians talking forever about "peace" and Canada's role as a "peacekeeper" in the trouble spots in the world and then the dirty secret that big business and the government is profiting largely from war. It should be no surprise really. Big Business and the media have been pushing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Canada's participation in both wars. Yes, even in Iraq Canada gives much military and naval and communications support to the U.S. forces. After all the two countries' military machines are integrated. The Canadian government for the last four years, despite the law, has not made public any information about who Canadian industry supplies for military hardware and supplies. As for supplies to the U.S.A., Canada is not obliged to make that public knowledge ever (and it doesn't.)

Thank You

Thank you to all who have logged onto this site. I have encompassed many issues, sometimes too sparingly. There is so much more I could add. However I am cutting off my internet and cable combination, because nearly a hundred dollars a month seems too much. My son who shares the facilities has not given me half recently. In fact the relationship with Brian is breaking down rapidly and I hope he finds his own way soon. I am bending under the strain of living with an eighteen- year- old whose only communication with me has been grunt, yeah or no and a few swear words. I have looked after him since he was five years old, when his mother gave me custody. Under great difficulties I brought him to Canada from the Philippines. Anyway, I was not grateful to my own father, who got up at 6 a.m every weekday morning and went to work with his electrician's tool-bag, working long hours and overtime to raise his family of six children. I was not grateful to my mother either who was always working in the home. Most of my life I have been insensitive in this respect, so now I can hardly expect anything different from my own children. In future I will be limited in internet access to 45 minutes a day at the library five minutes away. It will be a slower connection and I will hardly be able to add much to this blog-site. I had hoped more of you would want to add something, but that has not happened. Up to today there have been about four thousand five hundred visitors and a lot more who have glanced at it. I am getting tired. The prime purpose of starting the web-site was to contact my relations and especially my children. This has not happened either. Well, thanks again....Ric (Cedric Williams)also known as Siddie.

winnings

*
http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/australia-today-customs-office/clip2/ When I was twelve I was buying one pound of chuck steak and one shilling's worth of dog-meat from Stapleton's the butchers on the Princes Highway at Sutherland township. I overheard Bluey (he was red-haired) Stapleton giving a tip for the Saturday races at Randwick. I ran home and then saw a schoolfriend who knew how to put on a starting price (illegal) bet at the local fruiterers who was a S.P. bookie on the side. Both of us went to the bookie and I placed a bet to win (because Bluey had said it was a sure thing) on the particular horse. I did not tell my dad, who was an avid punter, regularly losing his bets, though he had a "system" that according to him was going to start a winning streak pretty soon. Next Saturday afternoon, I hung around the radio which dad was listening to in the lounge-room, though the place was generally very smoky from full strength Capstan cigarettes. Of course I knew my horse would win and it did at twenty to one and for a few weeks I had lots of pocket money. So since I won once, naturally I could do it again with the infallable tips from my tipster. On my next errand to the butcher, I asked him point blank for a tip and I got one, a sure thing. Since it was a winner and I wanted to increase my profit (I had a ten- speed bike in mind) I increased my bet. Still, I was cautious and kept most of the winnings from the week before. You know the end of the story. The horse came next to last. Suitably impressed and subdued, I vowed I would never bet again in my life, and I have not, so all in all I am ahead from gambling, and never got the bug for slot machines or on-line gaming, Las Vegas or even an office sweep. I have been pleasantly surprised recently to experience winning lotteries and diverse prizes in different parts of the world and not even having to buy a ticket. Kind, unknown people have been buying tickets for me apparently and I seem to be extraordinarily lucky. I believe I have won the National Uganda Lottery three times already, and I got second prize in the Irish Sweepstakes. There have been sundry others also. The only problem seems to be the devilish export taxes on these vast sums of money. It seems I must send just a thousand of two so the money may be transferred. I brought up this great opportunity in conferring at the breakfast table with my son. He barely considered it. (For some strange reason the courts have given him some sort of legal right over my my spending.) All he said was "You silly old fool. Go on like that and I'll have you in a nursing home next month!" Having read "Over the Cuckoo's Nest" again recently, I have been silent about the money ever since....after all, at my age what could I do with a million dollars or two?

