Bringing white hot death to an official enemy hopefully far away from you.

Our Federal Government is really the bomb-shit.   I mean they stopped the Liberal nationalized daycare program in its tracks when they assisted Paul Martin and the Libs self destruct in 2006.

“The Liberals were in the midst of delivering on a $5-billion national child-care program before they were thrown out of power in the 2006 election. When Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives came to office, that program was abandoned, in favour of the $100-a-month cheques to Canadian parents known as the Universal Child Care Benefit.”

The Universal Child Care Benefit is laughably ineffective, as reasonable day care costs are well above $100 dollars per month.  Hats off to conservative thinking and the choice that the 100 dollars per month provides (none).  Way to go, nanny state kept in check.

The fiscal restraint though goes *poof* when we are talking about shiny new fighter jets!  The new F-35 is so new and amazing you do not even see the 9 billion dollar price tag through all of this  incredible awesomeness!

“The Canadian government said Friday it plans to spend $9 billion to purchase a new generation of fighter jets, the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.

The contract, one of the biggest military equipment purchases in Canadian history, is worth $9 billion, but the full cost could rise to as much $18 billion once the government signs a maintenance contract.”

I’m amused that we need the best and the brightest new technology for our Air Force.  What exactly are we going to do with these new jets other than spend a horrendous amount to train to fly and maintain them.  Put quite simply, Canada does not need these jets.  The F-35 is purely an offensive weapon that has no place in a Canada that is once was dedicated to peacekeeping and resolving issues without the slaughter of war.

For the fiscally conservatives who also occasionally read DWR here is another little interesting snippet.

“The new jets would replace an aging fleet of CF-18s that recently underwent a $2.6-billion upgrade”

Huh, we are retrofitting old jets, AND buying new ones.  The money for the military seems to be connected to a high pressure fire hose.  Consider that 2.6 billion is already one half of the necessary money for universal childcare in Canada.   Oh yah, but we need defence!  The terrorists are at our door just waiting for our Jet Technology to become obsolete.

I’m thinking we need to up the *facepalm* ante here just for the inept twerpitude of our military planning/spending.

9 billion for *shiny* jets? Can I get a 'Hell Ya'!

Here is what the Official opposition is saying:

“But the government is fending off criticism that it is making one of the biggest military purchases in Canadian history without a single competing bid.  The Liberals say the massive purchase of 65 jets should have been subjected to competitive bids.

I think Canadians are amazed that the largest procurement deal in the history of the country is a single-sourced — so, it’s not a competitive — deal,” Ignatieff told reporters.”

You know what I am amazed at Iggy?  Your enormous capacity to miss the blatantly obvious point.   We should not be making this purchase in the first place.  You want to show Canadians you have a platform and spine of your own?  Then make a stand against this vacuous prestidigitation, try for once to make a principled stand you might like it.

The planes we are purchasing are used to rain death down on people who do not have planes of their own to shoot back with.  Has the mighty Harper decided that Canada needs its own imperial air-force to lay the smack down on some poor schmo(s) on the ground armed with an AK-47 and faith on the brain?  The ludicrous stupid burns nova hot on this one.  You would think as the principled opposition of Canada you might point out that we do not frakking need

Childrens Welfare vs. Bombing other children? Wow, unpopular position if I ever heard of one.

any more fighter planes for the defense of our country and maybe the money could be used elsewhere to benefit the children and families of Canada.

Do you know why according to Military Analysts that we need these pricey Edsel?

“Military analyst Mercedes Stephenson told CBC News that the purchase is “absolutely necessary.”She added: “We have to have fighter jets. Canada is a massive country, and when you think purely about response times, there is nothing else that can get across the country as fast as a fighter jet.”Also, when you are dealing with the Arctic, there is very little that has the kind of survivability of a fighter jet in the air under those kinds of harsh conditions.  She added that the purchase is also important for Canada to meet obligations to its international allies.”

Shorter:  We need fast planes because Canada is big and cold! Oh, and sometimes our friends need us to bomb people.
Are you kidding?  Are we that stupid?
What really fries my biscut is what the NDP has to say about this:

“But the NDP argues even if Canada needs fighter jets, it’s not clear it needs these particular ones.

“The issue for the Canadian defence department is, is the F-35 what we want?” said NDP MP Malcolm Allen.”

Holy Plastic-Jebus on a pogo-stick!  Is this the best we can do for spirited opposition?   It is okay to say that this is waste of Canadian money, and that this is a particularly bad idea coming from Stephen I wanna be a Neo-Con Harper’s private circle-jerk cabinet.   This deal needs to be scrapped immediately, put the money toward combating child poverty and do some good for once.

What I fear is that no one from any of the opposition benches has the spine to take a stand against this fiscally and morally boneheaded move on behalf of the Canadian Government.