caterwauls

Sale Days

2012-01-19T13:28:00.005-08:00

I was browsing through a drugstore ad flyer last night.
They have so many good things in drugstores these days. Mostly women's stuff though. I saw a new product for girl's hair, called Bedhead. Something that musses your hair so you can match your guy's trendy Dumpsterhead I think. I wonder how the comb industry will fight back?
They had some strange groupings of sale products with special offers;
Like these women's briefs called Tena that come in a package. Of course they are made for any leakage that might be embarrassing for a gal. It happens as women grow into olderhood. As a matter of fact I can't tell my wife a joke unless she's already sitting on the toilet. She's afraid to laugh otherwise. But she rarely laughs at my feeble jokes anyway, especially when they're coming at her from under the bathroom door.
But the funny part is that you get a free six pack of Ensure when you buy the Tena briefs! Why can't men's briefs have a similar deal with a 6 of Bud? But then half a dozen beers would cause the leakage wouldn't they.
Another deal was NeoCitran and Buckleys, buy them both and they'll give you a whole CASE of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup! I assume to negate the infamous taste of the Buckleys, but a whole case? What if I buy like 8 or 10 of each? I could open a soup kitchen.

But the men's thing that really caught my eye was the ad for Trojan condoms. You can get several types; the Originals, called Magnum. Or the Bareskin, or the Ultra Sensitives. Great.
The images with these names are like, er, macho; "the 44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun .... Make my day, Punk .... Did I fire five shots? Or six?" You can feel the powerful Clint glint emanating maleness overwhelming that skinny punk girl with purple and orange hair. She's helplessly receptive to your Magnum.
And the name Bareskin conjures up a buff loin-clothed Tarzan grabbing the lusty Jane and swinging her off into the jungle sunset! Gawd! And Jane squirming and pretending to struggle and .... oops, sorry, got sidetracked.
Well, Sensitive Trojans kind of make me think of a poet guy named Seth who always wears a scarf and uses crying to get his sex. Not quite there for me, but guys will try anything. I guess it is macho in a reverse psychology kind of mode. She's sympathetic to your Sensitivity.

Yet this is the first time I have seen an ad for LARGE in condoms. Yes that's the actual name, in a big bold manguy font too. Now I can't say I know what a large size would cover, but it makes me curious. Bavarian Smokies are one thing, but those huge German bratwursts are another. Where's the division between hot dogs at the ball park and a Louisville Slugger?

I know as kids we blew up the regular sizes and had lots of fun with them, you could fill them almost full with water, and find a hill on a rainy day so you could bowl them down the center of the street and they'd go for miles on the wet pavement! And they would inflate to about the size of your thigh leg. You can probably write Der Hindenburg on this large size and fly them from a tether.
Large has so many connotations. Single guys could carry one when they go to a bar, inadvertently drop one by the table of those girls out for a night on the town. Of course your phone number is scribbled on the package. And keep a couple in your glove box in case of an emergency tire change, keep your hands clean with these rubber mittens. Take the pack out when crossing the border though or you'll be in for a strip search.
And when you buy this Large size, you don't step into the checkout lineup with hesitant stealth as usual, but wait for the cute cashier to open and slide them onto the counter face up, label readily read. L-A-R-G-E. Remember to seem embarrassed about your, um, disfigurement.

Well I am way past using condoms. And never had the need for porn star sizes anyway. But a Large size condom might be very good for keeping extra socks dry on a camping trip. Or maybe keeping your slippers on. You`d never slip. Or filling one with Cheerios and stuffing it down your pants, ala Mr. Softie. Yes a codpiece. Way better than a heavy potato down there, which can be embarrassing when it slips down and falls out your pantleg beside your shoe. Hey, don't look at me I am just guessing. I suppose I could try one, but on me it would seem like a groin goiter, nothing sexy about that. My wife wouldn't ask in a husky voice, "What is that?" pointing coyly with a pinky finger. She'd probably say, "OMG What happened? Did you slip off your bicycle seat?" You could use one to keep your tennis balls dry. But no one plays tennis in the rain.

So all these Trojans are considered safety precautions against disease and pregnancy. And Large is something to consider if you are amply endowed. Even if you are not you could 'enhance' the package with those Cheerios. They are on sale too and after all they are the 'Breakfast of Champions'.

But I am no longer a Champion because I am marking the Centrum vitamins, Tylenol ache and pain remedies and Imodium ads. Now that's what drug stores are for. Champion only means Gene Autry's horse to me. OMG there is a connotation in there too!
I see blood pressure monitors are on sale.
And one size fits all.

I'll be there on sale day.
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Liberal convention - Desperation

2012-01-15T12:35:00.015-08:00

The Federal Liberals are having a convention. They have made several resolutions, hoping to revive their almost defunct party. And even though they are very desperate for credibility, they still refuse to acknowledge the fact that their previous leaders are responsible for their present position at the bottom of every popularity poll in the country.

They have stunned the older people by voting to legalize marijuana, while at the same time, stunning the younger people and Quebeckers by voting to retain ties to the Monarchy. Are they confused or what?

Let's review what some Liberals did - - - Pierre Trudeau gave us a constitution that so far has served prisoners everywhere, freeing them from punishment for almost every crime possible. Illegal immigrants need only to get a toenail embedded into Canadian soil to get their due monthly money, set of pots and the same legal rights of all citizens. He married ex-Hippie Margaret and the Pierre-Sinclair show became the chagrin of the Canadian public. His Trudeaumania slid into Trudeauphobia.

John Turner, he allowed Trudeau to appoint his cronies into powerful positions even after taking the reins, was then caught on television patting the bottoms of Liberal Party President Iona Campagnolo and Vice-President Lise St. Martin-Tremblay. That told us all we needed to know about him. He ruled for 79 days and lost the election by a landslide, obviously without a single woman's vote! The old Hell hath no fury reaction.

Jean Chretien then took control, promised the GST would go and had a redbook full of other promises. He very sneakily refused to campaign in Quebec for Canada when the crucial separation vote was imminent! Spent 5.8 billion of OUR money on 30 year old helicopters, then doled out 100 million directly from his office to the Sponsorship Scandal participants without accountability. The rugs of our parliament have so much stuff swept under them that you need a Hummer to get over them!

Paul Martin then emerged. Mr. Dithers let the Canadian Military continue to scam him by allowing the purchase of 4 broken down British Submarines. Our Navy defended the billion dollar submarine program saying the boats were vital to the defence of Canada even though none were capable of firing torpedoes, submerging or even venturing out to sea! The crews would have to wear SKUBA gear inside them! They were only good if sunk for metal reefs to encourage colourful fish habitat. Paul Martin then stuttered his way into oblivion.

Stephane Dion, arrived all shiny and a citizen of France. It was bad enough to have a another staunch Quebecker wanting to run Canada who had been involved in the Quebec sovereignty movement but the trouble was no one could understand him even whether he spoke French OR English! He initiated something called the Green Shift, which some figured out was either shifting corporate taxes away from corporations and onto the public or just that green hairy stuff that grows on veggies in your fridge. Others thought it was the name of a lawn mowing company. But as no one could understand him in any language, it didn't work.

Michael Ignatieff then reappeared after having been beaten by Dion previously. The Liberals were like raccoons feeling around for frogs in a murky pond, and they refound Ignatieff, dredging him out of the mud! No one cared because he had not been living in Canada for 22 years and squinted when he addressed the media! It made us all wonder who ARE these Liberal leader pickers? Michael had 11 honorary doctorates, but I think Mike Tysen does too. Ignatieff hastily led the Liberals down the political drain and even lost his own seat and the party's status of official opposition! It was more like a toilet flushing! He was never going to live in Stornoway after Go-away was imposed on him by the voters.

So in 2011 the Liberal party had 18.9% of the popular vote. It's lowest ever and a far cry from Sir Wilfrid Laurier's 50.9% in 1904. But then there were only 39 people living in Canada then, and those Liberals probably wouldn't allow Indians or Chinese to vote.

Now here we are, new old Federal Liberals with scrubbed faces, full of hope and desperation at the same time, trying to connect somehow with everyone in the country. We are going to be able to smoke pot on the streets, (IF the Americans let us) and bow and curtsy to the Queen, which could be Camilla! And the new Party President promised to 'get right down to the nuts and bolts'.
Methinks the nuts are already there and the ones with any sense have bolted!

Although perhaps a few nuts have joined too? Marc-Boris St. Maurice, founder of the Marijuana Party became a Liberal in 2005 and joined. Blair Longley took over that party leadership and advocated marijuana smoking too and all he wanted if elected was a new bicycle. See, there are alternatives to the Big Machine parties. Perhaps Marc-Boris is at the bottom of these dramatics?

And the image of Trudeau won't disipate with his prostate-checking finger in the air and an echo of 'fug you' reverberating through the Canadian Shield. I don't know about you, but I have that same old creepy Crawley feeling I have always had about the Liberals.They truly earned the name Lieberals.

Light up, maybe it's okay now.

But don't forget to curtsy.

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Northern Gateway Pipeline

2012-01-09T11:45:00.015-08:00

Today talks are starting in Kitimat about the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. So far over 4000 people have signed up to talk about this proposal.
The deal would construct a duel pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands oil production facility, through Alberta, across the Rockies, through British Columbia, to Kitimat BC. There the oil would be pumped onto oil tankers and sent to China.

You need to know here that Kitimat is NOT a coastal port, it is miles inland through narrow channels.

Follow the line on the map to see what route these huge oil tankers will have to take through BC's coastal waters.
This is a pristine area, full of narrow fjords, majestic mountains, water-edge forests and serene waterways where the fishing is excellent and with humpback whales, wild salmon, sea otters, eagles and many other species of wildlife.

You can see for yourself on Google Earth, a free program if you don't already have it.

click to enlarge
Check out more of the pictures there too, taken by travelers and boaters in the area.

And what are the benefits of this potential disaster to British Columbians? A FEW jobs during construction and little afterward. Alberta and their foreign investors will just get richer.

Some people are suggesting it is yet another sell out of our raw resources. The Chinese are heavily invested in the Alberta Tar Sands and want our oil. Some are asking why we Canadians cannot build our own refinery and get the huge and enduring profits for ourselves, instead of shipping our crude to Texas OR China and having to buy back the gasoline.

Will we allow foreign interests once again to threaten us with an oil spill that would be catastrophic for the north of BC? We continue to ask why hasn't the Exxon Corporation paid the fines and costs of their 1989 oil spill when the Exxon Valdez defiled a pristine area of Alaska? And after all these years they are still tying it up in courts, appealing everything, making a mockery of the system and thumbing their noses at the people affected. Exxon has a $287 million damage claim and a $5 billion punitive damage claim and lowered it to 25 million which Exxon refuses to pay! Merely a few hours profit for them.
This is what you can expect in BC when they spill here. And the area is accessible ONLY by boat or plane, there are no roads. Would the area ever be recovered or become a no go like Chernobyl?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

And meanwhile, why do so many people believe that BP has NOT got the Gulf oil spill under control even now? You saw that arrogance of the BP executives defying even the President of the United States! What about the Gulf dead zone? Why was BP allowed to keep everyone away (including the US Navy) from their damaged oil rigs and go on drilling more?
The potential of another environmental disaster is imminent. Right here at home in British Columbia. People need to be aware of this, and many are even questioning the polls which have even been carefully worded to diffuse the truth of the situation.

Do you want to take a chance on spoiling this perfect inland waterway for the benefit of Alberta and China?

It is not just now, folks, it is forever.

Inside Passage, BC - by jiangliu - Google Earth

How to bankrupt China

2011-11-07T07:41:00.001-08:00

Stop shopping at WalMart until they have to close all their stores.
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What did they expect?

2011-10-16T11:35:00.009-07:00

The spread of the 'Occupy Wall Street' mentality is growing.
How long it grows or how far it goes is anyone's guess. But the fact that people are organizing at all in such a way as having street protests is ominous for the powers that be. Because the people marching and occupying are not the usual black-masked vandals who frequent every protest, they are ordinary people who want to make it known that they are dissatisfied with the status quo. So the way things have been going one can only ask, what did they expect?
A recent poll showed that the general public thinks these protests will do no good by about 60%. Yet the movement is expanding. The Middle East, Africa, Europe, South and North America are having spontaneous demonstrations. Corporate greed and government corruption seem to be the igniting factors.

We are told that 99% of the world's wealth is held by 1% of the people. And those people who are supposedly in charge, are only looking out for themselves. And flaunting their power and position in an unequal world. We ARE one step away from anarchy.
The worst thing in the world next to anarchy is government. — Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887); American preacher, speaker, and writer.

And yet there are those who believe that anarchy is an important step in the forward movement by governments towards the so called New World Order. And these people with that agenda relish the prospect of bringing order to the unruly crowds, but need to allow that populace to become unruly first. Some even predict Martial Law in America within the next 3 years!

Yes, and what did these powerful and influential one percent expect?
Today corporations run the governments. So called Free Trade Agreements stopped a small town in Mexico from preventing the dumping of American nuclear waste in their region. It over-ruled the Mexican government and the people's health concerns. And the WTO riots show that people are catching on to the deception. Freedom and democracy is suspended by trade agreements!

Some believe that the US Government Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has hired pharmaceutical executives to run it. With drugs being approved because they will aid huge profits! Listen to those ads on CNN for drugs and their side effects! An extensive study published in the reputable Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that 106,000 people die each year in American hospitals from medication side effects! Warner-Lambert, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and many others have all been involved in lawsuits exposing their practices in selling drugs. Yet it goes on and on.

Monsanto is deciding which genetically manipulated Frankenfoods you will eat, after bullying farmers in the USA and South America for years! Even charging them and putting them out of business because their seeds blew into the farm property! Can growth hormones and chemical additives harm the human species? The fish farms are about to start 'manufacturing' a genetically engineered salmon fish four times larger than normal! People subjected to these growth hormones for years in their food in America are beginning to produce huge abnormal children!

Is the British Petroleum oil rig still spilling crude into the Gulf? Many think they are and we have no way of looking at it because the BP Corporation will not let anyone near it! The US Navy should have taken charge of that whole disaster! Yet the oil company can shield its operations from scrutiny, even after been caught lying! It is being rumored right now that the Gulf Stream which warms Western Europe is no longer flowing north and across the Atlantic, and that the 'dead spot' in the Gulf of Mexico is growing exponentially!
And did you know that Exxon has still not paid the fines imposed on them in their spill of 1989! Inspite of billion dollar profits every year! Who allows these transgressions? The powers that be.

The Enron scandal case was coincidentally ended when World Trade Center Building 7 conveniently fell down and all the FBI investigative evidence was contained in that building. The Bush family allowed certain Saudis to fly out of America DURING the evening of the 9/11 disaster, when everything else was grounded and Saudis were already suspect in the event! And Dick Cheney and his connections with Haliburton are hardly talked about. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency used Blackwater private troops to deter desperate people at gunpoint trying to flee to safety during the Hurricane Katrina flood aftermath instead of helping them.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave contributions to lawmakers sitting on committees that primarily regulate their industry! The House Financial Services Committee; the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee; or the Senate Finance Committee. Others have seats on the powerful Appropriations or Ways & Means committees or are members of the congressional leadership or have even run for president. While common people lost their dreams. No one has ever been charged in those cases!
Automobile companies who received tax payer's dollars as a bail out, arrogantly still gave their incompetent executives who put them in the position of NEEDING a bailout still got huge million dollar bonuses, spitting in the people's faces!
Banks can show a billion dollars profit per QUARTER with virtually NO research or developement of anything but ways to take cash out of your pocket! And no one ever criticizes these insolent executives, calling them instead 'job providers' and other nonsensical catch words. The Federal Reserve in America duped the public for years into thinking they were an arm of the American government looking after you, and instead were nothing but a private financial business insuring their own profits.

The CIA are suspected of fostering the growth of the heroin industry in Afghanistan and elsewhere in South East Asia! For secret profits! While brave young men are killed while thinking they are helping their country! People believe that the NSA, National Security Agency is involved with a secret agenda , and they no longer trust their local police. Instead fear them. Drug dealers work with impunity on our street corners. The criminality in cities is rampant and separating law abiding citizens from their own communities.
Drug cartels are in the midst of actually taking over the whole of Mexico! Columbian cocain continues year after year to flow steadily into the North America.

Your media reports on little of significance. You listen to cat and dog stories every night at 6 while the important events are allowed to pass into oblivion because certain people close to political contacts control almost the whole of media today. In Iraq, there have been over 100 independent war corespondents and reporters killed since troops went there. While 'embedded' reporters tell you what they are told to tell you! Who is killing these free reporters from Rueters and other respected news sources? Someone who doesn't want them telling you what is happening. An insidious suppression of truth.

So again, what did these arrogant manipulating people in power expect?
They were charged with the duty of protecting a way of life. With running corporations with ethics, and governments with honesty. And they have failed miserably. We see that the pendulum of democracy has swung way wide of the mark.
The protests are now worldwide. Against corporations, organizations and governments that have no regard for people and their families. The public feels helpless. All they can do is protest, peacefully at first, but when unheard and frustrated, and feeling helpless and looking at a bleak future, they begin busting things. It is fear of the future. It is hope being extinguished. And the busting might be the democracy everyone talks about as being so much better than anything else.
Yet if that democracy is seen by the 99% as serving only the one percent .... Are you still angry at WikiLeaks?

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” ― Margaret Mead

Just what did they expect?
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Second thoughts - - - it seems the Vancouver 'protesters' are not knowledgeable about the worldwide efforts by others to bring attention to government corruptions and corporate greed. The Vancouver people now occupying the Art Gallery lawns with pitched tents, when interviewed by news media, seem to have a misunderstanding of why they are there, and put forth a rhetoric that betrays them as the same old protesters who turn out to any event. These people, legitimately or not, are turned off by society but make no effort to work at solving problems except to cry about not getting anything. It is a sad situation here as opposed to people around the world who have deep concern about what we wrote about above. Time for them to be removed.

Two new websites to attack

2011-10-15T10:18:00.001-07:00

The choice is yours - - -

www.canttrustcummins.ca - The site that goes along with the radio attacks ads against John Cummins, leader of the BC Conservatives. - asking for donations - implemented by the BC Liberal Party.

www.canttrustclark.blogspot.com - The site that attacks the attack ad and Christy Clark, leader of the BC Liberal Party - not asking for donations - implemented by unknown.

Expect more.
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Fire the Vancouver Police!

2011-09-28T16:23:00.007-07:00

I never thought I'd say this, because I think Chief Jim Chu is a nice man, but he is in way over his head and needs to be fired. And all those policemen who are now in Indianapolis analyzing footage of the rioters need to be brought back to Vancouver and put on desk duty. This is not a holiday! What is next? Quantico for FBI profiling?

WE ALREADY KNOW WHO THEY ARE!

It is becoming obvious that something is up, and the Vancouver Police have no idea about how to do their job, nor do the prosecutors, nor does Vancouver Mayor Robertson, nor does the Premier of the Province, Christy Clark. She doesn't want to interfere with justice? Ask her how Gordon Campbell was able to actually STOP a trial when he was about to be implicated. (never mind, that's the old BC Rail scandal again)

It is almost like the Vancouver Police and everyone in a position of authority are trying desperately to avoid charging that doctor's son who turned himself in the next day! And maybe by outwaiting the public they will be able to lose him in the shuffle somewhere!

There seems to be no reason to study more footage of the rioters except to ID new people discovered to be rioting or looting. Going off to some American facility to enhance whatever pictures they have will only allow the lawyers for the perps to cry photoshop, loud and clear and deny the images as tainted evidence!

What about the rioters who have already admitted guilt? Why are they not even in jail yet! Instead of telling us you will arrest 40 people on October 31st, why not do the Hallowe'en trick right now and arrest them right now! Then another 40 on the 15th. Then another 40 on the 31st! These perps need to start paying their lawyers NOW! And if their daddys are rich doctors too bad.

The Vancouver police now want the media footage too, and the media will probably resist and there goes more wasted time.

There is a famous picture by a young photographer of thousands of fans before the riot. It is going around as an email and is ultra high resolution. It could be used to ID many of those creeps by comparing them before and during their malicious actions!

When you have 40 people who have already come forward and admitted guilt, you need to get on with sentencing them. And harshly! The Mayor needs to demand it and Christy Clark needs to stop politicking against the NDP and do something that shows she has some faint idea of what a premier of the province should be doing when the law abiding people have been kicked in the face by the slag!

This lag does nothing to enhance the idea of law and justice, and it is the law and justice who are denigrating themselves. It is like the police, the mayor and the premier are all hoping they can squeeze out of a dilemma by lingering on the sidelines and blaming someone else.

People need to be fired. Now. Start with Jim Chu. Go on to Mayor Robertson,. Finish off with Christy Clark. These three need to be fired. Vancouver and BC will be better for the riddance of all these ineffectual people.
Then we need to build a fire under the asses of the perps and not be satisfied with bitch-slapping them!

The people of BC and Vancouver deserve way better than what they've got!

Where is Mathew Begbie when we need him?

Snitch ads

2011-09-20T12:29:00.001-07:00

This is ominous.
Radio ads are now playing a new advertisement. By Business Alliance Software. Asking you to call in or go to a website and report your company or neighbor or someone you know who might be using pirated software.
The page you go to has a complete form for you to fill in, should you suspect someone is using pirated software. You add your detailed report, and can even chat online with an agent regarding pirated software. All this in complete privacy! Even secrecy.
Wow, it worked in East Berlin and Russia, no reason it won't work here in America and Canada. Of course they say your name will be confidential unless required by law. And yes, all court cases would require the name of the individual who started the action as evidence and yes all court case evidence becomes public information by law. But that's small print stuff.