Western Immoral Infidels, Change your Ways, or be damned.

My message to western peoples. Your morals are an abomination to us. You must restrict your sexual intercourses to no more than four times each lunar month with your own wife or husband. During so you must recite twenty suras of the Koran and at all times the man must be on top of the woman. The woman must show enthusiasm even if her mind is on something else. That is the secret of Muslim marriage. The same actions must be used for your other wives or mistresses And I say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands. They should be not like western women who act and dress like bazaar whores. I am taking your picture with my camera-watch. Do not move while I do so. O.B.L.

cwok66@hotmail.com Search Australia http://www.australia.com/?ta_cid=ca:2007:google:search:core Editorial...... ******************************************************** IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR BUSH IN AN INDELICATE POSE, IT IS STILL IN THE MAIN BLOG. ******************************************************* "Sorry Gov, they got to Australia a couple of hundred years ago. You must 'ave got in a time warp or the Bermuda Triangle or something.. Haven't you got some fags to spare?""Ahoy there! Do you know the way to Botany Bay? We have got lost from the other members of the First Fleet." http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/ConvictShips.html Ahoy Mac's Web Log.

would you vote for a gay candidate for president?

An Anonymous Man

This person was traveling country to country from New York Greyhound to El Paso then via Tres Estrellas de Oro Bus Line to Mexico City, where he gained visas for all the Central American countries and traveled via Tica bus through Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua where this event allegedly took place. In Managua he stopped in a cheap hotel where there just partitions about eight feet high dividing the small rooms. It was not necessary to sign a register. During the night someone came over the partition . The traveler awoke immediately and reached under his pillow and pulled out a prospector's pick and lunged at the intruder, which immediately penetrated his skull. It was fairly silent and there was just the quivering of the muscles of the intruder. Without taking out the pick from the intruder's forehead the traveler took his small bag, and with a towel wiped the pick handle clean of fingerprints, also the doorknob and the washbasin. He entered the darkness outside and walked rapidly along the lakeside, the popular name for which is Lago de Tiburones. He managed to catch a bus filled with early morning workers bound south east. Later he caught another bus to the border of Costa Rica and entered this country. Some months later I sat next to this man traveling from San Jose to New Orleans. He was pallid and agitated. I asked him why and he told me this story. Was he a murderer? Was I aiding and abetting him by not alerting authorities. After all, it was just a story related to me and might not have been true. I did ask him a question "Why did you not tell the police? "If I had" he answered, "I might have been thrown in jail and all my money taken. The police are very corrupt." Then again is this version of the story actually true?

suicide of pregnant girl

Philippine Beauty Pageant 2007 /world soccer (futbol)

