Bank Manager

So remember that last time you wanted a loan from your friendly local bank?
Remember when the bank manager said you needed to already HAVE the amount of money you wanted to borrow? You thought, but if I had it I wouldn't be here.
Remember they wanted your house, your car, your wife, your children, your salary and future salary, your RSPs, your socks and your left foot as collateral? They even inquired about how old your dog was and asked if you had your DNA on file? And what shares in what companies you held? And you said you'd never had any extra money to actually BUY any shares in anything.

Remember you gave them every bit of private info about yourself on that form you had to sign?
Remember the terms were that you had to keep working until you are 90 years old to pay the interest on the loan and only after that would you start nibbling away at the principal?
Remember how they turned you down with that contemptable look and then took another 5 bucks out of your account?

Now those very same bank managers want you to bail out their poor management and arrogance. They want to use hard working Americans' tax money to rescue the rich and the shareholders. They are asking for 700 BILLION dollars with a straight face!
And they don't want to answer a single question or provide a one bit of collateral because they don't really have any. And they don't want their 56 or 17 million yearly dollar salaries affected.

If the government passes them this money the US taxpayer should turf out every single elected person who votes to pass the bill rewarding the CEOs for incompetance.

Just remember, the shoe is now on the other foot. Are our contempt is deserved.

Political debates

I am not going to bother watching any televised debates this time.
Is there a point to them?
All the parties get together before the 'show' and agree on what questions might be asked by an empathetic reporter. The audience are all preordained. In this case in Canada, the parties and TV networks have agreed to ostracize anyone out of what they deem as THEIR mainstream. For the same reason that the US will not allow Bob Barr or Ron Paul in their presidential debates: They are afraid of embarrassing questions. And perhaps logic.
If the Green Party partakes in the Canadian debates, something out of control could happen. Like a question with an implication that no one of the big four parties gets it. Or really cares. Same old same old. Wouldn't want anything spontaneous now, would we?
YES!
But that ain't gonna happen. Elizabeth May knows she isn't going to be Prime Minister, and it seems that environmental issues are the first item on most Canadian's minds in this election and though she might have something important to say, she will be excluded anyway. When one has no chance they don't have to follow the same rules.
One would wonder whatever Gilles Duceppe is doing in any debate? He of the 'Rob Canada' Party not only has no chance of being PM, he has no interest! Layton has no chance, he just wants to continue milking his horse a few more years. Dion, a citizen of France needs an interpreter for English! He's probably already promised Quebec to Sarkozy.
And we all know they will have set answers too. We all know they all lie. They've all lied before, over and over again. And we all know that your local politician has absolutely no say in anything even if you send him to parliament, he has to go by the party line no matter what. Or he or she might not even represent you anyway! Emerson's Rule, look out for yourself.
So why bother watching any so called debates?
To see if Harper will wear another wimpy vest?
Hmmm.
What I'd like to see is Harper tell us he'll go after Chretien and Martin for the Sponsorship scandal! And Dion to tell us he'll go after Mulroney for being Canada's biggest ever crook! Maybe Duceppe to declare he will be a nation and refuse any handouts from Canadian taxpayers!
I'd like to see red faces and stuttering and gulping but I won't .... I'll be watching something else anyway.



silliness here: read the post - ex conversation
http://caterwauls.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_archive.html
or here:
http://caterwauls.ca/new_page_13.htm

Windows Vista so far ....

My Toshiba M30 crashed. It lies dishevelled on the floor holding Windows XP SP1 in a death grip. Forceded me to buy a new HP Pavilion that came with Windows Vista SP1, 32 bit. I tried to find out what the big deal about Vista was before, and all anyone could tell me was the aero screen was great. Well it is. It's all the other stuff that's giving me trouble. So many problems that I doubt Bill Gates could handle this frustration!
It recognized my HP 960c printer right away. Wow. Then my Trekstor External Hard Drive. Great. My HP 3500c scanner. Nice. Then I started reloading software. Mostly it went right in. I was thrilled!
Then I started trying to recover files from my Trekstor Hard Drive with Nero BackItUp. I can see there is a back up there, made just 4 days before my crash. Windows Vista can't read it. And I can't just put two drives together and drag files between them like I did in XP. Someone changed that ability in Vista. My scanner won't work from the computer either, only the buttons.
But wait, I worked a photo on an Adobe drawing/photo program that I always use. Went to save it. Program disappeared completely. Yes, it does it every time. Another program just freezes everything. Can't even shut the puter down with Ctrl+Alt+Del! Have to pull the plug! Yet another just loops between start and open and start.
My printer prints way too dark now. Used to be perfect with XP. I've wasted a whole tree already trying to make it better. Vista has a wonderful screen look.
I had Media Player 9 in the XP system, it loaded and started to play a video in about 10 seconds. Vista just loads and loads ... and loads. It has Media Player 11.
Same video. I had 512 Mbs of RAM in the Toshiba, 3 Gbs are in the HP. Shouldn't it be way better?
I would say if you are considering a new computer with Vista installed, you add at least $500. to your budget to replace your existing software. Have some pills or liquor nearby too in case of frustration - which will start in the first 10 minutes.
So far I love the screen look, but it seems like that age old corporate problem, that these high paid technicians NEEDED to change things to show they were working, no matter how well things worked before.
I think I'll fiddle with the old Toshiba and see if I can get it going, just for the pleasure of killing it all over again, it caused me all this. Didn't it?
That screen is marvellous, especially with all these pills and liquor in me, I think I'll just stare at it a while longer, transfixed by these vistas.
Wake me when the new operating system comes out.