As someone once said, the fin is coming early this siècle. Or do they just do this every 200 or so years automatically?

For the first time since 1817, U.S. Coast Guard vessels on the Great Lakes are being outfitted with weapons – machine-guns capable of firing 600 bullets a minute. The Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1817 allowed each country to station four vessels, each equipped with an 18-pound cannon, to safeguard the Great Lakes. A spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard, Petty Officer William Colclough, said they will be stored below decks on the coast guard’s 11 Great Lakes cutters and will be mounted only when needed.

They really do need help in those schools. Eleven, four, different. But who’s counting? How long till they pull a Grenada in Wasaga Beach?

“Certainly the Great Lakes [have] not had any military vessels stationed on [them] since – gosh, really since the advent of that treaty.”