Maganda Pilipinas Babae! Mahal kita, cutie-ka! ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejn6xEPk0aw http://youtube.com/watch?v=kyCWM7p2kmg World Soccer (futbol) http://www.bubatv.com/tag/zidane Bullfight or running of a bull. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q898GfxiyaQ Wikileaks (website for whistle-blowers government scandals etc.) *http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/ newseum. headlines from 450 newspapers. http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/ Greenpeace Australia.( Note: I am not sure if I can recommend this organization, since it has grown so rich , bureaucratic and political. The ideals of Paul Watson have gone a little askew. However, I guess we need some such voice, though I have never wanted to hug a whale and as far as orcas are concerned, they are a menace to seals and other whales. Seems to me whales are a good source of food for the world's hungry and do not add to the global warming problem as much as cattle do. Also Greenpeace Australia, do not interfere with my website without permission, though I found the inclusion of Howard's photo kind of humorous.Contact me personallly and maybe we can get along.) I wonder what happens to the vast amount of money Greenpeace rakes in? What percentage goes to administrative costs? I do hope it will not be thought of as Greenfleece Australia. ******************************************************** *I recall in 1962 I was a member of the Young Humanists in Sydney and we were going to change the world. We spent considerable time protesting France's atomic tests in the Pacific. I recall a sum of money was sent to us from the States and by a vote we would not accept it because we did not know who sent it and we suspected the C.I.A. I said " Accept the bloody money and put it to good use." I was voted down. I recall our group came to an ignominious, fizzling end when our secretary David Duffy was caught stealing from our coffers. What happened with our small organization can happen more drastically, as it grows larger, then huge and the rank and file are separated from the administration. I sure hope this has not happened with Greenpeace. (Ric w) ******************************************************* Just read on "Ninglun's" website that he went to Sutherland Primary. So did I. I was there from five years old until about twelve. I started in the Kindergarten with Miss Crop. I remember Miss O'Reilly, Miss Bevan the headmistress and some other teachers. I can't remember the names only faces.. I remember "Splinter Woods" in primary school, though I did not have his class. He was supposed to have had a back injury in the First World War and always acted stiff and upright. We kids said the Germans had shoved a ramrod up his arse. My dad said he had been his teacher also, so he must have been there a long time since my dad was 22 years older than me.. I recall of the Intermediate High School the faces of the teachers but not the names. I recall we had a student's strike there once because Wednesday afternoon sports was suspended and it got in the papers to the embarrassment of our Principal, Mr Hunt.. sports was on again the next Wednesday. I recall the visit of Clive Evatt, Minister of Education. He was the younger brother of Dr Evatt, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the federal government and later Australia's delegate to The U.N. Well Clive Evatt shook the hands of several prefects who were a kind of welcoming committee at the entrance. I was one of them.(Ric) ************************************************** It is not my business "Ninglun" (I wish you would change that name. It is kind of like saying you are a human being carrot doll( Japanese)) who are doing so much writing,( all of it interesting) that you might burn yourself out, mate. Careful about strokes to the brain. Just a small artery goes and we are vegetables not able to change our diapers. I used to say that when I got old I was going to go out into the bush climb up a hollow tree and jump down into it, pinning my arms and body and just die. I heard some old abos that couldn't keep up with the walkabout, would do that. Well they don't have hollow tree like the old red-gums of Australia here in Canada and I can't climb too well anymore (I am 236 lbs) and I respect the attitude of the oldest man in the world in Japan who said several weeks ago that he wants to live indefinitely. That is stretching it a bit in my case, but while I can walk around and bathe myself and drive the car (why does everyone else have to drive so fast?) I want to stay in touch with living humanity and even with the crows who seem to be in control of the avian kingdom here in Vancouver and the squirrel which raids my trashcan and the coyotes who run through the area nightly looking for small dogs and cats,(there are notices on poles "Have you seen a white Persian pussy, answers to Kittykat, last seen Tuesday night. We miss you Kittykat?") and the racoon with her three young ones, scratching my door at night for handouts. Even though my relatives don't give a fig about me (I was pretty bad in my life) I still have some communication with the animals, who just think I am a nice guy. Dogs wave their tails and come over for a pat and even cats pause to look at me, wondering who is this stupid human trying to meow. Yes life is precious. I found that out in 1982 when my motorbike hit a car and in Brisbane Hospital. It was touch and go....On my recovery every day has been a bonus. I saw some years ago, a Japanese film about how they took their old parent up a sacred mountain, gave food and water for a few days and left the old person to die, when they became a burden. That was long ago, I presume. It was a gripping movie. I was talking to a worker in a nursing home yesterday. (She does the clothes washing only) She related how "nurses" and attendants tie patients to chairs by the wrists and how the old people are force- fed medications. This is Canada 2007!( see news results about nursing homes in Victoria B.C. this week.) Maybe the Japanese way was more humane. (Ric)

Limitation, slow-speed comp.