This is exactly like what the Recording Industry of America did, when they enacted their actions on behalf of Metallica, regarding downloads of music. And today every single person in North America pays more for their recording tapes and recordable CDs because they've branded us all as midnight downloading criminals! And who gets that money? Exactly.

Well of course you want to be a good citizen and stop the millions of dollars of lost revenue to software companies. Good. And besides, you get a reward!

But is this the start of something bigger and even more ominous? We'll leave it to facebook to continue gathering cross referencing material for the CIA. But how long will it be before other private agencies begin to gather detailed information from people about other things? Suspicious things. Ba-ad things.

Do you suspect your neighbor is selling his garden tomatoes without reporting the income as taxable?
Is your other neighbor golfing when he's supposed to be sick on compo?
Does your nasty sister-in-law get all those pencils from her office job?
How did that WallMart guy up the street manage to afford a BMW?
Are those guys hanging around the coffee shop espresso dealers?
What are those Elks Club men really doing in their meetings?
Is your 40 year old unmarried brother-in-law a closet gay?
Did Grandma really win all that money playing Rumoli?

Perhaps these are all people and events that need reporting and investigation. Why should they get away with murder? Or tomatoes even. Will there be more websites set-up for people to snitch on their friends, neighbors and bosses?
Guaranteeing your privacy consequently transmits anonymous power to you if you are in a position to witness the results.
Can you actually make the Stazi appear with Kalishnikovs drawn to drag away the guy across the street at 4 am because he can't account for those BBQ steaks? Screaming in terror while you peek from behind your curtains?
Will there be a proliferation of tattle-tale sites?

Call the Neighbor-did-it hotline today!
Fill out the form at PencilsAreProfits.com.
Send an email to ClosetmenAren'tMinutemen.org.
reportCasinoCardCountingGrandmas.com.
FinksAnonymous.com

All with confidentiality. Be a good citizen, report those misdeeds and miscreants.

The reward mentioned is paid by Business Software Alliance, (BSA) 'IF BSA proceeds with an investigation and IF it leads directly to to a successful prosecution and IF it results in a monetary settlement from the accused and IF the requirements have been met, then you will be CONSIDERED for a reward IF you filled out a separate form and ASKED to be included and IF you are not violating an employment contract and IF you supply that contract to BSA and IF you agree that you have no right to contest BSA's sole determination and after all this, BSA reserves the right to determine the amount of your (potential) reward! '

Whew, that small print was small!

Oh wait, there's more - - - BSA reserves its right to deny the payment of a Reward or to revoke the Reward Program at any time, without notice, for any reason.
Whew again. And oh yes, it's taxable so they need your Social insurance number.

Maybe BSA has become the wikileaks of software piracy.
What the hell, report the bastard anyway, you want to see him in fear don't you? Shhhh!

https://reporting.bsa.org/r/report/add.aspx?src=us
http://wikileaks.org/

Politiclly Correct Riot

2011-09-12T08:19:00.002-07:00

So in this aftermath of the Vancouver Riots we are getting every conceivable fix from every conceivable source. And a lot of feeble excuses thrown in like pepper in a sauce.

Police chief Jim Chu says maybe we weren't quite prepared but it's not his fault. Mayor Robertson says it's not his fault. Madam Premier Clark says we'll get them and then goes into hiding. Blame the Canucks for losing! Blame the police for not controlling the situation. Blame Transit for allowing people into Vancouver! Blame anyone else.

The solutions are endless and ridiculous! Don't sell alcohol. Stop people from arriving into Vancouver. Stop the Skytrain from running. Block the roads. Don't allow planes to land. Hire thousands more police. Get water canons. Rubber bullets. Real bullets! Close liquor stores. Close Red Bull stores. Build more community centers. Start Riot Education Programs in Kindergarten. Give them free hot dogs and cocoa. What else?

Whatever they do, while we wait for whatever consequences are going to happen. We still see those violent images of the event in progress. Fires, fights, looting, cars afire, fires in buidings, cars tipped over, window smashing, robbing, brazen youth taunting, even fighting with police, drunks drunks drunks etc etc etc.

This is what I see which leads to my solution - - -
I watched on TV as lines of policemen with helmets and face shields, Billy clubs and plexiglass body shields stood in their line and only watched as rowdy youth threw beer cans, junk, sticks and stones and even wooden pallets at them. Occassionally a policeman would lash out with his Billy club and swipe at the THIGHS of the attacker.
How nice of our police to be so gentle with rioters.

I thought at the time that if I was a policeman in that line, I would only last ONE riot and probably be fired. I wanted to see the police go right after the taunter, smack him with the Billy club IN THE HEAD! Send him down and out, full of blood, and then cuff him right there, legs and hands. Throw him in jail and conveniently forget about him for say, 96 hours. I KNOW they cannot legally do that. So bite me! You cannot legally riot either!

Did you know what Krazy Glue was invented for in Japan? The Japanese police would collar a rioter, put the glue on both palms, pull him around a lamp pole, slap his hands together and leave him there, to be picked up later! Now that is action.

Yes, I am aware of the lawsuit idea against the police. In many cases sponsored by an indignant daddy's money! Not MY son, they say! But if the people who are charged take months to come to court, then let the perps who think they're mistreated sue us and then WE make sure THOSE cases go on the back burner for years. Decades.

If the police are going to stand and take it, then they will suffer the results, which translates to the law abiding people of Vancouver. A riot situation is serious and requires extreme action with dire consequences. Jim Chu said they couldn't act because innocent people were standing around watching? What? Would they do that in Bagdad or Kabul? If you are innocent get the hell out of there or face the results!

I do believe that while I watched our Gentlemen Police Force in action (if action is the correct word) others with an interest in the potential 'fun' of rioting watched also, saw the feeble efforts of our police and decided to go with the flow. And those images are having a lasting effect that you CAN riot and nothing much will happen.

Too bad it is coming true, but Gentleman Jim Chu, needs to put his job on the line and become Genghis Jim Chu.
No fighting, no burning, no taunting, no shit or you get what's coming to you.

It is sad to say, but yes, add this to the gang killings on our streets every month, and Vancouver is becoming a lawless city.

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Good morning .... in 5 seconds.

2011-08-07T14:06:00.007-07:00

Good Morning America viewers should never have been allowed to see Nicki Minaj's exposed nipple, an enraged campaign group has argued. The singer suffered the 'wardrobe malfunction' while performing as part of the US breakfast TV show's Summer Concert Series on Friday, August 5. The incident has already become a big hit on YouTube, although full clips of the exposure are routinely being taken down by the video sharing site. (don't go looking, it's not the point of this article)

However, the Parents Television Council has argued that the racy footage (their words) should never even have made it to air, as the program could have used a five-second delay to prevent such problems.

Hmm. I wonder how many children are actually watching or paying attention to their mother's choice of morning TV shows? Do four-year-olds tune in to Regis and the grotesquely skinny Kelly for morning chatter? Six-year-olds to Good Morning America? Other breakfast news shows?
Whatever happened to TelaTubbies? Ninja Turtles? Winnie the Pooh? Donald Duck has paraded around in front of children for decades without any pants on! Where is the Parents Television Council on that one?
Did Janet Jackson really offend anyone with her flash at a Superbowl game? Does someone on the PTC actually WATCH the NFL or did someone tell them later to be offended? Does anyone on this Parents Television Council ever go to MTV and see the daily T&A show there? Or to the National Gallery of virtually any country?

Hmm again. I wonder how many of these offended people are in the rallying crowd defending a woman's right to breast feed her child at the mall or anywhere anytime? And yelling that breasts are NOT sexual. It seems to me that 'racy' footage is what is supposed to be racy, like Red Shoe Diaries, not a simple slip during a quaking musical performance.
Too bad there are so many people who find the live human body so offensive but don't mind watching the dead ones in morning news war footage, oblivious to the impact on their children.

Methinks that Nicki Minaj and her nipple would go right past the attention of a preschool child, and other modern children, the demographic of her fans, would just ignore it anyway. Maybe the PTC needs to concentrate on childrens' beauty pageants instead? Now there is something disgusting!
But then if you can't find enough to complain about, you're unlikely to get more money for more complaints. Councils need to perpetuate themselves, don't they?
And in those 5 seconds, Nicki got 5 miles of publicity!

Meanwhile, here's a few lines from the Supergirl of Hip Hop:

I remember when I couldn't buy my mother a couch
Now I'm sittin' at the closin' bought my mother a house
You could never understand why I grind like I do .....

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The Divine Miss M

2011-07-30T09:16:00.005-07:00

Lady Gaga, who some say has doubtful talent, steals Bette Midler's wheelchair routine?

She already copied Madonna's Express Yourself with her Born this Way. She can't seem to meat up with any originality! After leaking the lyrics on her Twitter account, Gaga debuted the single. And while 'Born This Way' remained a trending topic on Twitter all that morning – another began trending as well: 'Express Yourself,' as in Madonna's 1989 Top 10 hit. By late morning, 'Express Yourself' had become more popular than 'Born This Way' on Twitter, with fans and foes alike comparing the songs.] You can watch the Madonna hit here - http://caterwauls.ca/MadonnaPage.htm

So now Lady Gaga has arrived on stage in Sydney, Australia in a wheelchair ala Grammy winner Midler. Did she think she was far enough away that no one would notice? But we all know the Divine Miss M has her own original style, and some would think that her wheelchair routine as mermaid Delores Delago should be untouchable as a signature character!

There was plenty of controversy to go around after Lady Gaga's show in Sydney. Aussies threw eggs at the singer (sic) as she left a bar, (perhaps they thought she was wearing ham?) and activists were enraged when she came onstage in a wheelchair dressed as a mermaid character. ? Is there a 'Legs for Mermaids' movement somewhere? Only in OZ.
It is interesting to note that the first mermaids, spied by starved sailors at sea, were actually dugongs!

Midler, our Lady of the Perpetual Smile, was critical of the Gaga at first, tweeting the message that she had been performing her mermaid character since 1980 - ‘You can keep the meat dress and the firecracker tits - mermaid's mine'.
Then being the classy Babe she is, said it was okay.

Did Lady Gaga think 1999 and 1980 were so far in the distant past for people to remember the originals? Hmm. I suppose her fans weren't born yet so what would they know?

What's next? Maybe she needs to go back further, no one would remember Judy Garland's Over the Rainbow. (1939) Would she do it dressed as the Tin Man, not knowing anything about the original. If that isn't a signature song I don't know what is.

Alas, maybe it is time for me to move on, I just remember too much.

One thing she cannot steal, The Divine Miss M's routine, 'Pretty Legs and Great Big Knockers' fans have been going gaga over that for a long time. And the Lady is unfortunately missing in those attributes.

Pretty legs and great big knockers will always be Bette Midler!
You can't steal that kind of talent.

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Wife arrested - penis in garbage disposal

2011-07-19T08:59:00.004-07:00

In Garden Grove, California, a wife (allegedly) fed her husband drugged food, tied him naked to a bed, cut off his penis and threw it into the garbage disposal! My gawd, haven't they heard of a safe word? Everyone involved in kink knows that. The police found him bleeding profusely, still tied. And most likely crying.
This woman had a powerful hate on for her estranged husband. And kitchen knives are usually dull. Go look at your butter knife!

At least Lorena Bobbitt just tossed it out the car window. In that case the police went searching along Lorena's route and found it, lying there all innocent and meek having been nearly run over by a cement truck, crows on the overhead wires looking down. They asked one lady if she had seen a penis and she said yes, she had, her uncle's in the shower when she was nine.
They reattached that one.

In this case they didn't say whether a plumber was called to open the sink trap. But they might not have been able to distinguish the remains from the rutabaga she had peeled earlier.
They allege Catherine Kieu Becker drugged the meal and served it to her estranged husband shortly before the attack.
The 51-year-old man felt sick, went to lie down and lost consciousness. The victim's arms and legs were tied to the bed with rope, (not silk rope either) his clothes removed and he was attacked with the kitchen knife as he awoke. All that holding and sawing, of course he awoke! They said he was conscious when his penis was removed. Like really. Would he doze off?
It was tossed into the running garbage disposal. No thoughts whatsoever of the recycle bin.

You men stop shuddering like that! And you women stop chuckling! It used to be the wife took us for the house, the car and the children, but this? I now cringe when my wife throws a rotton old banana into the disposal.

Ms Becker may be charged with - aggravated mayhem, false imprisonment, assault with a deadly weapon, administering a drug with intent to commit a felony, poisoning and spousal abuse. Bail was set at $1 million. Is that all?
When contacted the victim only said. "This is a private matter."
Well it is not private at all, there is now post-traumatic-stress among husbands everywhere thinking of their own treasured privates!
My wife just made cookies. Chocolate chip, my favorite, good stuff, but now I have to call her into the room, have her stand there in front of me and look into her eyes as I eat one! Watching for any sign of deceit or subterfuge ...... or sparkle. I thought of getting a witness but then I'd have to share the cookies.
Our relationship is strained at the moment because she caught me switching dinner plates. I have PTSD already.

Lorena Bobbitt claimed years of sexual abuse drove her to the attack, and she was acquitted by reason of insanity. Who knows what defense Catherine Kieu Becker's lawyers will choose, the Extrapolated Penis Envy defense? Kink gone Krazy defense? Weiner Rage defense? Not sure but we need to keep this quiet. No sense giving women ideas. You have no idea how many females grinned with empathy for Lorena Bobbitt.

But starting right now I will only eat my wife's cookies in a crowded public place with my phone on speed dial to an ambulance.
Private matter indeed.
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USA Construction vs Canada Construction

2011-07-17T13:11:00.006-07:00

Today the Mayor of Los Angeles announced that the 405 Freeway, which was dubbed Carmageddon would reopen at noon, 17 hours early.
Mayor Villaraigosa said the 53-hour timetable for the project was agreed upon by contractors, transportation and public safety officials. He thanked Los Angeles residents for heeding public officials’ calls to stay off area freeways.
The shortened closure "goes to show what we all can do when we get together for a common cause," Villaraigosa said, “A lot of people in Los Angeles have learned you can get along without taking long rides in your car on the weekend, we avoided a traffic nightmare.”
No major incidents were reported during the closure of the 10-mile stretch of freeway.
Villaraigosa credited contractors with completing work ahead of schedule. By finishing early, the project was saved the $700,000 cost of an added 12-hour shift, the mayor said.
Of that money, $300,000 was promised to contractors as an incentive to finish early. There was also a powerful disincentive for contractors to delay: Had they finished late, they would have been docked $6,000 every 10 minutes for each side of the freeway that was still closed.
Folks, the American contractors moved in at Midnight Friday to do this job which entailed tearing down overpasses and widening and repaving the whole highway!

Hmm. In Canada they would have announced on Monday that the freeway might remain closed for the foreseeable future, due to coffee breaks, holiday scheduling, bickering between municipalities, and that Joe the foreman lost his hard hat and can't find it. Possible completion would likely be set for Christmas shopping or Easter of 2013.
Further complications might be added because of non Christian groups protesting the Christmas and Easter dates being used.
And the cost over-runs would have amounted to a third billion dollars being added to taxpayers property assessments to go along with the user fees which would have already risen from the 25 dollars per mile because of wage demands of the toll takers and the cost of the special photo radar camera transponders needed to keep track of drivers and their speeds.
The Canadian contractors would be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of having construction work well into the decade and would have set up extra billing departments to keep the Government cheques coming in, anticipating penalties against the cities for late payments at a cost of 10,000 dollars per hour.
When and if the freeway finally opened again, there would be stretches where work was still going on or parts that needed repair because of uneven paving or potholes or heavy equipment still parked in traffic lanes. There would be one particularly bad bump where they had paved over Foreman Joe's hard hat.
Police would be disappointed in their take because speeds over 22 miles per hour, (35.40557 Kilograms per hour for our American friends) were impossible to attain.
Translink would announce a rethink of the design from blacktop to concrete to plastic, all of which would cost taxpayers at least one more room of their houses.
And the new mayors would all deny any responsibility for the catastrophe, since dubbed Apocarlypse Now.

Americans know how to do stuff.
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Go Canucks ... Gone?

2011-06-18T09:38:00.005-07:00

They lost. Terrible disappointment. Riots in the city. Depression all around.
The Vancouver Canucks lost in the final game of the final series of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Only one thing to do .....

Start cheering for the Toronto Maple Leafs, they will NEVER lose in the Stanley Cup finals!

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Psychological hockey

2011-06-07T08:04:00.006-07:00

Well the 'hit' changed a lot of things. It woke up the Bruins. It changed Aaron Rome's reputation. It remains an example of the North American style of play; If you have your head down you are fair game for a death blow. This is inbred into some Canadian and American players from Junior days. Like a macho thing to show that hockey players are tough. It is the remnants of the old style brutal game of intimidation where the hit in the corner has nothing to do with getting the puck. Sort of like the mentality of a pickup truck driver that thinks running you down in the street because you're not in the crosswalk is legal.

The 'hit' could have caused a psychological turning point and we mightn't win another game. But, at the same time, the humiliation of the Canucks by the Bruins could be a counter for the hit. Head game against head game. In a negative way. So it could be that all things are now equal again.
But I still have a bad feeling that we are done because the Canucks have an inability to inflict equal damage. We just haven't had to play that way. Probably a result of the schedule inbreeding. One reason for this foreboding sense is that if there is a repeat of a goalie shelling, and the Canucks are being overwhelmed, Vignault will wait until the game is out of reach to pull Roberto Luongo.

I am one who has criticised Luongo since day one, deeming him a good goalie at best, However, in the first two games against Boston Luongo played his best ever as a Canuck. I am not sure he can reach that high again. Tim Thomas is the leagues best goalie. Roberto is not even close. By the way, it seems to me that there was a rule once that goalies cannot check because of their equipment. So wasn't that a penalty? Thomas was leaving the puck to hurt a Sedin. Shouldn't the NHL clarify if goalies can check? And if so can we check them back?

I hate to say it but I think the series is over because the Bruins have cross-checking, slashing, fighting etc as part of their Eastern game and the refs accept it. The Broad Street Bullies in Boston. Most of the eastern teams play this old game.
Since the Swedes and Czechs and Finns brought their hockey skills to the NHL, the old Don Cherry style rock 'en sock 'em hockey has been losing. Now it seems we might be headed for a return to that brutal game.
It basically depends on what NBC wants to promote. They will dictate their needs. And a skill game of speed and beauty will not draw viewers like MMA on ice will. Blood trumps stick handling. The Sedins are targets now and to protect them we would just get our players thrown out. The conspiracy theory deepens.

Just watch the cross checks with intent to injure around the Bruins' net, with the ref watching every one. Gretsky had Semenko and McSorley. Jean Belliveau had John Fergusen. Crosby had Georges Laraque. We even had Donald Brashear and Gino Odjig.
Boston has purposely worked in this direction, as GM Peter Chiarelli admits here -
Bruins embrace tough guy image

The trend after this series will be to go back to the old style clutch and grab rasslin hockey of the 70s and each team will once again have a resident goon to protect the stars. If Crosby got the abuse that the Sedins get the opposing players would all be constantly penalized. Or beaten. Not so in these games. The league is after the head shots but losing sight of the rest of the brutality of the game.

I was hoping hockey was going in the right direction to show off the speed, skill and finesse but I think not. I think the psychology of the game is regressing.

I wonder if Dave Semenko is available? Can you imagine the line? Sedin - Sedin - Semenko.
Reprisal on ice.

Go Canucks go anyway.
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This Boston Bruins Fan is GREAT!

2011-06-04T09:52:00.001-07:00

Feel Good Video

2011-05-18T07:54:00.001-07:00

It's not all doom and gloom.

The Liberal NOTs

2011-05-17T23:13:00.002-07:00

The BC Liberals are tired of being BC Liberals.

They are seeking a new name. Something catchy that will fool you into believing they are not the same old faces that pulled all those tricks and cheats on you. They want to present new images.

So they don't want you to see those same old faces of deception that you're so familiar with.
Gives new meaning to the term bagmen, doesn't it?
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In case you didn't get the email ....

2011-05-04T09:00:00.008-07:00

that is going around right now .... and have cash in your pocket .... and you feel you want to help the less fortunate .... and are looking for a respectable charity to donate to .... here are a few numbers to look at.
Of major charities, a few of the salaries and perks to the bosses;

UNICEF - The CEO, receives $1,200,000 per year, plus a Rolls Royce for his exclusive use where ever he goes, and an expense account that is rumored to be well over $150,000. Only pennies from the actual donations goes to the UNICEF cause, less than $0.14 per dollar of income.
YOU give a dollar, the charity actually only gets fourteen cents for whomever those poor people are!
Unicef has been on top of this list for 11 years!

The American Red Cross - President and CEO Marsha J. Evans, took a salary for the year ending in 2009 of $651,957 plus expenses. She also enjoys 6 weeks fully paid holidays including all related expenses during the holiday trip for her husband and kids. including 100% fully paid health and dental plan for her and her family. .... for life. This means out of every dollar they bring in, about $0.39 goes to related charity causes.
That was 39 CENTS!

The United Way - The third worst offender for the 7th time was President Brian Gallagher's charity, who receives a $375,000 base salary, plus so many numerous expense benefits it's hard to keep track as to what it is all worth, including a fully paid lifetime membership for 2 golf courses in Canada and the U.S.A., 2 luxury vehicles, a yacht club membership, 3 major company gold credit cards for his personal expenses etc ad nauseum.
This equates to about $0.51 per dollar of income that actually gets to charity causes.

