Curling fans get crazy...

Here's a post from a Yahoo! sports blog that popped up on my homepage. It's completely unpolitical, but I found it interesting.

In a close women's curling match where Canada won 5-4 over Denmark, Danish Madeliene Dupont blamed the aggressive Canadian fans when she missed two potentially game-winning shots.

Curling is a sport that apparently requires intense concentration and the ability to hear your teammates. Dupont was practically in tears after 6,000 Canadian fans began stomping and making deafening noise. The noise was obviously intended to distract Dupont.

I understand such noise in sports such as basketball, hockey, and football, where the noise of the crowd is normal and expected by the players. But curling is tame sport, like golf, where it is the polite thing to be quiet, and only cheer when the players are finished. Even a Canadian curler agreed that the fans were loud, but excused their behavior based on the fact they "don't know the game." I think it's a lame excuse. They were obviously quiet when it was Canada's turn.

As an obnoxiously loud fan myself, I understand Canada's pride and desire for their home team to win. But I also find it embarrassing in a sport such as curling, where it is not appropriate. They're the hosts, and they should know better. Save it for the hockey rinks.

Trade and War in Canada

President Barack Obama stepped cautiously in his first foreign trip Thursday, refraining from asking Canada to rethink its plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and saying changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement can wait.
In a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Obama acknowledged that he has said NAFTA does too little to protect U.S. workers and the environment. Canada, the United State's largest trading partner, is leery of changes to the deal.
Robust trade helps both nations, Obama said. Noting that NAFTA has side agreements on labor and the environment, he added: "If those side agreements mean anything, then they might as well be incorporated into the main body of the agreements so that they can be effectively enforced." He said he hopes there eventually will be a way to do so "that is not disruptive to the extraordinarily important trade relationships" between the two nations.
Both leaders said that as economies around the world face challenges, it's important for the U.S. and others to resist calls for protectionism.

In Afghanistan, Canada plans to pull its 2,500 combat troops from the volatile south in 2011, following the loss of more than 100 troops killed in the country since 2001. Obama is headed the other direction, dispatching 17,000 more U.S. troops to the war zone.
Obama said Thursday he did not press Harper to reconsider. He said he praised Canada for its sacrifices and for making Afghanistan its largest recipient of foreign aid.
Turning to U.S.-Canada border security and the fight against terrorism, Harper said any threat to the United States is a threat to his country, too.
The prime minister said Canada has made "significant investments" in security and in border protection since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.
But he said there's a "real challenge" in increasing border security in a way that doesn't limit commerce and social interaction.
Obama said he believes the ties between Canada and the United States will grow even stronger over the next four years. The men took questions from two Canadian reporters and two U.S. reporters in a room adorned with numerous flags of the two nations.
Obama later made a surprise visit to a downtown market in Ottawa leaving fellow customers stunned.

Arctic Adventures? (And no, it isn't a Sarah Palin helicopter moose-hunting party)

I never thought that the Arctic, the vastly uninhabited chunk of mostly ice north of Alaska, could provide a source of conflict in the 21st century. But, then came along global warming and aggressive neighbors. As the ice is receding at a quicker than normal rate, open Arctic waters provide bordering nations with trade, tourist, and natural resources new possibilities (as well as strategic defense) that were not open before. Case in point, there is actually a Northwest Passage right now.

Now what problem could possibly occur when you have the bordering nations being the US, Canada, Denmark (they own Greenland), and Norway, all US allies? None, except that I am forgetting one, America's newest best friend- the Russian Federation! Russia, under former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has been assertive in nationalistic pursuits now that they are flush with oil and gas revenues. Aside from invading Georgia, Russia recently planted a flag in the Arctic and claimed a large chunk of it for itself. Why do they want a chunk of ice? Because there is potentially more oil and natural gas underneath that was previously inaccessible.

Sadly, the US has been slow to counter this threat to our own strategic interests (remember that Russia borders us up there) by not expanding our Arctic fleet nor ratifying the Law of the Sea, which would allow the US to stake claims in the Arctic, the US is losing the opening salvos of a scramble for the Arctic. And while I don't think having Canada, Denmark, or Norway control the Arctic would be a bad thing, I do not want to see Russia suddenly get an Arctic empire. And if the US and its allies don't act soon, this could happen.