Last night both my computers seemed to go haywire and I could not get online with either. I asked my son and he said I had a really bad virus in the machines. I believed him . I put on spybot and it isolated about twenty viruses and deleted them, but the damn computers still would not come online. I contented myself playing scrabble at expert level and won two games out of seven. Incidentally I have been on that level for two whole years and have another three levels higher to go, but I will never get there. I think the little man in the computer cheats, or I am really dumb. I am learning a lot of words though that i will never use. Anyway, this morning I wended my way to the public library at Metrotown and brought up my blog. What I found amazed and disappointed me. All the moving animations etc were static and clicking a link or a photo took ever so long. Well I asked the busy librarian why that was so, and she told me that it was a slow speed network. Realizing that this is what most people still have, I will have to cut out the bells and whistles in future. I came home and then my son came home from school. He is repeating grade 12 because he did not pass in Math last years and could not get to college, even though he got 97% for a computer-related subject and did well in the other subjects. Once I almost decided to help him with his math until I saw it.I could not understand a damn thing. It was all in New Math and as he says, I am still in ancient-time math. "I think I am going to cut off the internet, if you can't fix it, I said to him. "With cable it is costing $93 a month and I think I will just walk up to the library and use it for free. Brian's internet and cable is connected to mine, so he would miss out too. He said nothing and when I went out to unload some lumber from the car, he fixed the problem, twenty minutes at the most. "Heh, how did you do it, genius?' I queried. "I reconnected the modem plug you pulled out when you were rummaging around with it." So now happily I am again online. It pays to have a smart eighteen- year- old son, even though he is surly most of the time,( except when he is on the cellphone sparking with a girlfriend (s).

no real reason

I have no reason to add this painting, except that I like it. I have been on these blogs almost a year but I still don't know how to manipulate them too well. For example the space to the side of this illustration, how do you write something there? It won't let me do it and I have all these empty spaces right through the website. It won't let me put another insert illustration alongside either, and sometimes when I try to save a warning in yellow script comes up saying I have done something illegal. Sometimes if I go ahead and save anyway, I get some floating illustration that crops up in the wrong place, example the white cockatoo, or earlier, some natives in chains. I can't delete them. There is something that got on by mistake and is on the right side of the Canadian soldier. It looks wrong and i have tried to delete it. It is off-topic being about Kyoto. I don't really know what I am doing a lot of the time. Another thing, I don't know how to put a background design. I am bit perturbed that the blogs have started to be very politically slanted, but there seems a need for this. It doesn't go well with the title "First Fleet on. etc:" and I guess some of my estranged relatives are not happy about it. Also I don't know if there is some technical difficulty putting on comments , because i have only had five or six the whole year. What's wrong? I was sent the several naked and downright rude photos of Bush and Bin Laden. I used them but wasn't so worried when they were censored. I think Internet Explorer censors too much though and I recommend Mozilla Firefox. Guess that will do for now. I am getting over sixty hits a day now. It is building up. 'Ric

********************************************************* Gone are the days of the swaggie, And buggy wheels are rust. A horse is just an occasional sight, Among the flies and dust. *

irish famine

Early fort Sydney.

Death in Irish Famine

gold robbery

Finally, on 8 July 1885 Edmund O'Keefe and John Rice were arrested and charged with having feloniously assaulted and robbed Mr. Cecil Stackhouse of two keys. The trial commenced in Launceston on 27 August with the two prisoners, Barrett and Ward, having been persuaded to give evidence in return for a reduction in the length of their prison sentences. According to them the robbery had been planned with the two Collins, John Ritchie Snr and O'Keefe. They robbed the bank. O'Keefe and Rice had guarded Stackhouse. Collins's part was to get rid of the bank notes through his business. Rice had little to do with the affair. John Ritchie's part had been to let them know which night Stackhouse would be visiting him.