World Vision - President (Canada) receives $300,000 base salary, plus is supplied an 800 hundred thousand dollar home, completely furnished, paid all housing expenses, including taxes, water/sewer, telephone/fax, HD/high speed cable, weekly maid service and pool/yard maintenance, fully paid private schooling for his children, upscale automobile and an $55,000 personal expense account for clothing/food, with a $125,000 business expense account.
And consider this, because it is a "religious based" charity, it pays little to no taxes, can receive government assistance and does not have to declare were the money goes! Only about $0.52 of earned income per dollar is available for charity causes. The goodness of your dollars toward this charity is in jeopardy.

Disheartening isn't it? No .... more like appalling!
You feel benevolent but your money disappears into a system of administration. And administrators.
But you want to help that scraggly guy shuffling out of the lane with his shopping cart, with all his possessions crammed in or brimming over. He, (or SHE*) is only trying to survive one more day, they don't see ahead further than that. It's not about holidays or cars or stock options. Just food and survival.
Keep in mind that if you give him five bucks, 100% of that cash goes to HIM. He will administer your donation far better than a cool CEO will.

And if your resistant answer is that he'll spend the money on drugs or booze, ask yourself what the above CEOs will be spending YOUR hard earned dollars on?
Share.

But there IS a kicker to this post. Not all is lost. Here's one more charity that wants your money ....

The Salvation Army - Commissioner Todd Bassett received a salary of only $13,000 per year (plus housing) for managing this $2 Billion dollar organization. Which means about $0.93 per dollar earned, is readily available and goes back out to local charity causes. Ninety-three cents of every dollar you give to the Sally-Anne. Ninety-three cents!
So don't get angry at those tinkling bells at Christmas time any more, and drop a few bucks into that red pot. You WILL be doing some good for the less fortunate.

So if you didn't get that email going around, now you know. This is my email to everyone. It's not spam, it'll be here, you cannot delete it. It is a shameful sad truth about where your compassionate money goes.
Yes they have cherry picked the organizations. Yes the figures may be disputable and they may be somewhat outdated or skewed, but the facts remain that charities are capable of eating up almost the whole total of your kind donation long before any help reaches the country, street or person whom your gesture was meant for.
So give where it counts, and don't wait till Christmas, do some good for your own soul now.

Have a closer look here at Charity Navigator -
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=studies.ceo
(one of the fun items on this site is the page on the salaries of the relatives of CEOs of charitable organizations)

In Vancouver - Union Gospel Mission - http://www.ugm.ca/

* the percentage of women of homelessness is estimated at anywhere from 15 to 30 percent. And the studies available are way outdated.
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Model controversy rises again

2011-04-18T11:13:00.007-07:00

At a time when teen suicides are on the rise. And damaged psyches are blamed. And self image is a huge reason for teenaged girls to be in a depression about their direction in life. And their position in various social standings may be in doubt in their own minds. The idea of ultra skinny models has always been held as a major factor in a teenaged girl's body image.

And along comes The Bay with an ad featuring a frighteningly thin girl as their clothing model.
Modeling agencies have been under fire for years now for encouraging this look. The camera gains weight, they say. You are too fat, etc.
Perhaps moving some young girls to gasp at their own mirror every morning when the real image of a young woman should be the healthy, robust picture looking back at them.

We know nothing about the young woman here. She is merely trying to make a dollar. But is she suffering anorexia? Did she diet to lose weight? Was she encouraged to do so? Does she smoke to keep the pounds off?
That is not a natural woman or an athletic body, it is one that needs to have some advice from a doctor, an MD and perhaps a psychologist too.

Kate Winslet successfully sued a tabloid for morphing her thinner as misrepresenting her. Jamie Lee Curtis bravely did a full magazine spread to show a true look and refute the Hollywood image of herself. Maxim magazine once morphed Lucy Lawless into a 90 pound woman who could sleep in a picket fence! And we all know that Xena was actually robust, strong, dangerous AND beautiful!

(She needed to be to pack all that leather and weaponry around!)

When the effects of body image are so detrimental among young women as to be a factor in teenaged suicides, one would think the Bay would have had a closer look at the models and modeling agency representing their image too. After all, they are selling the corporate brand as well as the clothing.

One wonders who's psyche is really damaged?

Shame on the Bay.

Master Bates - new medical studies.

2011-04-05T08:56:00.013-07:00

In Health News: - Restless Leg Syndrome? Hay Fever? Parkinson's Symptoms? Prostate cancer?
There is help for these problems suggested from new health studies.

Are you suffering? Does your leg want to go walking at midnight after you tuck into bed? You want to pick wildflowers in that field but keep sneezing the petals off? Your arm is jiggling involuntarily and you're spilling your gin? You're not sure if your pooper is working properly?
Masturbate.

RLS is a distressing neurological disorder characterized by an urge to move the legs. It is usually associated with unpleasant sensations in the lower limbs such as tingling, aching and itching. Brain autopsies and imaging studies suggest one contributing factor of RLS is an imbalance of dopamine, the hormonal messenger that activates the areas of the brain responsible for pleasure. There IS a solution.
Masturbate.

In Spring a young man's fancy turns to ... er ... masturbation? There may be a quick and pleasurable treatment to clear those tingling noses, for guys at least – a well-timed ejaculation.
A blocked nose is caused by swollen and inflamed nasal blood vessels, irritated by floating air-borne pollen. But during ejaculation, the sympathetic nervous system constricts blood vessels across the body. That soothes the nasal blood vessels, freeing the airway for normal breathing. The logic behind the proposal is based on the fact that the nose and the genitals are both connected to the same part of the nervous system which controls certain reflexes – the sympathetic nervous system.
Masturbate.

Parkinson's. It is suspected that dopamine imbalance is also responsible for some of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease; tremors, sluggish movements, rigid muscles and impaired posture and balance. Research doctors speculate that the release of orgasm-related dopamine might play a role in the alleviation of these symptoms. An orgasm provides one of the biggest natural blasts of dopamine available to us. So if you lose your balance and fall down, you know what to do.
Masturbate.

Prostate cancer worries? Your doctor has huge fingers? You have sphincter issues?
The protective effect of masturbation is greatest while men are in their twenties: those who had ejaculated more than five times per week in their twenties, for instance, were one-third less likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer later in life.
But why should ejaculating more often cut the risk of prostate cancer? The scientific teams speculate that ejaculation prevents carcinogens building up in the gland. (these carcinogens, by the way, can accumulate from second hand cigarette smoke) The prostate, together with the seminal vesicles, secretes the bulk of the fluid in semen. A prostatic stagnation hypothesis (try to stay with me on this) says that the more you flush the ducts out, the less there is to hang around and damage the cells that line them.
Masturbate.

So now you know that there is self help available, the five knuckle shuffle becomes important to your future health. Important, I said. The action no longer involves going blind at all. And you don't have to be prostrate to save your prostate. In fact parents need to encourage youngsters in the implementation of the practice as routine for future benefits, like brushing regularly.
"Jimmy, it's time for your health event, here's your Dad's Playboy, go into your room."
And you no longer need to shout "Reeeecolaaaa." from that Swiss alpine sward. Just sit down amid the pretty blooms and alleviate your symptoms.

If these findings are confirmed, future health advice from doctors may no longer be restricted to diet and exercise. Masturbation is part of a man's sexual repertoire, it is beneficial to use it.

In conclusion it's perfectly reasonable that males should be encouraged to masturbate. Flog your log. Beat your meat. Battle the helmet warrior. Pound your pud. Burp the worm. Clear your snorkel. Mangle the mute muppet.
So if you are going to tweak your twinkie, you may be saving the health system thousands of dollars in later life medical costs.
No detrimental effects have been found to this therapy yet. And of course diet and exercise in public is okay. But if you choose this new method for looking after your health in public, the costs of legal fees could eliminate the savings. The police don't hesitate to toss a healthy man into jail. That IS a detrimental effect. ("BOTH hands in the air, Sir!") The scenarios are endless ...

"What are you doing in there, man?"
"Flushing out my carcinogens."
"Okay, a health nut."

"Oh Honey, you got me a subscription to a men's health magazine, Penthouse, how nice. You still have that headache?"

"Tonight I'm going on a date with Handrea."

Masturbate. It's good for you.

Back later, I'm heading for the optometrist and the carpel tunnel specialist.

Radiation

2011-03-28T12:13:00.003-07:00

What's going on in Japan? We hear a different tune radiating from Fukushima each day! The officials of the company operating the nuclear facility say the radiation levels are sky high. Then they say they were mistaken, they are low and not a risk to human health. Except perhaps babies! Then it changes again. Water, milk and food are becoming dangerous.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that runs the plants say they do not believe the levels are high enough to be considered a risk to human health. How can Plutonium in the air, soil and water not be a threat to health? One particle of Plutonium the size of a grain of sand can kill you with a lethal dose of radiation if inhaled or left on the skin. Is it any wonder Japanese people no longer Believe anything TEPCO says?
Now it is leaking into the seawater and flowing north. Officials say it is harmless.
Smoke comes out of crippled reactors, but it's okay, officials say. Then they withdraw workers. Then we are told something else. We begin to wonder if the motivation for these officials is to save their business or the people?

Now the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, says there is no medical basis for restricting shipping and that the waters are safe for shipping to pass the reactors on their way to Tokyo to unload containers!
And get this, officials tell us the radiation can be washed off your ship with soap and water!
WTF?!
Did you EVER see a ship being washed off with soap and water? Do you believe corporate owners of shipping lines will lift a finger to make those poor Indian and Filipino crewmen safe? Would they ever wash down their ships! With soap and water? How much would that cost? Do they believe that we, the world's population will say, it's okay, there is no radiation problem because they are going to wash their ships off! How gullible do they think we are?

When you wash your hands with soap and water the germs go down the drain. Where the &$#@ do they think the radiation will go after 'washing' these ships? And once the containers are refilled with TVs for North America, will they wash the containers too? Before our dock workers handle them?

Isn't it time we fired all the so called OFFICIALS and got someone else to monitor the problem? We can't trust these guys, they want to get back to opening their plants again when they should be sealed forever!
Obama let us down on the BP Gulf Oil spill by letting BP off the hook to monitor itself. And they only gave us lie after lie! What a joke! He should have seized the assets of British Petroleum to pay for the costs of watch-dogging them.
And some say it is still leaking in the gulf! And lying on the bottom so we can't see it.
So are we supposed to believe these Japanese officials too?
I don't think so.

We have so many instances of corruption in corporate facilities which influence the public that officials cannot be trusted. Look around your own local area and it is not hard to find instances harmful to you and your family. Yet corporations carry on with impunity. Trusting that their lobbyists and politicians on the company payroll will get them through the bad public relations. These incidents are far worse than bad PR, yet that is how they are treated.

Something needs to be done. Something drastic to get the attention of the corporate hegemony.
We need to wash these officials' mouths out with soap and water. Or worse. Make them work alongside the workers trying desperately to solve the problems.

We need to hold them responsible and stop allowing them to wriggle off the hook of public accountability.

4 AM Cowboy

2011-03-05T12:53:00.015-08:00

I was awake this morning at 4 AM. My little transistor radio battery was dying. It would only bring in a cowboy station. So I listened. Lulled at first until the lyrics began to register.
One song was a lament from a boy remembering getting kicked out of his home at 12 years old. Another was a sad recollection of all the things that woman had done to him. Then one of a guy who lent his wife the pickup truck and she stopped it on the railroad tracks. He was really in sorrow, even more so when he learned that she had jumped clear! Cowboys and depression seem to go together.
No wonder those guys were depressed up there on Brokeback Mountain. You can only look at clouds and sheep for so long until you turn to the next warm body in the sleeping bag.

CW lyrics are aimed at depression;
you're a redneck heartbreak .... so hard living here on my own .... bad ridin' cowboy .... for 43 dollars my friend lost his life .... I've been burned, I've been cheated .... you can hide your tears, you can cry in the dark .... death is waiting for its dance .... my favorite dog is buried in the yard.

OMG, of course they're so depressing.
Cowboys have a rough time of it. Used to be just get out there and ride the fences, rope a lil dogie and dance and drink some whisky. Not now, they're filled with all kinds of guilt and regret.
Just look at their lives; they never get the girl any more. They ride ATVs instead of horses. Their bar has been taken over by some bling guy named Tiffany Dean. The train doesn't even run through town these days! Their six gun is outpowered by a Glock and their hat only holds four gallons. What's a cowboy to do but lament?

Cowboys can't even go to Texas now because someone else's exes all live there and you know what exes are like. Rodeo Drive is off limits unless you have Tony Lama boots. And cow poop stuck under the heel just doesn't fly. Alberta is frozen up most of the year and so are the steers. And Hiyo Silver just means the silver market is up 20 points!

Cowboys need a break. Happy songs. Maybe I'll write one. Call it Contented Cowboy. It would go something like this:

Drivin' with my Babe in my pickup truck,
she love the fresh air back there in the box.
Headin' for my bar an' with a little bit of luck,
we'll drink all night unaware of the clocks.

Ol' Rover dawg beside me on the passenger seat,
gotta get a move on I hear a choo choo train.
My Babe wears a mini skirt and lookin` so sweet,
got a Bud between my knees and feelin`no pain.

Gonna dance all night, have some fun with my friends,
snuggle with my Babe, have her body next to mine.
Win a game of poker, till the big money ends
get the cash inside my pocket, feelin mighty fine.

Put my foot to the floor, get this ol`Ford goin`
Gotta get to that crossin, before the red lights flash.
Dawg just a howlin`, rain and wind now blowin`
Locomotive got there first .... cowboy got the crash.

Sorry, I just couldn`t help it. Cowboys are just stupid.

Revive DORD!

2011-02-28T12:13:00.006-08:00

In 1939 a ghost word was outed from its hiding place on page 771 in the New Websters International Dictionary. That word was Dord. Which had started life when the lexicon's chemistry editor used the four letters, 'D' or 'd', for a note that was an abbreviation for density in chemistry terms.
A ghost word comes into language as a typo or some other mistake.
A misinterpretation saw the note being read as Dord, meaning density. It was then registered as a noun and added at the time, where it languished for five years within the cozy D pages of the tome until it was finally noticed by a studious editor in 1939 to have no etymology and after an investigation was banished. A world war was starting and this guy was looking for obscure little D words?

Banished. But Dord was innocent. Didn't ask to be born into the respected, hallowed realm of Websters. Dord was only the Eliza Doolittle thrust into the cultured library of Professor Henry Higgins. Dord was not given the chance to become something. To be refined by 'enry 'iggens into a Fair Lady. (there was a colour in the 70s called Enry Iggins Just You White.)

Perhaps, with a little bit of luck Dord could still mean a form of density. It sounds right if we use it for a dense person, as in, "He's a dord."
And still following the density thread, it could mean an intricate entanglement. Like those financial bank criminals involved in a labyrinth of crimes. "They are in a dord of trouble."
It could mean a reverse density, like a Dalmation dog which are said to have no brains, "He's as dordy as a Dalmation."
Maybe even find it's way into song? 'Lordy Lordy Lordy you're a dordy!' What could Bob Dylan do with dord?

Whatever it is used to represent, dord should be revived. We have been unfair to it. We could refer to it right now, after all these years, as 'dormant as a dord.' But that might be cruel.
It should become the Little Word that Could. We need more four letter words, banish deutomerite if you must. It means, the posterior segment of the trophozoite of certain gregarines. No one even eats gregarines any more!

After over seventy years. dord needs to reappear. Perhaps we could elevate the poor word somehow, get Stephen Hawking to assign the meaning of a human impulse flashing across the universe as a Dord! Now that would give it dignity.

We have lost too many life things by meddling with them. Pluto is gone from our space in an unsuffering swoop. The Passenger Pigeon is extinct. Malaya, with it's wonderful suggestion of British rubber plantations and Oriental intrigue is no more. And whatever happened to Oswald Rabbit? Other trembling dords are hiding in the crevices of our history. They don't reside on the street where you live. What's next? Being embrangled in a vilipend of fusby words?

Perhaps the niddering people who commit these indecencies should be called Dords and be banished themselves.

Revive Dord. It's important.

.

Today in History - - - February 15

2011-02-15T11:04:00.005-08:00

Canada's flag.
1965, our Maple Leaf banner was finally adopted on this day.
The description; 2 vertical bands of red (hoist and fly side, half width), with white square between them; an 11-pointed red maple leaf is centered in the white square; the official colours of Canada are red and white.

When it first came into existence, I thought it needed more colours. Blue or green to represent our three seas and constant forests. But now, whenever I travel, the red and white stands out like a beacon. It is particularly lovely to see when you are far from home. And it is outstanding amid any crush of colour, in any congested city, easy to see, with a welcoming flutter, promising a cordial reception no matter what country I am in.
Now I can`t see our great flag being any other design or colour.

I used to live in a high rise downtown. Twenty-five stories up. I could see about 280 degrees of other buildings. I counted the red flags every few months and was always dismayed at the lack of Maple Leafs flying. We need to be more patriotic about our standard, whatever the woes of our nation, it is still the best place in the world to be.
Be proud.

F 150 - such confusion

2011-02-13T09:04:00.019-08:00

The Ford Motor Company believes there might be confusion between their Ford F150 pick up truck and the new Ferrari F150 formula one car.
"Ford Motor Co sued luxury automaker Ferrari on Wednesday for trademark infringement after Ferrari named its 2011 Formula 1 racing car the 'F150.'
Ferrari's F150 apparently bears striking resemblance to certain parts of the Ford F-150 pickup truck.

'Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the F150 in order to capitalize on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark,' Ford said in a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit."

So .... we are to believe that someone going to buy a Ford F150 pickup might inadvertently buy a Ferrari F150 instead because of the resemblance? Well no wonder Ford is angry.

But let's look at the comparison:

- The Ford seats 2. Or three if your girlfriend has a girlfriend and she's not too tubby. Or 14 family members if you live in Arkansas. The Ferrari only seats 1.
- The Ford will just go fast enough to bump into things. The Ferrari could shoot off into space if you press the gas pedal too hard.
- You can tailgate in the Ford on the way to work at the mill. There is no one ahead of you in the Ferrari.
- You can have your cousin? in the back playing his banjo in the Ford. Even if you could in the Ferrari, you wouldn't know what he played until you stopped and the sound caught up.
- In the Ford you'll have your possum hunting buddies growling approval and saying 'Hey.' In the Ferrari the Tifosi will worship you and be screaming bellisimo! And the Ford guys just think those Italians are gay anyhow.
- You can store your gun under the front seat of the Ford. The Ferrari won't even accommodate your Platinum American Express card.
- In the Ford you can drive over bumpy back roads just to watch your babe's boobs jiggle. No back roads for the Ferrari and when the girls flash you at Monza, you won't see them anyway.
- In the Ford you can eat burgers while driving, even if you only have 3 teeth left. In the Ferrari if you open your mouth your teeth will be sucked out the back of your head!
- In the Ford the radio only plays Willie Nelson. The Ferrari itself plays Pavarotti.
- In the Ford you can cook roadkill on the manifold and have dinner ready when you get to the bar. In the Ferrari ... er ... if you ask for blanco vino Chianti they throw you out of the bar!
- In the Ford you can lay in a sheet of plastic in the box, fill it with wet mud and have girlie fights in there. In the Ferrari ....

Well, you get the point. The Ford wins hands down and they rightly don't want Ferrai horning in on their sales. What would happen if these F150 Ferraris became popular on Ford's name?

..... um ....

Sorry, I can't think on that any longer. But it does say something about the Ford executives who brought this lawsuit to court, and their view of their own customers. I think the Ford guys are still angry at the drive Enzo took Henry Ford II on in the sixties and made him poop his pants.

Me? I'm looking for a red Edsel. There's no mistaking that car for ANYTHING else.

a red Ford?

Oh, by the way, the Ford costs about $40,000. , the Ferrari will set you back about 3 million. IF they'll sell you one. Hard to confuse that part.

Today in History . . . January 14

2011-01-18T14:40:00.002-08:00

1967. A human be-in, the counterculture gathering was born in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. This marked the explosion of the so called Hippie movement. This so-called happening became an event worthy of mainstream news and launched be-ins echoing throughout North America. Which became 'sit-ins' of protest, 'teach-ins' organized by students seeking democracy, and 'tune in, turn on and drop out' slid into the Summer of Love. Love-ins enticed and Laugh-ins, made us laugh.
This event, the be-in, led into the Vietnam war protests, Make Love not War became the international password as some sought to make the world a better place to live-in.
And some of that mentality seems today, to be repeating itself, except it is now expressed in bits and bytes on blogs, facebook and Twitter, from the safety and comfort of our home computers. One wonders how another summer of love could happen without face to face recognition?
The powers that be are still forcing wars on other countries to bring them a distorted version of democracy and make them better places based on a parochial view of what a better place is. Whether they like it or not.
A generation later the cycle of love and war has only returned to 1967 with a 2011 technological aspect.
Sadly it is love that has lost the war.

HST and the film business in BC

2011-01-07T10:44:00.003-08:00

Recently Mr. John Winter, the CEO of the BC Chamber of Commerce was on the Bill Good show, pimping the HST. He wants the vote to go later so they (whoever 'they' are) will have time to turn the people around into voting FOR it. During this interview, Mr Winter, when questioned on exactly WHAT business is already influenced favorably by the HST, said the BC film business was an example. Others have commented that the HST will be good in the future.
However Mr. Winters has NO idea what he is talking about or how the film industry operates. and is only promoting the same deception that the Liberal government has been telling us about for months now.

