You think we have border issues?

The Seaway International Bridge, or the Three Nations Crossing between Rooseveltown, New York and Cornwall, Ontario, Canada has been closed since midnight, May 31, when Canadian border officials left their posts after a confrontation with 400 Akwesasne Mohawks.

The Native Americans are protesting the arming of Canadian border guards with handguns. The new rule was to begin June 1. In keeping with international law, the American side of the bridge has closed as well.

Cornwall Island is sovereign territory located in the St. Lawrence Seaway between the two nations. Several accounts in both Canadian and US media are tracking the story.

At least one Canadian anti-terrorism expert recommends ignoring “threats from Mohawk militants.”

All sides are hoping for a peaceful resolution, but judging by the comments to these stories, tensions are high.

Here is a handy Web site showing few delays at US—Canada border crossings from sea to shining sea today, except for the conspicuously closed Cornwall Canadian Border Services Agency office.

The Associated Press reports that Alaska governor Sarah Palin is defending her boast that her state’s proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience. “They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.” She added that “we have trade missions back-and-forth.”

Hard-nosed reporter Katie Couric asked Palin how that closeness benefited her foreign policy experience. Palin replied, “Well, it certainly does because…our next-door neighbors are foreign countries.”

Well, I can see Canada from Niagara street. I could walk across the Peace Bridge this afternoon and eat some Chinese food at Ming Teh, but I don’t expect Condoleezza Rice to call me up and ask my opinion about putting strategic missiles in Poland.

Seriously, how many of us have the nerve to claim we have enough foreign policy experience to be Vice President of the United States by virtue of the fact that we went to Sherkston this summer and brought back a case of Canadian beer? Isn’t that a back-and-forth trade mission? Those frat boys from UB heading up to watch the Canadian ballet are on par with Henry Kissinger, I guess.

And how’s this for old time religion?

“You can’t blink,” Palin is fond of saying. Apparently, you can’t think, either.

Check out the VP candidate in this 2005 video where she’s being blessed by whacko Bishop Thomas Muthee at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, where she was an active member until 2002. She’s not speaking in tongues—which is an accepted form worship at the church—but she is holding her hands up to heaven while being blessed and anointed against “every form of witchcraft.” Muthee, according to an MSNBC report is responsible for inciting an actual witch hunt against someone in Kenya. No joke.

Great. Her global experience is limited to gazing across stormy seas at a distant land mass, and she practices old-fashioned christian values…like Salem, Massachussetts, 1692.