Those GPSes could result in Canada being invaded

A6

By Robert LaFrance

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There is a downside to all great inventions and developments. That includes the GPS receiver you bought for your spouse at Christmas so he or she can find California Settlement and not set you down in Los Angeles. Think Gilligan's Island and his 3-hour cruise.

The downside I referred to is a corollary to the old saying 'Be careful what you wish for; you might get it'. That GPS could help a foreign country to invade us.

Still on the same subject even though it may not seem so, this morning a common 'tater on CBC radio was complaining that most Americans couldn't find Canada on a map. They don't even know we exist. "The people in that country - at least the ones who don't live near the border - have never known anything about us," he said and went on to mention George W. Bush of course and the fact that before he was elected he thought the Prime Minister of Canada was Jean Poutine and was a little vague about where we were.

Believe me, friends and neighbours, the fact that to most Americans we're located just south of Poland is a good thing. They knew where Iraq was, and look what came out of that. And we have lots of oil and natural gas and fresh water. The minute they look on a map and find us sitting here with an army of 100,000 or fewer, we are toast.

That's why the existence of them there Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) is not a good thing. These days Master Sergeant Buford Hockelton of Shambles, Missouri, can look in a book for a Canadian location and type in: 'Minto, New Brunswick, Canada'. It will guide him right to the spot. Minto - all that coal and the Tim Horton's just at the edge of town it's like a beacon to guide the troops and they can also get something to eat.

Even though the U.S. military hasn't had a whole lot of success over the past half century - except for Grenada, Panama, and the first Iraq war - they wouldn't have a whole lot of trouble with us, let's face it. Most of us watch American shows and we know they won World War I and World War II single-handed. Whenever I see one of those epics that shows this, I often wonder why Britain and Canada weren't in those conflicts, but that's another column.

If you see a long column of troops with the lead guy in a Buick Century which sports a GPS receiver on the dash, either head for cover or see if you can sabotage the GPS by entering some wrong coordinates. They could find themselves in downtown Colombia by sunset.

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It's a busy time right now. There's the returning of Christmas presents and getting the money out of them to use for important stuff - like brandy in case I need a hot toddy, and gasoline for our car and van, just in case we want to go somewhere, like uptown to return gifts. (Why did someone think I needed an automatic tire washer for my bicycle?)

I was sitting in the living room and was sipping on a hot chocolate while watching Red Green when I chanced to turn to the Weather Channel, the root of all evil as far as I am concerned because it scares the bejeepers out of us all. "Tornado watch in Red Rapids." That sort of thing.

The forecaster, chosen for her expertise I am sure, and not her model's looks, was saying that a storm was heading our way. She didn't go into much detail, but her male counterpart, who came on a few minutes later and also looked as if he had just stepped out of the pages of Vogue magazine, or at least Popular Mechanics, did go into detail.

"Blockbuster of a storm" seemed to be the theme of his little talk. Yeah, right, I said. When had we heard that one only to be bitterly disappointed? A week earlier every forecaster in eastern Canada had predicted a huge blast of winter, but it had wimped out in Quebec: separated as it were.

The morning of Monday, December 22, dawned quite well. By that I mean the sun was up. I opened the shed door and was almost crushed by a wall of snow three feet deep. (I find Imperial measure rather than metric works better for snow measurement, don't you?) I waded my way down to the garage where the snow was only about one and a half feet deep and started scooping. This job only took about two hours.

As I recently wrote about a local character, now that the ground is the colour of my hair, it's time to head south, and I don't need no GPS. They might think I'm invading.

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Bob's website: http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/lafrance/index.htm