The first deception is that the HST has resulted in more production business for the film industry in BC. That could not be further from the truth! I am not disputing that the HST, in the future, could affect film production here in BC, but all the film and TV business that we have going here has been planned for months, and in Feature Film production, most likely YEARS ahead.

Mr. Winters and other promoters of the Liberal party would have you believe that the HST was announced, and Hollywood THEN decided to write and produce films and TV in BC, as if was an instant project when EVERYONE in the film business KNOWS that these projects take YEARS to get going! (How many films have you heard that take 10 years to get into production?)
So literally every production currently shooting in BC was planned long ago and has NO RELATIONSHIP TO THE HST.

Future productions may be considering it in their planning, but John Winter and others shouldn't try to get credit for what people who are actually IN the film business in BC have already done for years in getting film production here! And we already have a thriving green industry going on in BC.
There are several reasons why we have vibrant film production here:
- we have year around shooting weather
- we have absolutely competant crews
- we are only a 3 hour flight from Los Angeles
- we are in the same time zone
- we have huge variety in locations all close to, or in Vancouver
- we have an active and talented acting community
- we have established and respected casting people
- we have many good sound stages and production facilities
- we have pre production knowledge and ability second to none
- we are already cost effective in how we do things

... and artistically, to quote Chris Carter, producer of X Files, we have that wonderful Vancouver light!

So Mr Winter and others; Do what you want with your spin about the HST, but don't try to undermine the work done by others who have worked very hard for many years to build our successful film industry.

Liberal wannabes circle the wagons

2010-12-23T10:17:00.037-08:00

Solicitor General Rich Coleman is supporting Kevin Falcon for the leadership of the BC Liberal party. If they were having a hamburger together, would a conversation go like this?

Rich - "We circle the wagons, the public is starting to ask questions about our participation in the BC Rail scam! We can't let any more of this get out, Kevin."
Kevin - "Yeah, Gordo was pretty smart, after all those years of the BC Rail trial, stopping it before Gary Collins could testify."
Rich - "Well it was a trust issue, we didn't know if we could count on Gary to lie ...."
Kevin - "Hey, he's a Lieberal isn't he? That's a joke."
Rich - ".... Didn't wanna bet on Collins or Clark, even if I am in charge of gambling, oops er, gaming."
Kevin - "Ok Rich. You going to eat that second burger?"
Rich - "Yeah I am."
Kevin - "What about Kristy?"
Rich - "Oh hell, Kristy is trying to bury the scandal too, she is involved for chrissakes! So no problem there."
Kevin - "Yeah? You think?"
Rich - "Look, in the debate, you gotta scare her off, say something like, 'my Basi is not Virking today' that oughta do it."
Kevin - "And George Abbott?"
Rich - "Kevin, he's a joke, the only thing he is lacking is Costello. We'll we save him for the apology afterward, he is so good at it, having done it for the past few years! I heard his neighbor ran over his foot with a power mower and George just said he was sorry! Har har har."
Kevin - "Rich, I'm glad you chose to support me over Kash Heed."
Rich - "Well the Rich-Kash team sounded just too, uh, too Gordon Campbellish, you know, smacks of money and secret bank accounts."
Kevin - "You gonna finish all those chips?"
Rich - "Yeah I am."
Kevin - "Good thing we've got Vaughn Palmer and Keith Baldrey on side, they are deflecting a lot of this for us."
Rich - "That's great. And Bill Good is great too, you can count on him to ask innocuous questions."
Kevin - "Even then you don't have to answer."
Rich - "Stay away from that Bill Thielemen though. NDP spokesman. Hey waitress! Can I get another burger over here?"
Kevin - "Fast ferries fast ferries! ha ha!"
Rich - "How much longer can we milk that one? But it keeps the people off the 430 million dollar German ferry stuff. And it's a good chant when they start asking about the salaries of BC Ferries execs."
Kevin - "I even chanted it when they asked about BC Rail exec salaries!"
Rich - "But we still got a BC Rail, that's the point."
Kevin - "Wait'll they find out BC Hydro's only gonna be a tropical fish tank somewhere."
Rich - "Har har."
Kevin - "Hey Rich, what about that new guy who's writing shit about us? That Alex G. Tsakumis guy with the blog?"
Rich - "Shh! Keep that one quiet, he is doing the investigative reporter's job, exposing stuff. People might Google him at http://alexgtsakumis.com/ and find out more true crap."
Kevin - "Yeah. Ok. Hey Rich, does my hair look cool? I mussed it some more. Going for the young vote."
Rich - "Not too much more though, you're beginning to look like Emo Phillips. Kevin, can I ask you something? You really didn't know the Skytrain up Cambie was going underground?"
Kevin - "Here comes your burger."

The only question remaining is whether Kevin will start calling Rich Coleman, Unca Richie.

Hard to be apolitical

2010-12-15T12:21:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to stay away from political stuff. It's just too depressing. Too infuriating.
Every time you turn around there is another instance or event that irritates you because it pushes against your sense of reason. You wonder what really is the modern definition of integrity nowadays?
But the daily revelations of how stupid our whole political system has become drives one to the keyboard, if only to make a small protest. A mewl in the night. Ineffective and probably unheard amid the din of spin but still out there somewhere.
Not very satisfying.

The latest is the Conflict of Interest Commissioner for BC, Paul Fraser's ruling on a question regarding Gordon Campbell. Gordon, our shamed premier. attended a Bilderberg meeting in Spain. He spent 8700. dollars of taxpayer money getting there.

If you don't know already, Bilderberg meetings are totally secret. No one actually knows what they discuss, promise or make covert deals about.
But the attendees have been suspect for a long time now, illustrious or infamous people have gone. The list can be read as a glitterari of famous and powerful people in the world, or a who's-who of suspected criminals against humanity. No one is sure what is on the yearly agenda and everyone seems to be sworn to secrecy.

As always, those who are shut out, begin their own speculations of what goes on behind the locked doors. That is a natural occurance of being outside peering in.
First and foremost is that they are plotting the New World Order. Which some construe as the emerging secret plan to rid the world of over 5 billion people. It is believed, by tongue slippage, that someone has determined that the optimum population of Earth should be about 500 million.
Of course this could be a noble goal. We need to sustain our planet. We're not far enough advanced yet to have another place to go. But because we are still not sure what these people are planning. Or plotting. So we guess.

Which brings me back to Paul Fraser. He has determined that Gordon Campbell has got intellectual stimulation from his Bilderberg meeting, and that will benefit us all. And so the $8700. of your money is well spent and he won't inquire into it any more. Of course Mr Fraser has no idea what kind of stimulation Mr Campbell could have gotten in Spain. So he, like the rest of us, assumes it is all good.
Nice to be optimistic like that. Look for the good in everyone. Sure.
I suppose the problem is with me. You can look at this like a Salvation Army meeting, where they are figuring out how to serve the poor. Or, you can look as if it is a meeting of the Jesse James gang, plotting to rob more banks.
Pessimism is not good.

But hey, it is Gordon Campbell we are talking about.
For the win.

Here's a lil conspiracy theory for you

2010-11-07T11:18:00.003-08:00

Ever wonder why the Canucks have so many Friday or Sunday games?
Ever wonder why they hardly ever play on Saturdays on CBC Hockey Night in Canada? And even when they do, in between periods Don and Ron just continue commenting on how the Leafs or Canadiens played in the earlier games?
Ever wonder about who makes up the CBC telecast schedule?
Ever wonder if the Eastern Powers ever even think about the 'Colonies' out West?
Ever notice any of this?
Hmm.
Just sayin'.

More political speculations

2010-11-06T12:42:00.002-07:00

The Liberals are winding through the gears up to speed.
Each potential aspiring candidate for the party leadership trying to figure out how to take himself/herself apart from anything previously bad in the history of BC politics. Hard to do.
An outsider might be the answer.
So Diane Watts seems to be the front runner. Being romanced by the Liberals right now. (With Gordon's approval of course, he's still going to CONTROL it all) If Diane loses her good (so far) senses and decides to take the job leading these scandalous criminals to more glory, then it will sadly change her fortunes and respect. If you put a good person in charge of a bunch of bad persons, they just don't suddenly get good. But it seems to be hers for the taking. A shoe in.
Speaking of shoes, Gucci shoes in particular. Don't count out Carole Taylor just because she took a job elsewhere. There is nothing to say any institution wouldn't gladly give up her contract to have her as an ally and Premier of this province. They would of course get huge benefit out of that too.
Kevin Falcon? Sorry for laughing, but he is the one who berated the Cambie merchants for complaining about losing their businesses over the Skytrain ditch. He actually said on TV that what are they bitching about, the Skytrain will be running right past their doors! Of course no one told poor IQ challenged Kevin that the train would stop at Broadway, then go UNDERGROUND to King Edward, therefore going past virtually ALL those merchants doors 30 feet UNDER them! LOL
Rich Coleman. Sorry again for laughing. He's the biggest lapdog Gordon ever had. A yes-man par excellence! Ready to go cheek to jowl with whomever has the 'investment' bucks. There is a status quo man if ever I saw one.
Kash Heed! Sorry for crying! Here is a guy who resigned from the West Van Police force under investigation, and has had several investigations since then! And he aspires to be leader of these Liberals. Some think he's a ready made criminal. On second thought, doesn't that make HIM the front runner? LOL
John van Dongen. Correct me if I am wrong, but did you ever see him on TV doing anything but apologizing for something? BZZZ ... Out.
Colin Hansen. Did you ever see anything but perpetual embarrassment on his face. And rightly so. CLANG ... Out.
Well, I could go on and on with the existing party people.
But Gary Collins is still out there. All squeaky clean and quiet. Remember he resigned amid the notorious Legislature Raid! And as FINANCE Minister too. He would have been expected to KNOW where the money was going. He could emerge into the arena again with a shiny new sword, ready to slay any fast ferries plowing towards Victoria. Except there may be a chink in his new armor already. Too many people are wondering what he would have said under oath? Does he know the truth and was about to tell? Would that tuth have crucified the whole party on one cross? Or one man on several crosses?
Alas we don't know. And you can bet any future Liberal government is going to continue burying these scandals 12 feet under the Cambie Skytrain.
.
Yet there is one more thing we need to consider - - - and that is, when Gordon Campbell's rating was the lowest in the history of any Premier anywhere, ever, only 9 % - - - the Liberal party endorsed Gordon Campbell by 84 %!
Telling us all that whatever their esteemed leader had done, no matter how bad he appeared, they backed him totally. Yes totally, I suspect that 16% of them were away at the time of the vote.
These are Liberals you know.

What's going on?

2010-10-24T13:43:00.005-07:00

Wondering what is happening with our two political parties in BC right now?
Here is your answer :
NDP - Although well ahead in the current polls, it is doubtful if Carole James will lead them into the next election, however the heir apparent, Gregor Robertson seems to be shooting himself in the foot. Leaving the possibility of Mike Farnsworth as potential boss. But of course the NDP will never acknowledge this change so far ahead of an election. And it was the famous British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who said, the polls only count the night before an election.
The same goes for the Liberals, presently in shambles over the distrust of Gordon Campbell to do anything but lie. But they know the game as well, and are willing to play it close to the vest, or should I say close to the sleeve where their extra aces are kept.
I know Carole Taylor SAYS she has no interest, but the Liberals need to hide her away out of the public eye until the day. So she cannot be asked about every political decision and make any faux pas. Her new contract with SFU as Chancellor is for three years. Coincidentally an election will take place at about the same time as her contract is up. And then she can announce that, 'Due to so many pressures from people who care so much about British Columbia, I have been induced to run in order to save the province from the unwashed hordes.' (have you heard it before?) Then she will probably shout, FAST FERRIES, 30 times and go buy herself new Gucci shoes.
The NDP will be hard pressed to keep any momentum they have now, going for such a long time as most of the local media is in support of the Liberals by their tacit silence and absence of pursuing answers to the ongoing corruption scandals of that party.
The only real question is whether Dianne Watts is smart enough to avoid all this and go to another party altogether? In most Liberal minds, she is the savior with the shining halo. But stepping into a party with a history of corruption and the Liberals who will still be there and unwilling to stand up for BC now, could be death to Dianne's promise for the future.
I wonder who the Marijuana party is hiding? Perhaps Marc Emery's jail time is a ploy to hide him away too? With a California pot referendum coming up .... hmm, it could all be legal by election time. And Jody Emery being eminently presentable. They make a nice couple in charge of BC, right? And they have nothing to lie about. Couldn't be any worse than it is now.
Well, who knows?

Today in History . . . October 17

2010-10-17T10:03:00.008-07:00

Beer flowed through the streets of London on this day in 1814. But it wasn't a good thing.
In the 19th century, beer fermented for months at a time in huge vats that rested on the roof of the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. Iron hoops which supported the largest vat, holding some 600,000 liters (160,000 gallons) of beer collapsed under the weight. The vat burst and all the beer came gushing out, causing the vats nearby to explode as well.
More than a million liters (265,000 gallons) of porter beer knocked down the 25-foot brick wall of the brewery and flooded the surrounding streets. Roofs collapsed and houses toppled. Nine people died, mostly due to drowning or from fatal injuries from passing timber.
One man died of alcohol poisoning, after drinking too much of the beverage! Neighborhood residents rushed out with mugs, pots and buckets to collect the free beer.
A lawsuit was brought against the brewery, but the London Beer Flood was ruled an Act of God and the brewery was not held legally responsible. Though it still isn't clear why God might have been angry about beer.
Yup, there can be 'too much of a good thing'.
Blimy, save a pint for me.

the new BC First party

2010-10-10T09:39:00.015-07:00

So apparently there is a new political party in British Columbia just forming. Bad news for the BC Liberals as they believe it would siphon votes away from them. Which is the reason liberal hacks Keith Baldrey and Vaughn Palmer have already gone into high gear and started ridiculing the BC First Party.
On the Bill Good show recently, the quiescent Good allowed them to go after the BC First Party, even though the party is barely out of the crib. Good's way of subtle and tacit support of Gordon Campbell. (he thinks we don't notice) The duo proceded to go back 20 years to quote bad stuff about anyone they thought might threaten the reign of their leader. And of course they always scoff and chuckle at any efforts of Bill Vander Zalm as being a joke, in spite of his perpetual popularity.
Evidently Chris Delaney of HST referendum organizational fame is now associated with BC First. The Baldmer pair got him too, for being associated with too many teams over the years. But the Zalm, with his sunshine smile gets the media attention. Simple to some but ominous clouds on Gordon Campbell's horizon.

So what does the BC First Party have in mind? What SHOULD they have in mind? How does it get a start? And is it a backlash groundswell in spite of media denigration?
Usually in provincial elections, the clever back-room-Liberal-boys set the agenda, and the NDP falls right into their trap every time, ending up defending their own actions of years ago while none of the real issues that face British Columbians get consideration or even media time.
I have always said I would vote for the first party that states they will work on behalf of British Columbians first.

So what are MY issues?
The Enbridge pipeline for starters. Have you looked at the route? Across BC to Kitimat. This is a non starter if you get a map out. Look at the location and the narrow channels and many islands from the sea to the city. Check out Kitimat and ask yourself if you really want huge oil tankers navigating through a vulnerable BC wilderness? Exxon still has not paid their debt in Alaska. It is not if a tanker goes astray and spills, but when!
The party I vote for will have to address this concern. And what benefit British Columbians will really get from this export of Alberta oil to China?

Fish Farms. Does anyone still believe there is a benefit for British Columbians from these foreign owned (mostly from Norway) farms producing Atlantic salmon? Nobody in BC will eat the tasteless, pesticide laden, coloured with pigment, injected with hormones product. Even back in Norway these companies can't farm at sea, they must do it inland! So why don't WE have the same criteria to protect our fabulous wild salmon? Do you believe the Norwegians care about our fish? These are the folks still 'harvesting' whales! And the argument about threatening our own salmon and the lice problem is well documented if you care. And the Americans have just approved Frankensalmon, (Google it) it's only a matter of time until those Genetic Modifications appear in our waters! The only thing I want with the letters GM is a car!
My vote goes to the party that says these guys are outa here! Norway is close enough already.

Private Run-of-the-River power projects. Mr Campbell once told us he would not sell BC Hydro. However he is effectively by-passing it. No one answers the question of how this private power gets distributed and to who and at what real cost? It was been said that they will sell their power to BC Hydro. But at world rates? Why? And it has also been said that there is a time limit on the contracts, after which these foreign owned power producers can sell their power to California, for instance, no matter how badly WE might need it! Independent means just that. No one will clarify these contracts. Guys like Baldrey and Palmer dance around the issue. Gordon Campbell won't even talk about it. And it IS an issue when someone comes into OUR home and uses OUR resources for their private gain!
Sort of like someone coming into YOUR kitchen to bake bread for sale to others but YOU don't even get a loaf!
I'll vote for the party that says there will be restrictions on contracts to sell private power. It is still a licence to print money for them, but we need to control it closely.

In the case of BC Hydro, we have always had trusted and talented British Columbians running this resource. Until Gordon Campbell. And they ran it well, developing it into the jewel of BC. Would you be content to lose it? I think not. We lost our very own railroad because it didn't produce scads of money? Is money what we are all about now? The present government sold something that didn't belong to them.

And there are smaller issues with me. The government is always complaining about money. Yet it seems to me that in the case of trying to sell off our liquor control branch, and encouraging private liquor stores, we lost a huge volume of cash income for the province.
When we as the government sold ALL the liquor, we realized the benefit of the profit on EVERY bottle of liquor sold going into the coffers of BC. Now with the proliferation of private liquor stores, that profit goes into private pockets. A net loss for ourselves. And a smaller income for whatever projects we need to do. Seems counterproductive to me, even backward.

The powers that be keep telling us that these private corporations will go away if we don't give them what they want. Okay, but someone else will come next. We know it but the Campbell mentality seems to think not.
We need a new party that treasures our province. And negotiates from strength, not weakness. A party that promises it will build ships here for OUR people to benefit, not elsewhere for corporations and their shareholders! A party that promises to put BC first over private or secret considerations.
YOU are the shareholder here. YOU own the resources of this province. They should be in the public trust as assets for the future of OUR people, not foreigners. And guarded carefully and zealously. We are being raped and pillaged by private interests from outside of our borders. It is time to stop the invaders and send them packing. Contracts for British Columbia projects need to go to British Columbians first!
This is OUR home. Protect it. My vote will always go to the benefit of BC first! That is MY agenda, and the back room boys cannot distract me from it!

Search this blog for Big Head Syndrome.

New sex survey

2010-10-04T09:00:00.011-07:00

The Journal of Sexual Medicine has just published a 130 page report on the orgasm habits of people aged 14 to 94! They found that there was an 'orgasm gap' in their study. Sheeez, isn't the gap from 14 to 94 enough?
But the new study suggests that it was a male-female gap in perceptions of orgasm, with 85 per cent of the men saying their latest sexual partner had an orgasm, compared with 64 per cent of women saying they did have one.

And what exactly did you expect from asking males? The truth? We're talking about men talking about their sexual prowess! Don't expect veracity.
I believe the study is 'in press' so we can't quite see it all just yet. But did we need a study to find out that 85 percent of men said their partner had an orgasm?
Men will always have won the fight when their opponent has gone home. Maybe ask them how many hookers gave them their money back too. The difference of 21% may be the lie-ability index. Men will say she had one no matter what. She either faked them out or they just don`t give a damn. I suspect the latter.

So the faux orgasm is alive and well and maybe even being improved upon.
Faking gained huge momentum since Meg Ryan's infamous restaurant scene. And she hadn't even got her burger yet!
Speaking of inducements. Any research between food and orgasms? Obviously a hamburger only gets you the Fake ala Meg. But would a steak get you the real one? What about a steak with chocolate on it?
And is there a correlation between orgasms and jewelry? I heard that women can have orgasms right there in the diamond store if the carat weight is right!

So when is the next study? I want to apply for a job there. That orgasm gap is the intriguing thing. One would expect a gap of about fourteen minutes for the 14 year old, but it probably disintegrates exponentially as you age. At ninety-four, you may be mostly watching and waiting, 94 DAYS is more like it.
And at that age, if you happen to get good wood, it is usually at 3:30 am and you dare not wake her up because she might be dreaming about bald headed mice in her bed! And that snore is designed to scare them off. The black wrath of the Bella Lugosi Dracula-Wolf is way too fearsome.
Well, all you can do is get up, go leave a pee, snuggle back in to your own dry dreams and hope the sun rises soon.

The researchers said they were struck by the variety of ways in which the subjects engaged in sex — 41 different combinations of sexual acts were tallied, encompassing vaginal and anal intercourse, oral sex, and partnered masturbation. No Kama Sutra here. What about the triple toe loop?
One of the professors who commented on the study said, "This is normal, everything in there is normal." I'm not so sure about number 37.

And can you please give us a list of the sex acts preferred by men and women? And do some research on those black spike heels the women always wear in bed. Is that so they can run from the cops? Or are the shoes the payment? And why do those lesbian girls always end up giving head to men? Or is that just in the movies I watch? Hmm. Although many men profess to be lesbians too, does that make them bisexual?

