It's actually part of the training for our special forces, who are adapting to budget cutbacks and equipment shortages.

Al Qaeda always chooses rock.

Yeah, but we always choose paper :-)

Check out clips from the video, "Playing RPS to Win": http://www.rpschamps.com/videos.html

Classic quotes:

"There's not much reasoning being that game [Odds and Evens], it's just, throw out fingers."

"Originally I got into it [Rock Paper Scissors] for the girls."

Canada is such a bewildering place. It has an abundance of resources, including more fresh water than any country in the world. It has undergone no invasions. Its population is intelligent and well-educated. And it is spectacularly beautiful.

But with all these advantages it remains mired in a stifling bureaucracy, which prods its best and most innovative sons and daughters to flee south of the border. It is fixated on the French vs. English issue, which (despite all the arguments I've heard about it -- and they were legion) seems to me a pretty poor reason to split up a country.

Several Canadians have commented to me about how patriotic we Americans are. I can invert that statement; most of the Canadians I've met seem distinctly unimpressed with being Canadian.

Correction-- any good Canuck will tell you abou the invasion that resulted in the burning of York and made Laura Secord a hero.

Another point about Canada-- they border exactly one other country, (if you ignore Greenland and St.Pierre/Miquelon, as you should) and that country has shielded them from the rest of the big bad world. They could safely support the UK in its wars with Germany knowing that there was no danger of an invasion from the south. (And in the second one, they probably provided a good part of the margin necessary to keep the UK afloat until the US could overcome its isolationism and join the fight.)

Except for the aforementioned invasion almost two centuries ago, their big/only neighbor has shown no interest in forcing them to follow its lead. If the US were as imperialist as the LoonieLeft says it is, an independent Canada would have disappeared decades ago.

" . . . counsels them on warmups, diet and practice . . ." Huh?

My children called the game 'Rochambeau' (the three syllables thereof substituting for the countdown of 'one, two, three'). Did Francophone Canadiens thus have an unfair advantage?

Fred Jacobsen
San Francisco

Josh:

Last summer I visited friends in Brooklyn (who had been posted to your embassy in Ottawa) with a British couple returning from a stint as military attache at their embassy here. The Brit and I were admiring the flag and bunting- festooned street. When I commented on American patriotism, he answered that he saw Canadians the same way--flags and pride all over the place. He was very critical about the UK in that regard. He is now trying to emigrate here. Senses the hope and future promise, I think.

All of which to show that the big differences you and I think we see are largely invisible to the rest of the world.

French/English? Always was, always will be.

Raoul:

Thanks for the WW11 plug, one the Brits rarely remember. Also, I am extremely impressed you know we border France and Greenland.

Let us take Canadian sins over Iraq for granted. For the rest, aren't you glad you don't have to give a thought to your northern border? Isn't that a good news story for both countries? Can you think of any other potential neighbour that would irritate you so much by NOT spending enough on defence?

Your point about the Canadian looney left is spot on. But if you think all Canadians are ungrateful, you may be listening too much to Vancouver radio. Savages out there. Go east, young man! At least to Alberta.

Here's a story Walter Berns tells at the end of his boo, Making Patriots:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/862/

" The following story is told by a foreign diplomat who, as he explains, had occasion to visit the United States Embassy
in the capital of his country.
'I arrived at a quarter to six, after official office hours, and was met by the Marine on guard at the entrance of the Chancery.
He asked if I would mind waiting while he lowered the two American flags at the Embassy. What I witnessed over the next
ten minutes so impressed me that I am now led to make this occurrence a part of my ongoing record of this distressing era.
The Marine was dressed in a uniform which was spotless and neat; he walked with a measured tread from the entrance of
the Chancery to the stainless steel flagpole before the Embassy and, almost reverently, lowered the flag to the level of his
reach where he began to fold it in military fashion. He then released the flag from the clasps attaching it to the rope, stepped
back from the pole, made an about-face, and carried the flag between his hands--one above, one below--and placed it securely
on a stand before the Chancery.
He then marched over to a second flagpole and repeated the same lonesome ceremony.... After completing his task, he
apologized for the delay--out of pure courtesy, as nothing less than incapacity would have prevented him from fulfilling his goal
--and said to me, "Thank you for waiting, Sir. I had to pay honor to my country."
I have had to tell this story because there was something impressive about a lone Marine carrying out a ceremonial task which
obviously meant very much to him and which, in its simplicity, made the might, the power and the glory of the United States
of America stand forth in a way that a mighty wave of military aircraft, or the passage of a supercarrier, or a parade of 10,000
men could never have made manifest.
One day it is my hope to visit one of our embassies in a faraway place and to see a soldier fold our flag and turn to a stranger
and say, "I am sorry for the delay, Sir. I had to honor my country." "

Orrin:

It is the difference between patriotism and nationalism, and it is truly a beautiful thing to witness.

P.B.
Well we haven't been so complacent about the northern border since 9/11 and the Olympia incident. But as much as your Govt. annoys many of us of late, I think we're about as happy to have you all there in the north as we are the Californians on our left coast.

OJ,
Today is the 228th Birthday of the USMC so thanks for the plug.

Genecis:

High praise indeed! :-)