WELDTRON!!!

The National Post is an explosion of rancourous Martin-loathing today. The newspaper's OP-Ed/Letters section, recently blown up to four freakin' pages, is given in at least two-thirds part to single-minded denouncement of our refusal to support the U.S. Missile Defence plan.

The headline, in, like, seriously, WWII-sized font, is "BUSH WON'T CALL PM". He won't return a call Paul Martin made last week, apparently out of disdain for our refusal to sign on. Canada's "no" on missile defence is a week old, but now that this slight has come to light, it's a real news story. If CanWest-Global ever gets into the high school newspaper business, you can bet they'll run similarly revealing expositions with headlines like "NO PROM DATE FOR SU VP".

What's amazing is what happens on p. A14. A whole page is given up to editorials previously published in American newspapers about Canada's "no". One is a particularly smarmy bit from the Boston Herald that finds a "striking contrast" between Bush and Putin's agreement "in principle" that nuclear proliferation is a bad thing (well, fucking duh) and Canada's "no". The conclusion is that perhaps a "presidential public tongue lashing" for Martin would change our "no" to a cowering "okay", since it seemed to have a similar effect on Putin.

The horrible thing about Martin is that yeah, maybe it would. The people he's paid to lead, however, wold be even more resolutely convinced that This Bush Is A Dick. I mean, he's not returning our calls and that makes us the asshole?

But I haven't even gotten to the amazing bit. There beside the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal editorials on same, is this outrageously insane propaganda piece from some guy who sells welding equipment in Alice, Texas:

I own a small Corporation that sells electronic controls to the welding industry. Our market is narrow since our products apply specifically to American-made welding machinery, and few applications exist external to the United States. I am the majority stockholder and President of the company. Today, I made a decision not to sell our manufactured products into Canada.

While it is uncommon to sell our products outside the bounds of the United States, we do get inquires and orders from other countries. This morning, I received an email requesting one of our catalogs along with a request for technical assistance pertaining to a U.S.-made machine located in Quebec.

This was a request from an individual in a country that hated Americans and all that it stood for, asking for technical assistance and requesting information on our uniquely American products. The products and services we offer would enhance this Canadian's ability to save on the cost of repairs to his equipment, assistance he was apparently unable to receive in his own country.

Over the past few years, I have rejected sales from French Canadians, and now I expand this to the whole of Canada. As of today, no technical information will be given to Canadians and no sales will be made to Canadians until their hate for Americans and our way of life changes.

My company Web site has the phrase "Made in Texas by Texans" on the home page and it has been there for years. Now I will be placing a notice that we do not sell to Canada and the reasons why.

Some may think this as a stupid idea since I will lose sales. Like I said, they don't amount to much anyway; and the idea that I can irritate individual Canadians by refusing to sell to them; along with providing them the reasons for doing so; lets them know that at least one American is standing up and doing the only patriotic thing he can do to stave off the impending damage that Canada will do to our security.

What is this doing in a nationally syndicated newspaper under the header "Issues and Ideas"? This guy already has some bizarre problem with "French Canadians" and now he's widened his umbrella for all of us to feel his non-selling-of-the-welding-gadgets wrath. What has this got to do with anything but my last goddamn nerve?

Never mind that there is blessed nada we can do about the missile defence agenda other than register our disapproval at the idea. It is going ahead and we will be involved, and we will be funding it with our own money somehow, probably, and all of this is just a Liberal posture to make Martin look good to a public who has been vociferously against this crazy fucking plan since Reagan first brought it up.

We are, grudgingly, expanding our defense budget. We have been listening to all the experts who have been telling us how important it is to have a role to play, to narrow our focus, to put our money behind something solid and real so that we can have a credible impact in international affairs. Then we are berated for not signing on to the one military motive which has the most egregious science and least chance for real payoff. What do they want us to do, kiss their ring? Keep your miserable welding accessories, asshole.