The survey people say they are encouraged because the teens are using condoms more often, but worried because the older folks are not. Well good. But those old folks, especially the ninety-four year olds, have trouble feeling if their LEGS are still there. They`re not about to cover up anything!
As for me, I am practicing safe sex to the extreme, I wear my rubber gloves to masturbate.

We can always do with another sex survey, meanwhile I`m renting `When Harry Met Sally` again to watch Meg for clues. The dictionary says fake is `A brief feint or aborted change of direction intended to mislead one's opponent`.
Opponent, huh?
Bring on that Dracula Babe. I'm no 21 percenter.

Will Dianne Watts lead the Conservatives?

2010-09-19T10:08:00.006-07:00

She certainly could. And many believe she would become the next premier of British Columbia if she did.
We all know the Liberals are courting her, desperate to drop Gordon Campbell in their shame and try and emerge as new and clean. Ready to pretend Gordon never existed.
However, Dianne is way too smart for that. She knows she would inherit a Liberal party where corruption is a set mentality and prevarication is normality. There would be no caucus member who didn't seem tainted by Gordon Campbell's scandalous behavior.
See how she looks after her image; She knows how to dress, always looking well groomed with careful taste. She is able to deal with heads of state or corporate CEOs equally with competent intelligence. As Mayor of Surrey she has brought it back into the realm of a respectful, growing and vibrant community. She thinks anything can be accomplished and indeed is able to implement the tools for what needs to be done. She is smart, perhaps outspoken yet mostly seems fair and honest about what she is thinking. She would come to the office of Premier with an untainted personality along with a new, or at least newly relevant party.
She COULD lead a refurbished Conservative party into the next election and no doubt she would get huge support from Stephen Harper's federals.
OR, she could opt to lead the newest BC FIRST party into this 21st century without ANY previous history of corruption or wrong doing. That would be something Dianne could shape any way she wanted. And the very name BC First has a nice, provincially patriotic ring to it. With NO mysterious or covert connections to other parties in the same way the old Social Credit party did.
I would love to see an interview where she states what SHE thinks should be the future direction of our province.
We are at a crucial cross-roads here, and what happens next will decide if we lose our great province and our sovereignty forever or regain it to become leaders in the new world. We HAVE what the world needs, and we have the talent right here at home to exploit it, now we need to choose between selling or giving it away or controlling our own destiny.
After living with Gordon Campbell's Liberals the BC First option seems particularly attractive.
Think carefully Dianne, an opportunity in our history is at hand.

New study on drinking alcohol

2010-09-01T11:53:00.023-07:00

There's a new study showing that people who drink alcohol live longer than those who don't. It actually concluded that even heavy drinkers are better off than abstainers.

The study was in the journal - Alcoholism; Clinical and Experimental Research and suggested abstaining from alcohol tends to increase one's risk of dying and that people who drink to excess actually live longer!
They're not sure why these drinkers are less likely to die than those who have never had a drink but one reason (they say) could be that alcohol tends to act as a social lubricant, and social interaction is vital for mental and physical health.
Okaaay.

I used to drink infrequently, (not counting my adventurous and stumbling youth) but that has gradually changed to my present drinking behavior:
Happy hour every day.
Used to start about 4:30 pm but is now pulled back to about 2:30 pm, where we have several afternoon delight cocktails and end up sleeping through the 6 o'clock news.
Of course, missing the news is the healthful part. That MUST be good for you.
So if this is all good, why shouldn't happy hour start in the mornings?
I wake up these days full of aches and pains. So social lubrication is good even if I just talk to the radio or a book.
I could start with a Stella Artois beer about 9 am. My personal social lubricant and climb-out-of-bed drink. At noon switch to Bombay gin and Schwepp's with a slice of lemon and interact with Kipling and Indjuh, his characters are real and socially interactive to me, especially Baloo the carefree bear. Lubricating my mind you see.
By 4 pm I go to Stolichnaya vodka with orange juice while reading Dostoevsky and thinking of chopping wood in the gulags. That is mental exercise too, right? Improvement of the mind, battling dementia and social lubrication too.

Seven, a civilized hour for supper .... perhaps a small pasta dish and a glass or two of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo. Ciao, socialle lubricato with Marcello and Sophia. Now that is socially interactive lubrication. The Via Veneto after dark.

And if there happens to be a twitch later, around 10, maybe a dram of macadamia nut liqueur, the Kahana Royale, sooo smooth. So lush, so Hawaiian kahunaish. So Kamehameha. If Hawaiians aren't socially lubricative I don't know who are.

I am beginning to love looking after my health. So socially acceptable. And looking forward to a long liquescent life.

I'm going to drink more if my retirement plan will cover it. Wake me at 11 for a nightcap.

Psst! Shomeone needsh to rinshe out the glasshes for morning.

Today in History ... August 21

2010-08-21T08:01:00.006-07:00

Hawaii became the 50th State in 1959. And some would like to go back to the old Hawaiian way.
In May of that year we flew to Hawaii from Vancouver on a propeller plane. It took 12 hours to get to Honolulu and we arrived in the night about 10 pm and were greeted as they did then, by a beautiful Hawaiian with a kiss and a fragrant frangipani lei! The warm breeze was memorable. It was truly a land of swaying palms and friendly people.
Our hotel was the Hawaiian Village, all new and shiny and pink, as was everything owned by Henry Kaiser at the time. The Kaiser Hospital was pink, construction cranes working on Henry Kaiser projects were even pink.
We stayed in a thatched roof hut on the grounds as honeymooners.
Each breakfast plate had a small orchid nestled amid your bacon and eggs and at dinner in the open air restaurant, a concertina player strolled with soft melodies. On Sundays, Hawaii Calls was broadcast from the Moana Courtyard, the worlds longest running radio show, played to smiling suntanned visitors. Alfred Apaka sang in his mellifluous voice, and even held a pose for my haole girl while she snapped his picture.
There were only six hotels actually on Waikiki Beach then; The newest Hawaiian Village, the Ala Moana, the Reef, the Princess Kaiulani, The Royal Hawaiian, and the Outrigger I believe. In the evenings Hawaiian beach boys would soak pillow cases, inflate them in the air, and run along the edge of the water to dive onto the pillow for a fun ride into the gentle surf. No technology needed to enjoy the ocean waters.
We rented a jeep with a pink striped canopy and drove around Oahu, even sneaking into a pineapple field to steal a huge ripe one, which we mixed with gin in our pink ice bucket as an edible cocktail. Once out of Waikiki, Hawaii was quaint and serene with a feeling it might never change.
We were thrilled to see Tab Hunter in the lobby, and Sal Mineo at the outdoor bar by the pool. Jimmy the pool caretaker tried to teach Jane to dive instead of plummet.
We met two other May 30th honeymooners, Chuck and Eileen Deering from Boston, who took us to Schofield Barracks Officers` Club for dinner! And Martin Denny played his jungle sounds at the International Market place.
Hawaii was old Hawaii then, and in August of that year, a huge change was about to happen. King Kamehameha would no longer be the alii in charge of the Hawaiian spirit.
A semblance of that time still remains on the East coast of the Big Island today, north of Hilo if you explore side roads. You`ll be back in the innocent forties.
Yet we still have to say, Hawaii no ka oe. Hawaii is the best.
Aloha and muhalo.

No inquiry in the Picton case?

2010-08-06T17:40:00.003-07:00

Wally Oppal and Phillip Owen were on the air this morning regarding the Picton case. Both of whom kept repeating the lines that Willie Picton was already in jail and so a public inquiry would be useless and a waste of money.
Both of whom were clearly not in favour of such an 'investigation' of the facts leading up to the conviction of Picton. Both of whom were in positions of power during the initial Picton investigation.
Hmm.
Nicely done guys, you have cleverly added to the subtle steering of the Vancouver media into leaving it all alone. Former Mayor Owen even said we should move on as nothing could be accomplished by an inquiry.
Oh, for the days of investigative reporters like Jack Webster. When the manipulations and machinations couldn't slip by him, no matter how slick or greasy was the messenger.
The Vancouver media seems to be quite happy with this result, although the families of the poor tragic women are not.
Could the real reason for the powers that be, to be so against a public inquiry be that perhaps OTHER information might be revealed?
Willie Picton is in jail, unlikely ever to be free again. We got our man. Everybody can relax now.
But .... there are niggling questions remaining, lingering in the ether like a Cheshire cat's grin: for instance - Did Willie, all by his repulsive self, go to the Downtown East Side, seduce those women into accompanying him to the pig farms, or the so called Piggys Palace all by himself? Did he put on his gumboots, get a tractor and go hunting?
Not likely is it?
So who HELPED Willie in this? Why wasn't the only woman who escaped from Willie able to testify? Deemed an incredible witness, she was ignored. Isn't that the job of a talented lawyer, to elicit the truth out of a liar?
There are so many unanswered questions here that ONLY a public inquiry could try to answer.
But if one carefully watches the responses of people who MIGHT have some esoteric knowledge, we MIGHT see a tremble of fear there, and we MIGHT suspect that something is tragically awry. There has been the suggestion that certain mayors, officials, policemen, police chiefs even, prominent businessmen, gang members and other known people attended the parties at the Piggys Palace. With drugs and prostitutes. These people would have much to account for if their names were revealed in a quest for the truth.
Better to leave well enough alone and let Willie take the rap for all of us.
Move on, no public inquiry is needed.
Vancouver media, go on to something else, no emerging Jack Websters here. Willie Picton did it all by himself. Right?
Well er, right?

Did you know?

2010-07-26T09:12:00.004-07:00

That we have 14 Canadian corrections officers in Kandahar, Afghanistan working in the prison there? Their mission, as explained by the chief Correctional Operations guy on the radio who is in charge, is to create a 'sustainable corrections service' there. What? Isn't criminality itself self-sustainable?

Is this sort of typical of Canadian everything when it comes to criminals and prisons? Will the residue of this effort be to have an Afghanistan prison system like Canada where we let everyone go because of a bad childhood? Wouldn't that make this whole effort a waste of time? Does any Afghani have a good childhood?

The spokesman who was telling us about it used the term, 'investing' in the Afghani prison system. Doesn't investing imply a return on your investment? Hmm. Does that mean returning bad guys?

Do we know who is paying for this?

Did you know that these guys are teaching those criminal Afghanis carpet weaving? lol, it's true, he actually said that. So these hardened criminals, who consider carpet weaving a women's or children's occupation will exit the prison and take up a new career? Sure they will.

Do you suspect we have naive people working overseas?

Now you know.

Ringo at 70

2010-07-19T08:04:00.020-07:00

Beatle Ringo Starr recently celebrated being 70 years-old, and wants only a little peace and love for the world.
Starting in 2008, Starr began asking his fans to say "Peace and Love" at noon on July 7, wherever they were.
This year, the drummer was at New York’s Times Square to continue spreading his message. "We’re just trying to keep the promotion going from the ’60s," said Starr, "There’s a little more peace and love than there was, I think, 40 years ago, and certainly it’s a lot more more peace and love than 70 years ago, when it was crazy," he said.
At 70, Starr is still full of energy, and many people celebrated with him this year ....

We think the world is a better place with Ringo in it, and hope he sticks around for another 70 years, some may even be counting on him.
Peace and Love

Mel bleep Gibson

2010-07-16T18:46:00.005-07:00

I wish I knew exactly what he did. I think he said bleep. Not sure when bleep became a bad word. But it is sort of what is happening everywhere these days, someone is TELLING us something is bad, but they won't leave the tape alone long enough for me to decide for myself what is actually being said.
Alas, that is the way of 'reporting' now, especially with so called celebrities. Just keep watching, we'll tell you what is bad or good. But then bad IS good isn't it. Ratings rating ratings.
I am now beginning to wonder what the Roadrunner was actually saying to Wylie Coyote all those years?
Bleep bleep.

HST wows, woos and woes

2010-07-02T09:16:00.015-07:00

So we have it now, the dreaded HST. Here to stay and some say only a matter of time before it is increased. Dreaded by the people of course, but not by big business. Some even say that 4 BILLION dollars in taxes have been shifted from big business to the taxpayer. I say those 'some say' people are getting it right.

So what about all this? What can we look forward to as commoners?
Let's see .... I'll consult my list;

Laundry detergent remains the same, only it is (eek!) already 12 percent tax. But if you poor people have to go to Value Village to buy used clothing, you'll now pay lots more for someone else's cast-outs. Under $100. subject to HST, but .... OVER one hundred dollars - no HST! So that Gucci consignment dress in West Van (worn once to the Oscars) at three hundred is a steal without HST. Ah, perks for the nearly rich.
Fix your old shoes? Yep, 12% tax on that. Check the dumpsters for cardboard to put in them, they don't have that on their radar yet. Yet. Mind you, formal wear rentals won't be taxed upwards. You need to dress better.

Of course those evenings when you could go out for a burger are going up too. Restaurant meals are going HST upward so you'll probably stay home more. But you can't stay home and grow your own tomatoes, because food plants are getting taxed now too. You see, you get penalized for growing your own food, and you also get penalized for going out to eat it. I think that's what Carole (Gucci Shoes) Taylor would call 'revenue neutral'. House plants are not taxed, not sure which ones you could eat though. And household pets are okay, you could probably have a rat or two, but don't eat them or you're subject to HST. Speaking of food, basic dairy, meats and vegetables are not hit by the HST, everything else IS, and many are wondering how Safeway et al will differentiate or will they just add the 12% HST to your total bill?

If you want to be conscious of power saving, and buy Energy Star windows which didn't even have PST on them before, they now cost you the 12% HST. Same with insulation and weather stripping. You get taxed for power saving. You might try to stuff old newspapers (yes now HST 12% too) into the cracks in your walls. (The backfire here though, might be the demise of the provincial voices of Gordon Campbell's Liberal Party, the Vancouver Sun and Province.) and if you cut your finger stuffing those cracks, you'll pay 12 % tax for the first aid kit too.

So stay around your house, yes? Watch TV.
Wait, your basic cable is HST 12% taxable but you can get the Playboy add on specialty channels without tax! Smoke detectors are up for residential users, but big businesses don't pay for their smoke detectors, just you 'little' people. But then you are quitting smoking anyway, right? Yes, of course smokes are up too, another 12 %. If you don't choke to death on the smoke you'll choke to death on the cost!

Your computer repair hardware is not going up, but computer repair software is! Who has computer software repaired?
You might want to dump your taxed telephone land line and switch to cell phone only. Because, well, you know.
Maybe you better get out of that house? Nope, you'd have to pay 12% HST to move out of it. Household moving services, you see. And parking goes to HST taxes too. You think they'll probably include 12% for parking in your own driveway soon?

Of course you pay 12% more now if you fly home on a domestic flight or take a bus to Prince George to see your old Gram before she goes, but if you're flitting off on an international flight with your gin and Schwepps to that Bermuda summer home ... no pay!

Now you want to drink yourself to death? Forget it, you can't afford to die. 12% tax on funeral services. I think you can still smoke BC Bud, but don't get the munchies because snack food is up to 12% HST too!

Well, you see now, don't you? There is just no longer hope.
And if I scrutinize that list with a certain frame of mind, I think everything poor people need and do is now HST liable, but things that rich people might need or do seems to have evaded that tax. Works of art? Nope. Rugs? Nope. Same with patio furniture, tux rentals, tanning lotion, (for Hawaii of course) international air travel, hair blowers, watches, jewelry, long distance calls, marine electronics, (for your boat, of course) nail care, perfume, handbags (Gucci of course) golf clubs, etc etc ad nauseous throw up-all-over-my-wornout shoes and cry nauseous! Well there are a hell of a lot more poor people than rich people. How do you spell relief?
U-n-d-e-r-g-r-o-u-n-d e-c-o-n-o-m-y.

The best thing you could do in BC, is sneak out into the night, and start walking to Alberta. But you'll have to get fit along the way because a fitness trainer will cost you 12%.
And don't let them catch you breathing on the side of the roadway either, I hear there's a 12% breath tax coming.

I guess I'll go sit on the toilet for awhile .... oh wait ..... nooo, there can't be ....

Ban the vuvuzela?

2010-06-14T07:25:00.011-07:00

No way! These people are dancing, happy and having fun. Shouldn't we encourage that behavior? Even after the World Cup is finished and South Africa resumes its 50 murders a day norm?
Yes. it would be interesting to see how many murders happen during World Cup. Wait, even take it further, how many vuvuzela players even get murdered. Judge for yourself .....

Of course, telling them to please don't blow the vuvuzela is like telling a ten year old boy not to pull his sister's pigtails! And if you transferred all those vuvuzela players to North America OUR murder rate would probably go up!
But is there a choice? South African vuvuzela fans blowing or British rowdies smashing chairs over your head?
I'll get earplugs and take the vuvuzela.

Spinning girl?

2010-06-11T20:56:00.012-07:00

Which way is the girl spinning? Clockwise or counter clockwise?
This is nothing but a two dimensional image, a comic book drawing is two dimensional, yet our minds are not programmed to view movement in such a way. So it becomes an illusion. The girl is really not spinning at all.
But in our brain, something decides that the girl is three dimensional, and we 'see' her spinning one way or another.

But don't read anything important into it, like left brain/right brain dominance. It is just fun until you realize that your very own brain lies to you to avoid you thinking it makes mistakes.

However, with some concentration, you might be able to change her direction.

It'll make you smile when you first do it.

Try, don't let your brain lie to you.

Me? I just like looking at a naked girl, even in silhouette. At least my mind is telling me she's naked.

Banks again

2010-05-26T09:31:00.003-07:00

Michael Levy, the financial adviser, was on the radio this morning. He had this lilt to his voice. Like he had just gotten the nicest birthday present ever. He was obviously very happy. What about?
He announced that banks had revealed their latest quarterly profits, way up over last year!
The major banks showed their profits for the second QUARTER of 2010:
TD showed a PROFIT for the three month period of 1.17 BILLION dollars! (deserves the exclamation mark, don't you agree?) for a per share value of $1.39.
RBC was up to 1.32 billion at .88 cents per share.

Notice they don't want to use even the word 'bank' anymore. Sort of brings to mind the same image as Darth Vader, or Dick Cheney or .... burglar.

CIBC made 660 million dollars or 1.59 per share.
BOM 745 million, their highest quarterly profit ever, for 1.26 a share.
We can be assured the trend of huge bank profits is going to continue into 2010. Great news huh? People like Michael Levy get positively giddy over this. Good news all around.

But I have a bit of trouble with this. If you can make a billion dollar profit for one quarter of the year, and can't show anything you produced, like a car, or a chair or a potato, I deduce that all that money came from people's bank accounts. Well?

Their Research and Development Department must be little brainy nerds in shadowy basements somewhere thinking up shrewd methods to pilfer your savings while inventing clever tag lines to tell you it will make YOU money .... while creating sly ways to distract you from the fact that they ARE a bank! That is stealth.
I think what they really produce is deception. Sort of like making fog.

This, of course, is wonderful for those who have shares in these (nefarious) businesses. I believe the only other enterprise that makes for this kind of cash is drug dealing. Exactly, this is sort of like meth for the investors. BOM underworld meaning = Barrels Of Meth.
Of course I am one of those millions of struggling workers trying to get a potato on my table, I don't even know people who have shares in banks, unless they are hiding it through embarrassment.
Meanwhile the privileged cadre of moneyed people like Levy get shaking like jelly at the thought of their shares rising again. That is good, isn't it?
Well isn't it?
Don't you feel vicariously rich now too. Aren't you filled with glee too like Michael Levy?
I'm not. I have to wait until payday to get my potato.

Cyber sex

2010-05-25T09:08:00.001-07:00

Iceland Volcano - on the bright side

2010-04-23T08:43:00.005-07:00

Icelanders, forever optimistic, gather huge marshmallows in preparation for their First Annual Eyjafjallajökul Volcanic Weenie Roast ....

click to enlarge

Fight the HST?

2010-04-19T11:50:00.009-07:00

Well there seems to be a groundswell happening here.

The 'Fight the HST' movement, of which former BC premier Bill Vander Zalm is leading, is gaining power daily. Chris Delaney, former leader of the Conservative party is the spokesman. Other parties are participating as well, including the NDP, the Green Party etc. Several ridings have already reached their goal of 10% of the voters. They need the same in 85 ridings.

Do we need the HST?
I am always wary when people who are rich, powerful and connected tell me something is really good for me. It seems that what they are trying to sell ME is particularly good for THEM.
Remember the Free Trade Agreements? NAFTA? Do you know anyone who is doing better for those mysterious contracts? Global competition? Know anyone who cares?
Oh yes, there is that argument that preaches to us that our companies benefit from these agreements and trade deals, trouble is that the companies who get the rewards are all foreign companies or global entities who are simply operating in Canada and have absolutely NO interest, loyalty or connection with us as British Columbians or Canadians.
And everyone of these international agreements seems vague to the people most affected; you and me! We're never sure what was really signed.

So now we can do something about what 'they' want to impose on us. We can sign a petition to force the Provincial Liberals, Gordon Campbell, to listen to us.
Will it succeed? Who knows. Will it be close? Maybe.
Mr. Campbell has already said the deal will go through in spite of what the voters want. If that isn't an arrogant challenge to the people of BC I don't know what is.
What will happen if they are very close but not quite there? Some think that a logical next step is a recall movement.
That could start in Gordon Campbell's own constituency.
And the people only need 40% of the voters in that ONE riding to be successful.

Tired of being like a victim? They' sign things all the time that affect us, now we as taxpayers can make a difference and sign something that will affect 'them'. Go for it, take the power!