The family of William Williams and Catherine McDonald

1. George Alexander Williams (1872 - 1956) md Mary Love Stewart in 1897.

2. Jessie Ann Williams (1874 - 1960) md Ernest Scarlett in 1898.

3. Amos Edward Williams (1876 - 1967) md Millicent Wheatley in 1910.

4. William Davidson Williams (1879 - 1952) md Mary Elizabeth McPhie in 1908.

5. Mabel Maude Williams (1882 - 1939) md Sidney Thomas Scarlett in 1903.

6. Linda Mary Williams (1885 - 1970) md Du Verney Garnett.

7. Sarah Eliza Williams (1887 - 1976) md Alfred William Woods in 1925.

8. Edith Lillian Williams (1891 - 1990) unmarried.

9. Catherine/Kate McDonald Williams (1894 - 1980) md George A. Colvin.

10. Grace Edna Williams (1897 - 1944) md Fred Ritchie.

The family of John Williams and Esther Kilpatrick*

1. Sarah Williams (1859 - 1901) married William Charles Blyton in 1881.

2. Ann Williams (1861 - 1928) married Phillip Morgan in 1884.

3. Margaret Williams (1862 - 1906) married Henry Foster Thomson in 1884.

4. James Renwick Williams (1864 - 1882) drowned.

5. George Whitefield Williams (1866 - 1935) changed name to Frederick Holmes Mansfield.

6. Esther Williams (1868 - 1904) married Edward Randolph Blyton in 1892.

7. John Brown Williams (1870 - )

8. Edward Robert Williams (1872 - 1945) married Emma Coombs in 1897.

9. Henry Inglis Williams (1875 - 1955) md Lucy Ann Pike in 1905.

10. Isaac Emmet Williams (1877 - 1943) md Mary Ellen Tompson in 1911.

who is this family member?

* Miss Elizabeth Ann Williams, of Windsor, who, born in 1824, came with her parents in 1843 to near Nimitybelle, and from thence, after some little time going to The Gullies Station, some 50 miles south of Cooma. Miss Williams, who was a remarkably expert swimmer, on one occasion during a flood saved seven lives in one day

henry inglis williams and Lucy (nee) Pike(circa 1914)

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

Hidden Costs of Harpers War

The Harper government does not release the numbers of Canadians wounded in Kandahar.

Now most injuries not reported

A new policy has clearly emerged. Deaths are still reported but injuries are not, unless one of two scenarios exists. The first is if the injury is so severe, it may very well result in death. The second is if journalists already know about it. If a journalist happens to be in a convoy that is hit and sees the injury, they’ll obviously know about it.
Injuries are increasingly frequent these days. As many as four roadside bomb strikes happen each week. Soldiers are being injured in the process, some of them seriously. Some of them will lose limbs. Others will have their lives irreparably damaged. We won’t know. Whether we should know is another question.
So what’s changed? There is the argument that politicians — fearing a further loss of public support for this mission — don’t want to reveal the true number of injuries. Another school of thought is that the injuries have become so routine, the military doesn’t view them as a “new development” and thus not newsworthy (or publicly releasable). A final argument is that there is now so much violence, the deployed soldiers’ would prefer to reduce the publication of bad news that will further worry their families back in Canada.
As the medevac crew was launched on one medical mission after another, we repeatedly saw Canadian soldiers being loaded and unloaded.
The point is this: soldiers have died in this place, but many more have been injured. The United States, which is engaged in its own largely unpopular war in Iraq, still releases injury statistics. Canada does not.

The long term impact of this war is veterans returning with post combat syndrome. Once upon a time it was called battle fatigue, and those who suffered from it were often summarily executed in the field during WWI. We have come a long way since then. Hardly it remains a hidden injury of war and like other injuries occurring to our troops it is to be covered up from the public according to the Harpocrites.

Nearly 400 of 2,700 Canadian soldiers who have served in Kandahar province might have come home with mental health problems, according to a report by the office responsible for the health of deployed troops.
The heavy toll that the war in Afghanistan has taken on the minds and bodies of Canadian troops has been revealed in data, documents and interviews provided by the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command.
In addition to the 63 Canadian soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan since February 2006, 243 have been wounded, according to the data.
Waiting lists are stretching from a few weeks to months for Manitoba soldiers seeking psychological help, say officials at a Winnipeg clinic.
Referrals from the Canadian Forces are up 78 per cent over last year, officials at the Operational Stress Injury Clinic in Winnipeg said Friday.
Operational Stress, sometimes known as combat stress, is the term used to describe any persistent psychological problem resulting from military service, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

SEE:

Harpers War Costs Another Canadian Life

Kandahar Afghanistan War Job Protection for

Canadian Reservists
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