Find out about it all here - - - http://fighthst.com

New technology - electronic cigarettes

2010-04-11T11:53:00.006-07:00

You could use will power. But that didn't work. Maybe the nicotine patch? Or the fake cigarette. No?
Well, there are now electronic cigarettes to help you get off the terrible vice. Yes Electronic.
Expensive though and all these devices haven't always worked for most.

So here I give you caterwauls' own Home Made Electronic Cigarette Method guaranteed to stop you from ever smoking again:

1. Fill your bathtub.
2. get a piece of rubber hose.
3. get a toaster and plug it in.
4. put the rubber hose into the water, the other end into your mouth.
5. throw the toaster into the bath water.
6. take a deep puff through the rubber hose.
7. you will never smoke cigarettes again.

Why can't I do this?

2010-04-08T15:28:00.003-07:00

Cable TV service is what I am talking about. Is the problem with the CRTC or with the networks cashing in with their buddies? Who is paying off who?
WHY, is it that when I sign up for cable TV service, I cannot just get a basic rate, and then pick the extra channels I want one at a time?
Like why can't I pay, say $30 a month for my basic, and then like $1 per channel for extras. Even if they said I have to pick at least 10 other channels, so I would get basic, plus the additions for $40. per month? Or $50 if I, want another bunch.
I want Speed channel because I like auto racing, but why do I have to take a children's cartoon channel too, in a so called 'bundle'? I want Movie Central too but why does the Shopping network have to be bundled into it? If I want Turner Classic Movies what has the Weather network got to do with it? TSN has nothing to do with Much Music T&A jiggly channel.
You see, it is about the cable companies helping their buddies to make money off US! Or is it the channel owners paying off the CRTC? And the cable companies intercept the network commercials in many cases, and substitute their own! Woo, everyone get's rich.
In my 'bundle', I have a religious channel, a shopping network, weather, FIVE French channels, TWO cartoon channels, BC Legislature that I have NEVER seen going because I suspect they don't want you to see their childish wranglings, Parliament channel, (sort of another cartoon channel) GOLF zzzZZZzzzzz sleepy channel, Space channel with Captain Kirk in perpetuity etc etc and various other channels which are feeding money into these channel owners' pockets.
NO ONE wants them yet they are cashing in on our inaction.
It is about them treating us like children; if you want candy you gotta eat your broccoli. I don't know about you, but I learned at seven how to throw up my broccoli later and enjoy my candy.
But damn there is NO candy here, it's all broccoli.
And no logical reason for me to be paying for these damned 'bundles'.

Sports media cringe

2010-03-07T07:39:00.002-08:00

The sports media are cringing. Shuddering with a ba-a-ad anticipation.
The entertainment media company TMZ have a sports section.
TMZ, (thirty mile zone) named one of the year's 50 coolest websites by Time magazine, is a joint venture between Telepictures Productions and AOL, and has enjoyed a meteoric rise to prominence by breaking the biggest stories in entertainment.
From Mel Gibson's DUI arrest and subsequent encounter with law enforcement to Michael Richards' ill-fated trip to the Laugh Factory to the breakup of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's marriage, TMZ dominates the entertainment news landscape by changing the way the public gets their news.
Frequently referenced by the media, TMZ is one of the most-cited entertainment news sources, utilized by national network and local newsgathering organizations across the country!

The fear of course is, that TMZ doesn't swallow the spin dictated by the PR departments of major sports teams like the sports media has for years.
Sure, Michael Vick was caught. Mark McGwire found out, and Tiger Woods exposed, but these revelations came from unsportsmanlike sources, neighbors, betrayed friends etc.

Once TMZ is on the lookout we might see the pot come to a boil as they relentlessly follow, harass, dig and photograph their prey. It promises to be a varied and tasty stew.

I can't wait for them to go after Vince McMahon and his steriody gravel voiced hunks of WWE, and the gender challenged T&A titilating terrors they pass off as women. What fun! Is there more to Barry Bonds history? Has Pete Rose appeared on a poker site somewhere? Who will be revealed in the months to come? We might find some delicious scandals once the tracking bloodhounds of TMZ get the scent and their tenacious terriers glom on to an ankle or two.

But do we really care? After all, what effect on the world has Brittney Spears without panties had? None whatsoever, but my oh my, it can be such fun to see some people squirm! And sports personalities squirm and sweat with way more embarrassment than the Lindsay Lohan ilk. We won't have to wait through the whole career of someone like Andre Agasis to find out about crystal meth and hairpieces.

It isn't the fact that TMZ goes after athletes for the ratings, which they will, it is the fact that some sports personalities occupy a position of lofty snobbery. Crowned as Kings, Princes and Queens of their realm. Perhaps a false position, but the public loves scandal and watching the high and mighty untouchables plunge face first into the mud will surely be entertainment for the rest of us.
It's enough to make you tremble in your cleats.

Canadian snapshot

2010-02-28T20:39:00.004-08:00

The focus of the 2010 Winter Olympics is on the athletes, the City of Vancouver and Canada.

But starting from snowboarder Johnny Lyall’s spectacular jump inside BC Place Stadium at the opening ceremonies, the positive side effects of these Olympics has been to expose the Canadian personality to the world.

We showed an enticing portrait of our First Nations people, the vastness of this country, our love of nature and sense of history on that first day. A hint that this tapestry of Canadians had something other than sports going on up there in the Great White North.

Sure, the world already knew we were polite, but by being the center of attention for two weeks, something we are usually a little uneasy with, we gave the world a glimpse of what Canadians really are. Polite but not meek. Proud but not arrogant. Confident with modesty. Intriguing yet unpretentious.

What wowed the world was Alexandre Bilodeau’s first gold medal on Canadian soil. Not the athletic feat but the devotion he showed to his cerebral palsy struck older brother. That was a vignette way more important than a physically fit athlete winning an event. And the country shone with pride at Alex’s humility and love of his family in TV interviews. His priorities were correct.

Maelle Ricker’s gold followed and this pretty women seemed like a cake bake-off winner instead of a finely tuned athlete. Nothing dramatic just grateful and appreciative thanks for the efforts of others in helping her to victory. The picture of Canadians was beginning to emerge.

Tears followed when gold favoured Mellisa Hollingsworth finished fifth in her skeleton sliding event. The old attitude of, ‘it just wasn’t my day’ became she felt she had 'let her country down.' Yet all of Canada came to her side in a show of winning isn’t the only thing. Being a real person who cared was. And Devon Kershaw's painful emotion after fifty exhausting kilometers of cross-country skiing and being only 1.6 seconds from a gold medal captured our hearts. But he is now one of the world's best and signaled the new attitude.

Time and time again our athletes appeared in the spotlight, not a harsh glare but more like a bright morning sun, and every one of them showed the personality that makes for great people. Revealing themselves to the world. Sometimes unsophisticated, sometimes worldly but always invigorating our spirits too.

Joannie Rochette’s courageous skate added to the aura of Canadians. The world held its breath and watched a young woman perform what became a private routine for her mother, tragically passed on only a few days before. Joannie allowed a few tears of grief only when the job was done. Fortitude and determination on display along with her graceful skill. Shared with a compassionate audience.

Then Jon Montgomery won the men’s skeleton and revealed yet another facet of the Canadian persona. Clearly enjoying a little glory while retaining his humbleness, grabbing a beer from a well wisher in the crowd and quaffing it before passing it on again. His fresh naturalness was his blessing.

The huge crowds in downtown Vancouver, after a short blip from protesters tolerated only once, embodied a spirit and fun and pride in being Canadian, almost as if no one was watching. Yet the world peeked in through television and learned that we too, can be flag wavers when the occasion demands it. Passion is part of our character and though k.d. lang sang a mellifluous and memorable Hallelueah at the opening, Oh Canada became the choice in the streets.

Even American NBC TV raved about how warm and welcoming we Canadians were to them and featured us in a favourable light.

Our hockey girls came through again, and were caught later still on the ice celebrating. What were they doing? Champagne and cigars! How unique and distant from the decorum others wanted to thrust on them. Canadians can be weird too!

So as our games went on, win or lose, we displayed our skills, our fine athletes, our country, our Canada. Even turned an early malfunction into a joke about ourselves in the closing ceremonies. But most of all, we displayed our Canadians as youthful eager participants on the way through life. A people who can adapt to whatever their needs are.

We gave the world a snapshot of what Canadians are, and can be, and will be and what makes us so great. A country full of proud, hopeful people who need no spotlight, yet can rise to the occasion and shine in their natural northern light, our beautiful aurora borealis.

And it is these many dimensions of character that assure the world that Canada and Canadians will continue to be trusted and respected in the future, in sports and in all aspects of life.

Good going Canada!

Canadians have shown the world that although winning isn’t everything, we still won. We wowed the world and we wowed ourselves too. Put the snapshot in your album, it's going to be there forever now.

Tom and Gary's Decentralized Dance Party

2010-02-28T00:26:00.023-08:00

Go here - http://www.decentralizeddanceparty.com/ - look at this and try and tell me Vancouver isn't a fun city!

Tom and Gary will infect you with good clean fun in the streets with Tom and Gary's Dynamic Dance Party Delivery Service!

Hey, Tom and Gary, I saw you down there in Library Square last night. Hooting and hollering and singing and dancing around. You pissed me off ‘cause you were all having way too much fun. And I am old. (pout) I get jealous about stuff like that.
Feb 28. It was midnight.
Then you led those jolly jiggling people off into the night like a pair of Pied Pipers, a cluster of red and white and dance party vibrations going who knows where?
And I was sad when the echoes stopped reverberating through the buildings because I knew it would take way too long to tie my shoe laces and follow you.
Well maybe it is leap year and my wife will ask me to marry her tomorrow.
Oh Canada.

Olympic curling

2010-02-23T09:37:00.008-08:00

Flicking around the other night during the Games. No Olympic hockey on the tely. No skiing. No moguls. Flick. Flick.
Wait, what was that? (flick back) Ooo, whooo is she? Nice. Canada's Cheryl Bernard. Wow. What a great looker.
(Steady gaze) Very nice and she seems to be playing some sort of game. Oh yes, curling. My my. Intense too when throwing a rock. And what's that she's shouting? Hard! Hard, harder! OMG. (Of course this is 'dirty old man' think.)

So I watched Cheryl for awhile. And came to the conclusion that maybe curling is actually a good sport.
I used to think it could be improved with body checking. Used to think it was boring. So between ogling Cheryl and watching what she was actually doing, I realized this sweet looking woman is extremely good at her sport. And curling is pretty interesting. Full of strategy and thought. Someone said chess on ice. Later I tuned in the Canada mens games and noted that Kevin Martin was accurate as hell in leading his team to victory too.

So of course I began watching curling at the Olympics. And several friends have found the same thing, that curling is an interesting sport that it is much more complex than I had imagined.
Now I am watching several curling games/matches/contests. And the bonus for a d.o.m. is that the women are so good looking. Can you say that?
So do they care how I got interested in curling? Do they care that I wonder if Cheryl will appear in the Canadian edition of Playboy? The announcer said 'curling is sexy', not me.
Well, I am now a fan, I think they care about that.

And I can say that Cheryl Bernard got me into curling.

adenda - The team won silver medal!

Thanks guys.

2010-02-13T14:49:00.008-08:00

I don't know if these men in black were Vancouver City Police, VANOC Integrated Security Unit, or RCMP, but there were 7 of them up there on a rooftop overlooking BC Place yesterday.
They were positioned on each corner of the building and watching the huge crowd coming in for the opening ceremonies.
You might notice the rifle scope sticking out of the bag.

It started raining and got cold as the gray day wore on. But they were vigilant on that rooftop, watching everything below with scopes and binoculars, just popping up their hoods and ignoring the chill.
I watched them into the rainy night. When it got really dark I could barely see them, on that roof, lurking in the shadow. Watchful. Scanning below. The ceremonies ended just after 9 pm and it became a driving rain.

Gretsky, taking the final torch to light the waterfront cauldron, endured it for a few moments, although perhaps warmed by his Olympic torch, and got huge applause. Happy people left BC Place and the street party began, enthusiasm undampened by the cold rain and the night.

I went to bed at 1 am and had a last look through a scope at that black rooftop. I could barely pick them out until my eyes adjusted, but they were still up there, standing darkly on the corners of that roof like ethereal gargoyles.
They were still there looking out for us, folks, you and me.

Over 60 thousand people attended those magical opening ceremonies, most of them proud of Canada and Canadians and unaware they were being looked after so well.

I suggest a huge thanks and a round of applause for them too.
Thanks guys.

Today in History ... February 05

2010-02-05T19:08:00.005-08:00

1989 - Radio Moscow announced that the last Soviet soldier had left Kabul, Afghanistan.
Just in time for the first American soldier to arrive.
Meanwhile the Afghanis checked their stockpiles of American weapons, supplied to them by the American CIA to use against the Soviets, now ready for use against the Americans.
Alas. The cycle continues.

Open letter to Rafe Mair

2010-02-03T09:25:00.009-08:00

Rafe,
You've no idea how many people miss an investigative reporter with some bristle.
Even though one mellows with age and accepts things one never would have at 20 or 30 or 40, one begins to realize that what we knew and how we lived when younger, will probably never happen again.
It seems today's newspapers, radio and TV news are all in line to simply pass on information designed for us by someone else.
I have quit listening to Bill Good because there are too many times I find myself egging him on and saying, "Ask your guest about this!" But alas, he meekly allows them to escape without insisting on answers. And most of the news outlets simply accept the politician's answers. (Michael Smyth may be a bright spot)

Well, I really wanted to tell you my take on the destruction of BC without much questioning from the general public. I am not blaming that public, only realizing that everyday they are slugging out a living and have no time for blame. Of course, there was a time when we knew Rafe WAS asking those prickly questions in the Jack Webster tradition on behalf of the public.

Many years ago, I worked for a film production company, and we made the film 20 Great Years for WAC Bennett. We were told (in secrecy) about the upcoming election about nine months before it was announced by Premier Bennett. I did a lot of work on that film including editing, directing, filming and writing. I was also involved in researching the many aspects of what the Social Credit Government had done in those twenty great years. That was when I became sold on how great British Columbia was.

But my long winded point of this letter is that starting with WAC Bennett, the intent of the succeeding premiers was always the same, regardless of political party, to continue to build this great province.
Dave Barrett, Bill Bennett, Mike Harcourt, Bill Vander Zalm, Glen Clark, et al, in spite of their problems that the press made much controversy about, still had the intent of building our province. And in retrospect, when reviewing what they did, one has to ask how bad was it? They all still placed BC first.
From WAC's taking control of the Pacific Great Eastern railway and making it BC Rail to open up and service BC's interior and north, to the expropriation of the BC Electric and making of BC Hydro, we had British Columbians with guts, talent and smarts who looked after us, were proud to participate in our province, and made our lives better. Our wild salmon fishery was one of the wonders of the world. We got our Knowledge Network etc etc.

With Mr Gordon Campbell, it is almost like we are dealing with a mole spy from another country, who has gotten into power and has now set about to dismantle the province, and turn it over to foreign interests.
Why would anyone put a middle man into our Hydro power system who needs to siphon off profit when BC Hydro's profit went wholly into BC?
What is the true purpose of Run of the River power projects except to extract profit for others?
Why would we allow those foreign owned Atlantic salmon fish farms to destroy that great wild sockeye fishery?
When virtually ALL our liquor profits went into BC's coffers, why would we want to sell out that for some other people's profits?
Why did we need outsiders looking for profits to make BC Gas global? I'm still not sure how our BC Gas became Terasen?
What reasons can be used for sending 430 million dollars to German workers for BC Ferries when British Columbia ship yards are totally capable and already have built enduring ships still in service. And that 430 million would have filtered into BC's economy and workers instead of Germany's. What possible reason would Mr. Campbell have had for trying to shut down the Georgia Straight tabloid? Except to stop free speech? Well, he has effectively curtailed all our news outlets now.

We used to proudly build hospitals, not shut them down. And what premier from this history would have ever separated a husband and wife in their last few years together? None of them, we had human people in charge of our province then. BC people. And virtually all of these premiers trusted British Columbians to run things. No need to import strangers with secret agendas.
The non answers to these questions set conspiracy theorists vibrating with corruption and secret bank account speculations. Which is one result of unanswered questions.

Most of us old timers recall the days of Pat Burns, Jack Webster, Gary Bannerman and Ed Murphy on our radio waves. And especially the days when Rafe Mair, at the risk of making an enemy, refused to accept an evasive answer, and went again and again after the truth.

It is with dismay that anyone born and raised here looks at the state of our province today and contemplates it's future.
The only question I have left to ask is: Are we past the point of no return?

Spidey-Senses

2010-02-01T21:04:00.004-08:00

This is about spiders and crickets.
Jonathan Storm, a behavioural ecologist at the University of South Carolina exposed lab-grown female crickets to wolf spiders whose fangs had been immobilised with wax, then studied the behaviour of their subsequent offspring.
Storm found that cricket infants remained motionless for longer in the presence of spider silk or droppings than the offspring of mothers that had not been exposed to spiders. Staying still is one of the ways that crickets avoid becoming spider food.
Great so far.
Exposing the eggs or juvenile crickets themselves to spider cues did not alter their behaviour, suggesting that mothers had influenced this aspect of their young's behaviour during the egg's production.
Ok, then what?
Wild-caught crickets from spider-rich habitats also produce more cautious offspring than mothers from spider-poor habitats, Storm found.
I think I get it, spiders eat noisy crickets. Did we need to give Mr. Storm a government grant for that revelation?
Storm doesn't know whether the cricket mother's warning is transmitted to the egg via maternal hormones or some other mechanism.
But I think he wants another grant to find out.

I have only one question. Mr Storm, have you nothing else to do?

Cricket, watch out, your spidey senses are telling you portent stuff.

Last Olympic post (maybe)

2010-01-29T18:49:00.003-08:00

Is this the truth?

Olympic Hero

2010-01-27T08:28:00.003-08:00

Mosi Alvand, owner of Olympia Pizza on Denman Street. One takes one's heroes where one finds them.

Gordie Robertson - Golden Boy

2010-01-25T08:07:00.006-08:00

Gordie Robertson started to get publicity a few weeks ago because he was a gold medalist in the 1952 Olympic Games in Hockey! Playing forward for the Trail Smoke Eaters in Oslo, Norway.
Gordie is now 83, an entertaining character and still a native of Trail, British Columbia.
After appearing on several radio staitons to express his disappointment of not being able to attend an Olympic event, a caller to a radio show gave him a ticket to a hockey event, the Canada Swiss game, even volunteering to put him up at his home during his stay in Vancouver.

Olympic organizers weren't prodded into seeing their mistake and it took another torch bearer to step aside to allow Gordie to carry an Olympic Torch, (not like the one below) as part of the relay passing through the Kootenays.

Of course, many people are thinking; Why wasn't Gold Medalist Gordie Robertson invited to our Gold Medal game as a special guest in the first place? Here we are fawning over our present day athletes, who have yet to accomplish anything, but forgetting our former glory winners?

Olympic honour is evidently very fragile.

Olympic torch

2010-01-21T16:16:00.004-08:00

It's all about BC, Bud.

VANOC's latest embarrassment

2010-01-14T19:45:00.007-08:00

The other day, the Scotia Bank started an enthusiastic company endorsement of Canadian athletes, called Show Your Colours Canada.
It was kicked off by two-time Olympic gold medalist, Cassie Campbell. "What it means and feels like to be a proud Canadian is something truly unique and special for every one of us," said Ms. Campbell, Captain of Canada's National Women's Hockey Team from 2001 - 2006, and six-time World Champion gold medalist. "Show Your Colours is a 'call to action' for Canadians to show their pride and encourages them to think about how they can show the world what makes Canada a truly amazing nation - from its environment to its citizens, coast to coast."
This corporate pride and encouragement was seen by many as positive cheer toward competing Canadians.

Not VANOC.
There they were again, threatening to sue Scotia Bank for 'ambush marketing'. Saying that their actions would hurt the Olympic games.
What it seems they want is for no one to participate in their Olympics. No one to write anything about them. No one to talk about them.
No wonder the overwhelming majority of British Columbians I have talked to feel left out of the whole event when we cannot even cheer on our athletes unless it is through buying the privilege with official sponsors.
I don't know about you, but I feel a strong backlash against those 'official' sponsors.
Pride is one thing, greed is another.

addenda eye opener: read this to see how VANOC is shafting our American friends -
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/olympics/2010276798_olytickets15.html

Don't do this ...

2010-01-13T11:04:00.007-08:00

Eh! O', Canada Go!

No Art Allowed - VANOC

2010-01-12T21:09:00.019-08:00

Remember this wall?
Beatty Street across from the Armories. It was filled with bright paintings, known as the Beatty Street Murals.
Colourful and vibrant on a very plain street.

But as usual, VANOC didn't want anything that tourists would see as part of Vancouver's multi-faceted identity, even though all of the original 16 paintings were commissioned by the Steve Nash Foundation, so they had them painted over with blue paint. Perhaps they were afraid of secret messages woven into that artwork by Pepsi, or Mastercard, or Telus etc. Ambush Advertising they call it in a feeble attempt to make themselves sound correct.

Just another reason for John Furlong to hang his head over the treatment of the citizens of Vancouver and their exclusion from the Winter Olympics.

Oh, by the way, that's an official Olympic vehicle parked there on Sunday.
I assume standing guard over the blue wall in case someone dares put a happy face on it.

Whoops, someone did dare to make a rather sad statement.

These kinds of attacks on our visual environment need to be followed more closely. WHO actually hired the painters to slosh over the murals? We need to know the actual names of people who follow these directions blindly and stupidly and with no concern for their own city. SOMEONE gave the order.

And it reminds me of all those glorious tall trees that were brutally chopped down on Hamilton street by Concord Pacific to make way for the new CBC studios, none of which would have interfered in any way with the construction or look. And none of which were on Concord Pacific's property.
There IS a law that says if you cut a tree down from city property, it must be replaced by a like tree. Still waiting for that and the name of the person who gave the order.
These people who have so little regard for their own neighborhood couldn't be from Vancouver. Or even live here. Could they?

see my previous post and pictures about the CBC trees - October 2006 - CBC construction, your trees or theirs?
http://caterwauls.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html

Roxxxy the Sex Robot - 71 to go

2010-01-11T14:55:00.013-08:00

Roxxxy the sex robot made her debut in front of adoring fans at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.
Roxxxy is a life-size, anatomically correct, robotic girlfriend who comes complete with artificial intelligence and flesh-like synthetic skin. She stands five feet, seven inches tall, weighs 120 pounds, "has a full C cup and is ready for action," according to Douglas Hines, who was an artificial intelligence engineer at Bell Labs before starting TrueCompanion.
Not sure if that means Douglas has artificial intelligence or Roxxy has.
It says here that she is a companion, she hears you, she listens to you, (note the separate categories) All women hear you, but .... well, you know.

There's more, Roxxxy comes with five personalities. Wild Wendy is outgoing and adventurous, while Frigid Farrah is reserved and shy. Would you pay $9000. for frigid?
I am not really sure I want a personality anyhow. My vacant looking wide-eyed blow up doll, (Mazie) doesn't need any thoughts. And she seems to be saying a perpetual 'Wow!, enough for my simple ego.
And I can deflate her and have a secret companion right there with me, deep in my front pants pocket.

Inspiration for the sex robot sprang from the September 11, 2001 attacks, when planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City and Douglas decided to replicate his friend's personality who died in that event. ??? I am not making this up. I promise. But it does cause one to wonder about Doug's friends.
I can't figure this either, but after years of seeing those extremely beautiful Mattel Barbie Dolls I can't figure out why she was made so ... eewww ... ugly! Roxxxy is like Cro-Magnon man with a wig. A rubberized Drag Queen. I only suggest that perhaps she is intended to look like one of the 72 virgins promised to the suicide bombers on 9/11. Anything to put them off.

I wonder if she'll do a balloon fly if you stick a pin in her bum? Oh not .... you can bet she already has a hole in her bum.
Please don't imagine the ... um .... testing of this ... er... product.
Damn now you are, aren't you?

Well no perversions for me.
I am just going to stick to my regular Gentlemens' Club where I can go and get chained upside down to a wall naked and have Madame Merelda beat the hell out of me!

Today in History ... January 6

2010-01-06T14:31:00.012-08:00

The Law of Large Numbers.
A theorum advanced by Jakob Bernoulli (1654-1705) Swiss mathematician. He was responsible for the rule that the average of a large number of independent measurements of a random quantity tends toward the theoretical average of that quantity. Also called Bernoulli's law.
.
Caterwaul's Law of Large Numbers:
If you have many men in a crowd; Men will start a fight.
If you have many men and women in a crowd; Men will cop a feel.
If you have many women in a crowd at a shoe sale; Women will start a fight.
If you have many women at a shoe sale fighting who won't let go of the same shoe; Women will feel a cop.

Old Adage: If the shoe fits, wear it.

Murphy's Law: When you get it home it won't fit.

Comment: Don't have a hissy fit about it.

BC Place Stadium - goodbye?

2010-01-04T15:24:00.003-08:00

This is what I think might happen to our stadium because of secret deals. We just now heard about a secret deal made by VANOC in April, 2009, which was to take 8.3 million dollars from a 'construction' budget ... and use it to build an Olympic flame holder inside the stadium and to make the acoustics better.
Apparently someone sold this to John Furlong on the idea that the athletes, needed to hear well in there so they would compete better out there. And one bozo (Dave Cobb) said, "We like to keep these things secret for the surprise element"! Someone needs to tell ol' Dave, that the public cannot be surprised any more by the Olympics Committee's nefarious deals.
Well, we all know how much the developers want to get their greedy hands on the BC Place property. I think they'll purposely get those construction costs up so high that Gordon Campbell will announce that he is scrapping the whole stadium deal, and is being responsible to the BC taxpayers. Therebye allowing his friends to fly in like vultures to a rotting corpse and feed.
Then it wouldn't surprise me at all, Dave, if Gordon pockets millions more in payoffs from whomever while the condos get built.
Big deals have been canceled before in the name of saving the taxpayer's money, usually after someone already got all the taxpayer's money.
Don't count on watching the Lions or Whitecaps play anywhere near BC Place unless you buy a condo there and have a big screen TV.
Got any more secrets to surprise us with, Dave?

Repost from October 2004 - re Drugs in BC

2009-12-25T12:25:00.006-08:00

in the past ....
SOME INFO ABOUT THE 1950S DRUG SCENE. Does it matter today?

(researched because I have written a stage play about drug addiction in the 50s)

In 1952, a Special Committee on Narcotics of the Community Chest and Council of Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, recommended after thorough study: "The Federal [Canadian] Government should be urged to modify the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act to permit the provinces to establish narcotic clinics where registered narcotic users could receive their minimum required dosages of drug." - Such dispensing clinics, the committee predicted, would "protect the life of the addict and support him as a useful member of society." It would also "within a reasonable time eliminate the illegal drug trade. . . . The operation of such clinics would not entail any reduction in the vigilance of law enforcement agencies," which would continue to be responsible for keeping narcotics out of reach of non-addicts.

An addict who shifts from black-market heroin to morphine by prescription moves into another world. Suppose, for example, that be has been paying $20 a day for 40 milligrams of heroin mixed with 360 milligrams of hazardous adulterants and contaminants. Armed with a prescription, he can walk into almost any neighborhood pharmacy and secure pure morphine, U.S.P., safely diluted in an appropriate vehicle, and sterilely packaged, at the full retail price of $5 per dram or less. He thus pays about five cents for 40 milligrams of morphine. If heroin were stocked in pharmacies, he could buy 40 milligrams of it, too, on prescription, for about a nickel - as British addicts do.
The question is obvious: Why shouldn't the addict be encouraged to secure his opiates legally, on prescription, in pure form, for a nickel a day, rather than be forced by federal and state laws to spend $20 per day in the heroin black market?
(NOTE* These figures are pre 1960s, it's more like $300. per day now. (conservative) And the addicts get it by breaking into YOUR car, your house or your life, adding huge costs to us all)

In 1954, a California citizens' advisory committee to the Attorney General on crime prevention proposed that an addict certified as incurable by a disposition board should legally receive specified doses of narcotics and thereby remove said addict as a potential market for criminally or illegally secured narcotics.
Also in 1954, Dr. Edward E. Eggston, for the New York state delegation, brought to the annual convention of the American Medical Association a proposal that the AMA go on record as favoring "the establishment of narcotics clinics under the aegis of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics." The resolution did not pass.

In 1955, the Medical Society of Richmond County (Staten Island), New York, recommended the "establishment of narcotic clinics in large centers where the problem is acute." It suggested, "Suitable private physicians can care for the occasional addict in isolated areas .... The addict will receive his narcotics only at the clinic, hospital, or doctor's office so that he cannot resell them elsewhere."
Also in 1955, the New York Academy of Medicine proposed "taking the profit out of the illicit trade by furnishing drugs to addicts at low cost under federal control."
The academy recommended that "clinics be attached to general hospitals, whether federal, municipal, or voluntary, dispensing narcotics to addicts, open 24 hours daily, 7 days a week."

In 1956 the Council on Mental Health of the American Medical Association, while opposing the immediate establishment of substantial numbers of drug-dispensing clinics as urged the previous year by the New York Academy of Medicine, did suggest "the possibility of devising a limited experiment which would test directly the hypothesis that clinics would eliminate the illicit traffic and reduce addiction."
Also in 1956, the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association established a joint Committee on Narcotic Drugs, which recommended in its 1958 Interim Report:
(1) An Outpatient Experimental Clinic for the Treatment of Drug Addicts Although it is clear ... that the so-called clinic approach to drug addiction is the subject of much controversy, the joint Committee feels that the possibilities of trying some such outpatient facility, on a controlled experimental basis, should be explored, since it can make an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of how to deal with drug addicts in a community, rather than on an institutional basis. It has been suggested that the District of Columbia, being an exclusively federal jurisdiction and immediately accessible to both law enforcement and public health agencies, might be an advantageous locus for this experiment.
Have we progressed at all in the so-called War on Drugs?
posted by caterwauler October, 2004
--------------------------------------------
I think we all know what the answer is - and what we have to learn is who is stopping us from progressing? The answer is so simple.

Hike liquor prices

2009-12-15T07:43:00.002-08:00

You've probably heard of the so-called study out of Victoria that recommends hiking the price of booze. Some are saying it is because liquor consumption has risen dramatically in BC. Some brain turd thinks making a bottle of booze more expensive will eliminate alcoholism! Well, study people live on sponsored studies don't they. Wonder who sponsored this one?
Alcoholics will drink no matter what the price, the cost just means that guy's kids don't get shoes, or toys, or the wife money to feed them.
Why will they drink despite the cost? Because they're alcoholics! (Studies never consider common sense)
Consumption in BC has gone up because people have no extra money for restaurants, clubs, opera, sporting events etc, because THOSE costs have skyrocketed into the stratosphere! (and I haven't even mentioned HST) But what is still cheap enough to make one feel good for a few nights? A bottle of booze.
Okay, you knew this was coming - - - - Here is the real reason I believe the cost of booze will go up. My opinion only of course.
A few years ago, Gordon Campbell might have made promises to private people wanting to take over BC's booze industry. He tried to sell our whole provincial liquor control to these people and these panting privateers greedily anticipated their millions after having the provincial stores closed. Some would even say Gordon got some payoff for orchestrating it all. And HIS extra bonus was to eliminate another union.
But then the public got involved and the argument that private was better disappeared when they realized how much profit from liquor went directly into the provincial coffers from government liquor stores. We were told this profit would continue from taxes but the public saw right through that specious argument too.
Meanwhile the privateer liquor stores proliferated and the prediction that their booze would be 30% higher came true! However they couldn't push that envelope any higher because of competition from the provincial stores. Those damned Government stores offer a comparison! But do they think Gordon owes them something from his promises of Grand profits? Thus a study that will allow the government, (Gordon Campbell) to rationalize putting the prices up again. Thus allowing even more margin for the privateers. Thus weaseling out of his obligation to hand over the entire industry to 'friends' while getting them more.
Colloquially, a Privateer, although established in the 16th century, is nothing more than a Pirate, plundering something that belongs to others.
Get real people, realize you're being had once again, then get drunk, it's about all you can do.

Top Ten Movie Quotes from 2009 Remakes

2009-11-04T14:21:00.010-08:00

The Top Ten Lines from the original memorable movies - with their 2009 remake updates.

10 - Casablanca – Humphrey Bogart character Rick Blaine to Ilsa;
Original – "Here’s lookin’ at you, Kid."
2009 Remake – “Let’s get the hell on that plane, I just killed Paul Henreid!”
.
9 - The Wizard of Oz – Judy Garland character Dorothy to Toto, her dog;
Original – “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
2009 Remake – “Toto, get off my leg and stop that! Oh all right, oh, ooo TOTOOOH!”
.
8 - In the Heat of the Night – Sydney Portier character Tibbs;
Original – “They call me Mister Tibbs.”
2009 Remake – “Sup, Bro?”
.
7 - Sudden Impact – Clint Eastwood character Harry Callahan to Punk;
Original - “Go ahead, Punk, make my day.”
2009 Remake – “Bang! Oops.”
.
6 - Apocalypse Now – Robert Duvall character Colonel Kilgore to troops;
Original – “I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like Victory.”
2009 Remake - “I love the smell of my palm in the morning. It smells like my buddy Victor.”
.
5 - Apollo 13 – Tom Hanks character Jim Lovell to ground control;
Original - “Houston, we have a problem.”
2009 Remake – “Ground Control to Major Tom, Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong. Can you hear me, Major Tom?”
.
4 - The Shining – Jack Nicholson character Jack Torrance to anyone;
Original – “Here’s Johnny!”
2009 Remake – “Here’s Conan!”
.
3 - Broke Back Mountain – Jake Gyllenhaal character Jack Twist to Ennis;
Original – “I wish I knew how to quit you.”
2009 Remake – “Sheep? Where?”
.
2 - Citizen Kane – Orson Wells character Charles Foster Kane in dying breath;
Original – (harsh whisper) …“Rosebud.”
2009 Remake – (harsh whisper) …“B.C. Bud.”
.
2a - The Godfather – Marlon Brando character Don Vito Corleone to Tom;
Original – “Make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
2009 Remake – “Godfather Pizza, 2 pepperoni for 1 deal! You can’t refuse!”
.
1 - Gone With the Wind – Clark Gable character Rhett Butler to Scarlet Ohara;
Original – “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
2009 Remake - “Fuck off, Scarlet.”

Quebec - shut up or get out!

2009-10-24T14:37:00.002-07:00

You heard about the most recent slap at Canada from Quebec, didn't you? It's about their language again. In which the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the so called language law that blocked children from attending English language schools. All immigrant parents had to do was enroll a child first in an English private school, after that they could send children to English language public schools.
In a 7-0 decision, the court struck down a law known as Bill 104 that, since 2002, has blocked some 8,000 children in Montreal alone from attending English-language schools. Anyone who has traveled already knows that after English, German and Spanish are the dominant languages worldwide outside of China. And English is the second language there! French is but a deviation.
Of course now that we have the misnomer title in Quebec of the "National Assembly" Quebeckers see themselves as independent from Canada, and the latest slap in the face to Canadians is the accusation that Canada is interfering in another nation's business. That "nation" being Quebec.
Are you tired of this too? Isn`t it time Quebec went their own way? Do they really still think as they did before that last referendum?
That even if they separate from their hated oppressors, the Canadians, they will still receive all the benefits of Canadians across Canada. That all those cushy Ottawa jobs will still be theirs? That they will still get huge lucrative contracts from Canada over Albertans or Nova Scotians? That they will still receive equalization payments from Ottawa? That the people way out there in BC will still have bilingual signs? That they will sell those products labelled in French only writing across the US and Canada? That they will still VOTE in Canadian elections and send representatives to Canada's Parliament? That they will still have Canadian passports!
Yes, that is exactly what they believed. And probably still do.
It is such a naive POV that it makes a Westerner or Easterner laugh and feel embarrassed for misinformed and ignorant Quebeckers. I for one would expect a 100 year backlash and a new Canadian government to support Canadians first and consider Quebeckers applying for jobs or entry as immigrants. Look at the politics. Each party wants to woo those 75 seats so they cowtow to Quebec. If they were gone then we could have a fair and democratic Canada and be rid of the whining once and for all. Not to mention the drain of the constant dole to the French crybabies.
And the rest of Canada would have something to be proud of instead of being embarrassed about.

Journalism 2.0

2009-10-20T20:55:00.003-07:00

People are talking about Journalism 2.0 lately. It is partly a theory that journalism as we knew it is now dead. It has to do with the modern media, TV news, newspapers, radio news. These sources for your information seem to be unreliable and untrusted. The news you get from newspapers is now almost 3 days old when it is printed. And they often quote news from TV or even weblogs! TV news hours fill up with anything but real news. Looking for 'stories' to tell within a time frame.
A recent study of news information showed that most of the younger generation get their hard news from, of all people, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. Walter Cronkite died and news trust died with him. Journalism 1.0 is no longer supported like that old Commodore 64 in a land fill somewhere.
Most hard news outlets are conglomerates owned by a very few powerful people. A little research will often tell you exactly who owns them, and a little more reading will get you the slant of that owner. A little scrutiny will even tell you HOW the affiliated stations will report news. So why do we need to pay attention then? Of course that research is done on the World Wide Web.
Aha. That's it isn't it? The reason people are discussing Journalism 2.0. News now comes from people posting items on the web; in forums, blogs, Youtube, social networking sites like Facebook. Yes, opinionized it may be and there is a lot of chaff and misinformation, but a keen mind can separate that from DISinformation as practiced by certain organized media. Do we believe the antics of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck masquerading as news commentary? Jon Stewart is on the Comedy Network, he goes for the laugh, and yet through the humor we discern truth. Salon.com regularly scoops the major news organizations. Wolf Blitzer fumbles through a program trying for seriousness yet seems to be a victim of news technology! CNN ratings have plummeted. Newspapers can no longer take the time to verify their stories in the competition with a Youtube video of what just happened.
Journalism is freer now that we, the people, can post stories and items and video about what WE saw. Anywhere and anytime in the world! We no longer need the trained reporter who can perhaps write better, or a videographer who gets the better angle and the dropping tear, all edited for the morning edition or the Six O'clock news hour.
The face of journalism has changed and the real eloquence is in the spontaneity of the report, whether it be from a shaky unfocused cell-phone camera or a ungrammatical posting on a blog.
Journalism 2.0 is here and we all have a tremendous new power. And we are reporting to each other.
We need only to tell the truth.

Welfare Bums?

2009-10-11T09:57:00.002-07:00

Welfare bums? Lots of vitriol lately about whoever they are. People post on social forums, get a job! Scream about quit drinking and drugs! Why should I pay for them to loaf and get handouts? Etc etc ad nauseum. But who exactly are these welfare bums? What do they look like? Those raggy people climbing into dumpsters looking for cans and bottles?
Are they sports figures? What about athletes full of fitness and fire? Ken Read, once of the famous 'Crazy Canucks' ski team, who got Canadian taxpayer money to send him and others to Argentina to glacier ski for 'training', said, "When your amateur career is over, there's something wrong if you are not a millionaire." And all those other sporties who are supported by Canadian tax money and proudly tell us after placing 35th of 35 that they reached a 'personal best'! Aren't these welfare bums?
And those teflon CEOs of huge companies who were so busy arrogantly managing their own graft and corruption that they mismanaged the companies they were charged with running, and then got bailouts in the millions from taxpayers! They are welfare bums even in a $500. suit!
And what about hundreds of local 'Arts Councils' all across Canada who continually put on Shakespeare plays that no one attends that don't pay for themselves yet who receive huge 'grants' year after year! That is welfare bummery at it's best!
And singer-songwriters like Bruce Cockburn who never laid down a music track without Canadian taxpayer money allowing him to add the mandated 'Canadian content'.
And aren't we tired of CBC harpsichord music yet? Billions in welfare pouring into that snobbery management.
One could go on and on adding people and groups with hands out. THOSE are welfare bums.
But they are NOT that guy who worked most of his life paying taxes and trying to support his family who got laid off after 25 years and was 'overqualified' for any positions and companies wouldn't trust his experience to do a lesser job, so he finally, in chagrin, had to get some welfare relief to hold something of his life together. He is no less a victim that the Tourettes guy swearing on the corner.
Canada is so full of welfare bums and they are not the ones in ragged clothes wandering the streets all night pushing a rattling Safeway Cadillac for bottles, they are the ones with ragged minds driving in the REAL Cadillacs.
Quit screaming.

No BC Place stadium roof?

2009-08-25T20:46:00.007-07:00

You heard it here first folks.
I posted at least a year ago that the developers would win out and have BC Place torn down to build condos. Everyone in the 'in' crowd would get rich. I suspected and speculated then that Gordon Campbell would find a way to accommodate his friends and perhaps take his cut somewhere. Which I often do because I cannot personally imagine that anyone could sell off the assets of British Columbians as he has done without some personal graft in there somewhere. No one could be that disloyal.
My own opinion of course.
So now we hear that the new expanding roof is not going on the stadium after all. They are merely readying it for those games. (VANOC says we are not allowed to mention what games)
I predict that after these games, they will discover something so bad about our BC Place Stadium, and tell us that it will not be able to be used anymore and why not sell the land for condos? The greed will take hold and it'll be a done deal - if it isn't already.
Watch for the spin preparation to begin right after the games when those costs start becoming public. Once you get the character and agenda of some people, you can figure out the succeeding actions yourself. And Gordon has shown his disdain for BCers over and over again.
You heard it here first.
They are probably writing the copy right now.

addenda: The very next day Gordon Campbell confirmed no new expanding roof. He was very careful to say 'expanding' and wimpy Bill Good didn't ask the obvious follow up question: Will there be ANY new roof?

Do It Yourself Doctoring

2009-08-14T08:10:00.009-07:00

It's coming folks. Huge cuts in hospital staff and access. Doctors moving to the clinic format, no longer having regular patients. Budgets being curtailed. No more elective surgeries.
All designed, some people think, to drive you to the for-profit private clinics that Gordon Campbell has allowed to undermine our own health care system.
So will it result in a Do It Yourself health care explosion?
There are now DIY dentistry kits where you can get the stuff needed to replace the filling you swallowed. You already know what your dentist does to fix a cavity. He drills around in there to clean it up, then mixes the amalgam and fills the hole and polishes it up. So why can't you do the same thing? With the kits, you can. Pliers included please.
Sure it's temporary they say, but if the dentist charges you $800 dollars to fix it, and the kits are only $23 dollars, you can temp it 34 TIMES yourself! Even at a six month replacement schedule that equals 17 YEARS without you spending those big bucks.
So why couldn't you do other stuff yourself too? People have been delivering their own babies for centuries. Someone just needs to write a detailed manual on certain procedures. Step by step instructions on appendix removal, tonsil removal, hip and knee replacement, vaccinations, if you show me where the arteries are I could clean them out too. Stitches? No sweat, I can tie a double half granny knot. Criminals in Asia are already stealing kidneys from tourists so that can't be too hard. How many volunteers would step up for breast implants? Colonoscopy? Rent a fibreoptics tube, only $10 for the weekend, check out your friends too. The DIY hemorrhoid kit might be a slow seller.
Even mental health issues can be resolved at home. In the years past ancient people solved the problem of evil spirits in the head by actually chipping a hole in your skull with an eolith, a flintstone axe, to let the malevolent demons out!It's called trephining. And there's evidence the crazy persons survived! And we have way sharper axes today.
Sure, real doctors spend years learning, but you only need to fix the single thing that's bugging you. A DIY kit could help you to do it.
So, there are hundreds of procedures we could do ourselves. How hard can it be? We only need a DIY Doctor Store, kits for everything, instructions on CD.
Gaul bladder removal - Hospitable price, $30,000. Ops-R-Us price - On Sale, $49.95. Biteable bullet and whiskey included,

Passports of convenience

2009-08-11T16:06:00.002-07:00

A Somali woman who is also a Canadian was stranded in Kenya. Recently two Asian "journalists" who were also American citizens were imprisoned in North Korea for violating the border. A Canadian woman activist of Iranian birth was imprisoned in Iran. Many Canadians of Lebanese descent had to be airlifted out of Lebanon when trouble blew up there.
All were super critical of the Canadian government for not working more swiftly to save them from harm.
The problem, of course, is that these 'Nationals' are carrying passports which mean nothing to them except an escape vehicle if things get scary in their own country. I know, I know, their own country is now Canada or America, but many of these landed immigrants have only applied for citizenship and a passport in order to hold the escape documents. They arrive in Canada, get the proper papers, and high tail it right back to wherever they are from!
In the case of the Asian Americans, right back to the North Korean border to pursue stories to discredit the leader. In the case of the Canadian Lebanese, right back to their businesses. One case had only spent a few months in Canada in the ten years since he received his citizenship and passport. The Iranian Canadian woman was known as an activist in Iran.
These people seem to have little interest in their chosen countries, even assuming they pledged some kind of allegience to our flags.
So why should our Canadian Government spend thousands of taxpayers dollars rescuing these 'foreigners' when their intent seems to be to make trouble in their former countries?
I believe that in the 'old' days, one had to apply for Canadian citizenship, remain in our country for five years without incident and show that you were here to become part of the greatest country in the world. THEN you got your citizenship.
There is nothing wrong with having rules and requirements. If you want to be Canadian, hang out here and help build the country and don't expect us to come rescue you when you go back to wherever to rabble rouse.
It is a priviledge to be an American or Canadian, not a right just because you got here somehow.

Ingenious pervert ploy

2009-08-11T07:07:00.005-07:00

A man in Florida hired a woman via Craigslist to look after his disabled brother. The disabled one had mental issues, was confined to an apartment and needed to have his diaper changed. He even needed bottle feeding. The woman took the job at $600. per week and did it often.
Then she found out that the man had no disabilities at all.
She 'exposed' the ruse and received emails from five other women who were also going at various times of day to change the man's diaper. The man and the disabled brother were one and the same!
Police said that although she was lied to, no crime had been committed and no one would be charged.
Evidently the guy was paying $3600. a week to satisfy his odd lusts. One assumes the six women came to 'depend' on the income.
Beware of clever rich perverts.

NEWS - itch gene discovered

2009-08-09T07:00:00.002-07:00

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified the first gene for the itch sensation in the central nervous system. The researchers, led by Zhou-Feng Chen, Ph.D., found that laboratory mice that lacked this gene scratched much less than their normal cage-mates when given itchy stimuli.
Wonderful. Mice are now sleeping more peacefully.
No mention of cancer research. Or heart disease. Or flesh eating disease. Or bubonic plague. Someone thought itching was paramount. Someone spent money figuring this out. Some aspiring medical student scientists, hoping to go the way of Louis Pasteur, followed Zhou-Feng into scratch free history.
Whoever said scratching was bad thing anyway? It can be a major source of pleasure to scratch with a stiff hair brush. The measurement being the length of your "aahhh" or the placid expression on your face. And the removal of the gene won't get rid of cooties, or mosquito bites, or hives.
Isn't the scratch sensation designed to tell us something? Sort of like, "Scratch here, Buddy, you have that rash again." Get some Blue Ointment.
Well this item was all over the news recently. Like it was a huge medical breakthrough in the fight against itch. It's enough to make old Louis P. drink raw milk.
Meanwhile the major news organizations were hot on the trail of what Paris Hilton was doing next. That alone is enough to make one itchy.

Typical Liberal

2009-07-31T10:08:00.002-07:00

Bill Good had Paul Martin on radio today. Bill's first question was - "Should the government have gone into a deficit ... etc etc. "
And Paul Martin began his answer (after a pause) with - "Well, in terms of ..."
....
No Liberal in Canada is able to answer - 'Hello' without considering the political ramifications of his answer. What will it mean in the future if I reply - 'Hello' or 'Hi' or 'Good Day' or 'Bonsior'?
Typical Liberal.

Call out the Army!

2009-07-08T06:17:00.003-07:00

Bud Mercer, head of the RCMP's Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit, has announced the end of free speech as we know it in Canada.
The budding mercenary said there will be 'Free Speech Zones'. There will be no protests, talks, or placards with anti-Olympics messages allowed outside these designated areas. And the army will be here to enforce it. Is this actually inciting protest? Where would these zones be? In the Central Park forest? The dikes along the Fraser River? Perhaps somewhere in the West Kootenays?
Bud Mercer is the same guy who is sending mysterious men in black to harass anyone now who voices concern. And he has 4500 soldiers coming to make sure no one speaks out. They also plan on herding the homeless out of town. Maybe in boxcars? Oh no, wait, that was in Nazi Germany. How did the Chinese do it in Beijing? Oh wait, that was in Communist China.
This perception of a threat by the ISU is curtailing our rights to free expression and free association. There will be thousands of surveillance cameras watching everything you do. Security officials gathering intelligence on potential threats. Oh wait, this is Canada, a shining example of democracy and freedom. Isn't it? It couldn't be all that bad. Could it?
One wonders if these actions by already heavy handed enforcers will result in some sort of backlash and even some interest by regular people as Vancouver descends into a police state.
And one almost assumes this kind of suppression of democracy in Canada will actually encourage the organization of protest groups. That is if the famously placid Canadians even care about their rights and freedoms.
They don't want protests like Seattle had during the WTO meetings. Well many people began learning about the World Trade Organization because of those protests. And many now believe the WTO has no rights to over rule countries, yet it is now happening.
Who knows what VANOC is starting by over ruling Canadians' fundamental rights?
I think this is going to heat up, perhaps at Army gunpoint.

Call the Fire department!

2009-07-05T07:45:00.003-07:00

If you live in a high rise apartment, you'll know that boilers overheat all the time. Generally the fire department makes an appearance to make sure that's all it is and can correct the situation pretty easily. So yesterday the apartment building across the street had that familiar beeping from their panel in the lobby. The fire department attended.
With total overkill.
On our street below, Hamilton Street in Vancouver, we had FOUR huge ladder trucks, ONE large fire truck, TWO Fire dept cars, and FOUR ambulances! All with lights flashing and sirens wailing.
AND, directly below the apartment, and across the street on the corner, is a firehall.
ELEVEN vehicles! Do these guys get paid by the call? However do eleven vehicles get called at the same time? However do four ambulances get called and roar up with sirens blazing when the first two ambulances have been there for five minutes?
Can you say co-ordination of resources?

Call the cops!

2009-06-15T13:31:00.003-07:00

The 2010 Olympics seems to now have precedence over freedom of speech and perhaps even future movement of Canadian citizens. Several people who have voiced disapproval of the Olympics have been followed or tracked by some secretive plainclothes policemen from something called the Joint Intelligence Group of the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit! OMG! Is that another of Dick Cheney's hatchings?
This smacks of American suppression of citizens rights! And don't think it isn't going to get worse. We have been told that American military is going to be here for our Olympics too, to "help" with security. And we all know that no American military force EVER works beneath a foreign command. Not that we need them based on this latest VANOC action.
This is just starting folks, and there could be a groundswell against this kind of action. A recent declaration from a Coventry, England sports and social conference resolved to condemn the Vancouver Olympic committee for intimidating ... "writers or individuals who express ideas through words." Of course the spin from VANOC and their 'secret' police is that they are guarding our security.
I believe that's what the Ohio National Guard told the world when they killed four students and wounded thirteen others protesting on May 4, 1970.
I am FOR the Olympics, just for the record, but against the huge costs that the taxpayers always have to bear for years afterwords. And they are truly a party for the rich because they know that if people had to vote to have them, the Olympics would die a quick death.
I think it is going to get interesting folks, and don't stop expressing yourselves!

Rick Hansen deserves better than this

2009-06-15T13:14:00.004-07:00

At BC Place, around the back, under the upper walkway, hidden in the dark bushes, is a statue of Rick Hansen commemorating his Man in Motion world tour. Many believe that trip by wheelchair around the whole world to be the 20th Century's greatest athletic achievement! I have no idea how long that statue has been there, and I doubt if most people even know it exists. Part of Hansen's purpose was to show to other countries that people who are physically challenged should not be hidden away. He accomplished that goal wonderfully. Inspiring millions to reach for their star.
Who makes these decisions? What duffus selected that placement? The same person who decided Terry Fox needed a mausoleum on the other side of BC PLace rather than a statue?
Someone needs to right these idiots' decisions. The Terry Fox location needs a statue which would instantly tell his story instead of people wondering what that contraption is. And Rick Hansen's statue should be right there at the front of BC Place Stadium where everyone can see two of our greatest athletes and what they did.
Hiding them away is just wrong and disgusting that someone approved the idea.

Go ahead - Ask Auntie Jane

2009-05-16T08:27:00.006-07:00

Relationship troubles? You needn't be overwhelmed, and you're not alone. Here's a new website where you can get answers to your questions about family, money, drugs, marriage, sex and many other issues about life's modern pressures today. And anonymously.
have a look - http://askauntiejane.com

ask Auntie Jane

History repeats itself -

2009-05-16T07:42:00.003-07:00

from - Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Miss America - The F@$&%# up state of pageants
Miss America tested positive for cocaine. She has been carousing in New York City's bars and drinking martinis before she turned 21. She was caught doing a glue-faced tongue kiss in public with Miss Teen America, the other All-American party girl. Miss Teen America is a spokesperson for MADD!
Donald Trump is the co-owner of the Miss America pageant. Mr. Trump went into a meeting with the perfectly round-breasted Ms. Conner this morning expecting to terminate her reign as Miss USA.
But he said the meeting showed him someone with “a good heart” who had been caught up in a “whirlwind” in New York. Evidently he couldn't say, "Miss America, you're fired!"
The Donald's hair was not mussed.
Monica Lewinski or Bill Clinton couldn't be reached for comment.

Today - She was not crowned winner of the recent Miss USA pageant, but the big story to come out of the 'contest' was Miss California's comments regarding gay marriage. One stumble led to another as it was revealed that Carrie Prejean, had lied about posing topless for photos previously. The topless came about because - "The wind blew my top off ..." - during a photo shoot. It was also revealed that in assessing her weak spots, her boobs were deemed too small and the contest paid for implants. They also fixed her teeth. All this while she professed to only accept natural attributes. No brain implants were available at the time.
And once again, The Donald went into a room with the lovely Miss to scrutinize the revealing photos of her and found no cause to revoke her title, and emerged to announce she would keep her title.
The controversy has made for some wonderful publicity.
Say anything you want about me, but spell my name correctly. That's Hollywood.

Tamils protest

2009-05-02T17:47:00.007-07:00

Today they had a protest in Library Square. It is some kind of Tamil organization protesting something. I can't tell exactly what it is because they are drumming and chanting something and have been doing for over 4 hours now. I hear Harper's name. And Obama's name. The rest is obscure because it is simply repetitive. Hour after hour.
I suppose they had a cause. My understanding through cursory reading of the news in that area, is that the Sri Lankan government is on the verge of defeating the Tamil Tigers once and for all.
I now hope so.
It makes me wonder why organizations like Falun Gong and Tamil Tigers are even here complaining about anything? If you are so angry at what someone is doing in your home country, wouldn't you kind of want to go THERE to change it? It is only worth fighting for change in an oppressive country from a democratic country?
It seems to me that groups lose their support by irritating everyone in sight. I assume this protest would love to get money to send for their cause. Not that I donate any anyway, but I would expect their resources to plunge when nothing intelligent happens for over four hours except shouting the same phrase over and over again.
I for one, hope the Sri Lankan government finishes the job so maybe these people can get on with their lives and quit bugging the rest of us.

New Convention Center

2009-04-26T16:23:00.003-07:00

Went to visit the new convention center today, the one that went 400 million over budget and cost 883 million dollars. Looked impressive from the outside. A pleasant young lady was holding the door open for us. Went inside. Wanted to go up the escalator to see the view.
There was another security woman guarding the path upwards. The 'public' are not allowed up there she told us. We wondered why it was open then? She told us we could go downstairs to see it in the basement. The public was not allowed upstairs.
Sort of made me translate 'public' to 'unwashed'.
From outside I could see the rich people up there looking out the wonderful windows. Well I don't want to be a buddy of Gordon Campbell that bad.
Eight hundred million. Four hundred million over budget. Taxpayers' money.
No wonder I want to be a tax evader.

Google Street View - invasive?

2009-04-03T18:14:00.014-07:00

Google has now started mapping the city streets all over North America, the UK, Australia, Japan and Europe.
This is what Google will have eventually; you will be able to zoom down into a town, then lower to a street view, like they do presently with satellite pictures ... but, what they are now doing, is having a car drive through your neighbourhood with multiple cameras attached that takes ground level pictures, nine cameras recording a 360 degree view of everything on the street. Including people sitting at coffee shops outdoors, walking by, your children in their front yard and even through doorways or windows if they are left open or uncurtained. The house pictured is at 33rd and Bertona in Seattle, could yours be next?

This has led to all kinds of fears among people as to what is really going on? Recently Britishers formed a posse to stop the Google car recording their community, citing fears of burglaries once criminals would be able to actually see what was on each street and what the houses look like. Targetting the vulnerable via Google. Yes burglars use the latest technology too. As do shadow governments.
In the case of Britain, London is now known as the most heavily infested city of closed circuit tv cameras anywhere. The average Briton in now captured 411 times in the London city core by CCTV and they even have face recognition cameras, that once you might be identified, (assumably as someone up to no good) can track your movements, and even send an alert to other cameras to follow you.
So if you enter a store, the camera actually waits for you to appear again and tells those other cameras to be ready to track you if you sneak out the back door! And tail you to your next destination.
Although the police are saying their CCTV cameras are to prevent crime. And Google tells us theirs are just new technology, many are rightly afraid that the New Word Order is stealthily forming where we are all destined for slavery and submission through control and removal of unwanted elements. This kind of information is just too juicy for both organized crime and organized government, isn't it.
A combination of 1984, A Clockwork Orange and the worst Sci-Fi horror movies all rolled into one. Big Brother is nigh but we don't know who it is just yet.
Are you afraid? I am.

Chrysler - take a hike!

2009-03-23T08:29:00.003-07:00

You see Chrysler Corporation is threatening to leave Canada if we don't give it taxpayer money. How the hell did we ever get in this position?
Michael Levy was on the radio telling Barak Obama to stay out of executive salaries in the US. Obama is perturbed about millions of dollars in bonuses paid out to company brass who already got US taxpayer dollars. And Levy says the President of the United States has no right to dictate company salaries. Well that of course is true. However, the taxpayers of the US AND Canada have every right to dictate ANY terms of bail-out using THEIR hard earned money when those brilliant executives come begging for cash because THEY ran their respective companies into the ground! It all comes down to giving share-holders a chance to bail themselves out.
The people I know are always struggling to survive. Most of them never had any extra money to 'invest' in stocks. Food was foremost. Of course these companies keep coming back with the rationale that they need to pay huge bonuses to attract the best talent!
I have news for those CEOs ... THEY DESTROYED YOUR COMPANY! They are NOT the best! Any reasonable Chairman of the Board would have fired them long ago! Without severance pay. Let them try and sue you for it and tie them up in court for 20 years! What are those payroll lawyers doing anyway?
It is time we stood up to these arrogant beggars and told them to take a hike. The welfare payments to those workers will be far less than the bail out and the executive bonuses.
C'mon government, represent the taxpayers for a change.

Puleeeez

2009-02-16T07:31:00.003-08:00

The word was 'ramp up' last year. Everyone was ramping up something or other. Instant cliche. Happening all over again with 'going forward' the new buzzword that is so sickening when you hear it from every single person on radio and TV!
Please, vary your speech and notice the useless buzzwords! They are an earitant!

Warning to tourists

2009-02-09T09:23:00.013-08:00

Welcome to the Olympics - body armor is available.

Tourists and residents - Places where you should not go in the Greater Vancouver area
- Any Skytrain station
- Granville Street clubs at night
- Surrey in general
- Any Langley Mall
- Anywhere in Abbotsford
- many grocery store parking areas
Please call police or RCMP for their list of safe places to visit, I think there is one so far.
Don't call Wally Opal, he has nothing to do with .. er ... anything.

Warning signs - Any Cadillac Escalade or black Lincoln Navigator driven by teenager. - added - Black Range Rover

Tourists and people looking for danger holidays, adventure weekends, Olympic side trips please visit any of the above locations and don't worry about flying bullets, the police assure us that they are not aimed at you. Sort of like 'friendly fire' in Iraq.
Drugs are freely available on almost any street corner, just watch for someone staring down the street, they are all similar.
Have fun and get your will up to date!

update: 15 shootings in Vancouver in the last month!
oops, TWO last night = 16
oops, another one today - 17
oops, another one last night - 18 (maybe we should put a gun on the Olympic pins?)
oops - 46 shootings so far as of April 5.

Criminal sentences in BC - average sentence for first crime = 101 days ... average sentence for 35th to 40th crime = 25 days. Come to BC.

Hudsons Bay Company

2009-02-05T08:57:00.003-08:00

The Bay just announced that it is laying off 1000 employees 'because of the economic downturn causing poor sales'.
Message to the Bay - You just don't get it, do you; Your poor sales have nothing to do with the economy, it's because you have only one sales person per floor who is only there to shop for themselves!

Google and your ISP

2009-02-02T09:35:00.006-08:00

Google has just announced a new project designed to irritate internet corporations who are ripping you off. I think they are onto something. Google is saying that many internet service providers are not supplying the service you are paying for. I am embracing Google as God!
In my own case I have Telus as my internet people. I pay them lots of money to provide a connection to the internet for me. I am supposed to be on something called 'extreme high speed DSL', that is of course when I can connect at all! Mornings are spent steaming at the screen message, 'Cannot connect to the server.' Otherwise my connection is only extreme slow.
Here is a site you can use to check the speed of your own connection now - http://www.speedtest.net/ Be prepared for surprises.
My Telus speed this morning is 5168 kilobytes per second download, 642 kbps upload with a ping of 137. I was told by a Telus technician that was fast, for Telus. What you usually cannot do, is check a different internet connection through your own computer. In my case I have a wireless neighbor through the wall and can use that connection as well! It is a Shaw Cable connection. The speed this morning on Shaw, right after my Telus measurement, at the above test site was 14782 kbps! Fourteen THOUSAND! 978 kbps upload and a ping of 36! That is way over 100 percent faster than my so called Extreme High Speed Telus connection!
So Google intends to have a site where we can all go and get our internet speed. Good for them, the only remaining thing is to get your service provider to answer the phone on inquiries about what speed results you want to know about.
In the case of Telus, you'll be dealing with a strategy of confusion and frustration intended to make you hang up and go away.
I wish I had not gone to Telus in the first place. My bad for being loyal to my old BC Tel company.

Bail outs - sweet deals

2009-01-29T10:05:00.003-08:00

Sometimes we need companies to fail. But it is business as usual in America.
So the deal is; taxpayers give banks a huge bail out to snatch them from the hungry jaws of bankruptcy. The deal was supposed to stimulate the whole US economy. But now Pfitzer, the pharmaceutical company is about to buy Wyeth, a similar company. It should be known that the banks financing this take-over are Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America, all having received taxpayers' bail out money!
But the thing these merging companies are proudly announcing is that they will be dumping 5,000 JOBS as a result of the merger! (the pharmaceutical industry has shed over 160,000 jobs already)
So, simply put, taxpayers give the government their money, (no choice for people) - it gives the cash to poorly managed banks - companies merge to save costs and monopolize product, (shareholders happy) - and those companies help themselves by laying off 5000 employees. Same old money circle to benefit rich shareholders and dumb CEOs.
Sweet deal.
And they wonder why the underground economy is growing at an exponential rate.

B & E in the Arctic

2008-12-24T11:59:00.006-08:00

Eskimo Burglar

Bail out result ...

2008-12-10T07:55:00.004-08:00

Here's proof that Detroit still just doesn't get it.
They are announcing the new Cadillac Escalade going hybrid! The 10 ton behemoth Drug Dealers' special is now into green! Now you can save gas while transporting your cocaine cash across the border. And they've dropped the turrets and the bulletproof rear glass too.
Sawed off shotgun or AK47 optional.